REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 103 



which they were housed and protected during the years of their evacu- 

 ation. The McCormick Library, in the stacks of which the Univer- 

 sity so generously gave them storage space, is a fine new fireproof 

 building, and the Library of Congress was so kind as to extend to the 

 Smithsonian material the 24-hour guard service which it maintained 

 over its own material similarly stored there. More fortunate pro- 

 vision for the safekeeping of the Institution's irreplaceable books and 

 manuscripts could not have been made, and nothing was lost or in- 

 jured in any way. 



Not a part of its official business, but a willingly accepted wartime 

 obligation, was the library's agency in receiving and distributing the 

 popular books and magazines which members and friends of the Insti- 

 tution continued to bring in for men and women in the service. The 

 table in the main hall of the Smithsonian building was kept well 

 supplied with "take away" reading matter, and many books were 

 turned over to various service centers in the city. 



ACCESSIONS 



The first evidences of the returning tide of foreign publications came 

 so late in the year that their number and kind did not greatly affect 

 the picture of the accessions for the year as a whole, especially as 

 there had been a small but continuous falling off of serial publications 

 from abroad in the months before. The accessions division handled 

 altogether 25,914 incoming publications. Of these, 3,878, mostly 

 documents not required in the work of the Institution, were sent di- 

 rectly to the Library of Congress, while duplicates received as gifts 

 or in exchange, and some other publications not needed for immediate 

 use, were either given to other Government libraries or were kept in 

 reserve. All the rest were cataloged, entered in the current periodical 

 records, or assigned to sectional libraries for filing in pamphlet 

 collections. 



Of the volumes received, 1,863 were purchased. The exigencies of 

 current peacetime scientific publication usually make it difficult to 

 stretch the book budget far enough to include older works needed to fill 

 gaps in the Institution's working collections of reference books. 

 Narratives and reports of early voyages and travels are especially 

 important to the work of both the National Museum and the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology, containing as they do much direct or incidental 

 information about the animals, plants, and peoples of the regions 

 visited, while many of the older books on natural history, art, crafts, 

 industries, and inventions are constantly required for reference by 

 the different departments of the Museum and the National Collection 

 of Fine Arts. This year, as last, it was possible to buy a few of the 



