APPENDIX 9 



REPORT ON THE LIBRARY 



Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report on the activities 

 of the Smithsonian library for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1945 : 



In use and also in growth the library continued to reflect the prog- 

 ress of the war during the year just past. As the Army and the Navy 

 moved toward the final objective, occupying territory concerning 

 which they had earlier made a thorough search for significant infor- 

 mation, the reference use of the library by the war agencies notice- 

 ably decreased. The same reason, too, accounts largely for the drop 

 in the number of loans to outside institutions from 1,363 in 1944 to 

 840 in 1945. Foreign accessions, on the other hand, took an upward 

 turn late in the year, especially after VE-day, and the number of 

 pieces received through the International Exchange Service was 200 

 more than in the preceding year, while increasingly larger numbers of 

 publications had begun to come from abroad by mail. It is espe- 

 cially gratifying to note here that some of the European learned so- 

 cieties and museums had been able to continue publication of im- 

 portant series straight through the years of the enemy occupation of 

 their countries. 



While its more obvious direct use by the personnel of the war agen- 

 cies declined, there was no falling off in the demand for the library's 

 less direct and conspicuous but no less important war service by the 

 members of the scientific and technical staff of the Institution, many 

 of whom were continuously busy with war projects requiring their 

 special knowledge. Most of this work was not different in kind from 

 the usual peacetime business of supplying the books and information 

 needed by research workers in making scientific investigations, and 

 no exceptional methods or procedures had to be used to do it. Now 

 and then, however, ingenuity and resourcefulness were taxed to meet 

 an out-of-the-ordinary or specially pressing requirement, sometimes 

 to the temporary disruption of established routine. 



A forecast of the approaching end of the war was the return to 

 Washington in 1944 of the rare books and manuscripts that had been 

 removed to Lexington, Va., for safekeeping in 1942. The Institu- 

 tion is deeply indebted both to Washington and Lee University and 

 to the Library of Congress for providing the ideal conditions under 

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