102 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



Aeronautical collection. — The aeronautical collection, as in the 

 past, has been consulted by students of aeronautics of foreign coun- 

 tries as well as those of the United States. Additional cases in the 

 hall of the Smithsonian Institution have been set aside for the accom- 

 modation of this collection, so that it is now more accessible to the 

 public. Forty new titles were added during the year. 



De Peyster collection. — Author cards for the Napoleon series, num- 

 bering more than 1,200 volumes, have been made, and the books have 

 been arranged in regular order in the cases in the hall of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. Author cards have been made also for the series 

 in British, German, and Italian history, 



Reading room. — The number of magazines loaned during the year 

 from the reading room was 2,907, a decrease of 233, as compared with 

 the preceding year. The service has suffered from the fact that no 

 binding could be done, owing to the exhaustion of the funds avail- 

 able for this purpose. 



Employees^ library. — The increased use of the employees' library 

 is noteworthy. Six hundred and forty-one volumes were loaned, as 

 compared with 332 last year. 



MUSEUM LIBRARY. 



There have been no additions to the Museum library of exceptional 

 importance. Valuable material has been contributed, however, by 

 Dr. Charles D. Walcott, Mr. W. R. Maxon, Maj. Gen. John R. 

 Brooke, Dr. A. J. Boving, Dr. F. H. Knowlton, Dr. J. M. Aldrich, 

 Dr. W. H. Holmes, Dr. Mary J. Rathbun, Dr. W. H. Dall, Dr. O. P. 

 Hay, Mr. William Schaus, Dr. C. W. Richmond, Mr. Austin H. 

 Clark, Dr. Walter Hough, Mr. A. N. Caudell, and the Knab estate. 



Accessions. — Two thousand five hundred and forty-eight accessions 

 were received during the year, including 1,982 completed volumes and 

 1,581 pamphlets. The number of books in the library is now 145,307: 

 including 56,617 volumes and 88,690 parts of volumes and pamphlets. 



Periodicals. — Thirteen thousand four hundred and thirty-two pe- 

 riodicals were entered during the year ; 2,619 section cards for periodi- 

 cals and 858 section cards for volumes were made. The number of 

 new cards for periodicals was 351. 



Cataloguing. — The number of catalogue cards added was 2,748; 

 744 books and 1,529 pamphlets were catalogued. 



Loans. — The number of books loaned out was 9,802. Of these, 

 2,145 books, including 1,951 from the Library of Congress, were bor- 

 rowed from other libraries. Fully as many volumes were consulted, 

 but were not taken out. 



Binding. — Owing to the increasing cost of binding, the library's 

 funds allotted for that purpose were exhausted in January, 1920. 



