SECRETARY'S REPORT 7 



archaeology at the University of Athens, Greece, delivered a lecture 

 on "The Grave Circles of Mycenae" in the auditorium of the Natural 

 History Building on the evening of February 6, 1957. This lecture 

 was sponsored jointly by the Smithsonian Institution and the Archae- 

 ological Institute of America. 



Several lectures were also sponsored by the Freer Gallery of Art 

 and the National Gallery of Art. These are listed in the reports of 

 these bureaus. 



BIO-SCIENCES INFORMATION EXCHANGE 



The calendar year 1956 marked a high peak in the activities of the 

 Bio-Sciences Information Exchange. Increased governmental sup- 

 port of research in the bio-sciences was reflected in the volume of 

 research registered ; the greater use of the services of the Exchange 

 is indicative of the growing recognition of its value. 



This agency, operating within the Smithsonian under funds made 

 available to the Institution by other governmental agencies, acts as 

 a clearinghouse for current research in the life sciences. Abstracts 

 of on-going research are registered by investigators engaged in bio- 

 logical, medical, and psychological research and in limited aspects of 

 research in the social sciences. Through an extensive system of sub- 

 ject indexing, these abstracts are provided upon request and without 

 charge to researchers in research institutions. Through this simple 

 mechanism, the Exchange maintains a communication system which 

 precedes publication and prevents unknowing duplication. For 

 granting agencies and properly constituted committees it prepares 

 extensive surveys of research in broad areas. 



The Exchange is growing in scope and in content. Its body of 

 information now consists of 14,000 active research projects and its 

 use by individual scientists and by committees is increasing in 

 proportion. 



SUMMARY OF THE YEAR'S ACTIVITIES 



National Museum. — The year's accessions to the national collections 

 aggregated 647,750 specimens, somewhat less than last year, bringing 

 the total catalog entries in all departments to 44,377,488. Some of 

 the outstanding items received during the year included : In anthro- 

 pology, an Egyptian ibis statuette of about 1800 B. C, a fine collec- 

 tion of English and American furniture and glass, the first cigar- 

 store wooden Indian the Museum has ever had, and invaluable addi- 

 tions to the Greenwood collection of Americana; in zoology, several 

 collections of mammals of medical importance, a fine lot of Belgian 

 Congo birds, fishes from many parts of the world, including one collec- 

 tion of nearly 17,000 specimens from the southern United States, 

 more than 168,000 specimens of ectoparasites and 60,000 beetles in 



451800—58 2 



