APPENDIX 8 
INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC 
LITERATURE 
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the opera- 
tions of the United States Regional Bureau of the International 
Catalogue of Scientific Literature for the fiscal year ending June 
30, 1926. 
Attention was called in the last annual report, as well as in a 
number of those preceding, to the urgent need of a suflicient sum 
to again set in motion the work of the central bureau of the In- 
ternational Catalogue in order to resume actual publication. As 
the United States is at present the only nation sufficiently 
prosperous to aid undertakings of this character it is urgently hoped 
that an effort be made to obtain a sufficient grant in this country 
to at least publish the current volumes of the catalogue after which 
the accumulation on hand from 1914 to date could be published, 
possibly as a cumulative index. é 
Briefly, the status of the organization is this: When the work 
was begun in 1901, authorized by an international conference held 
in London in which all of the principal countries of the world 
were represented, no capital fund was available but through the 
influence and generosity of the Royal Society sufficient credit was 
established to enable the central bureau to begin publication. 
Material for the catalogue was furnished by the various countries 
through regional bureaus without charge, the cost of collecting 
being borne, then, as now, by each participating country. At first 
the income from the catalogue did not meet current expenses, but 
in 1914, just before the beginning of the war, the actual cost of 
publication and receipts approximately balanced. This was a de- 
cidedly encouraging condition, and the many friends of the enter- 
prise looked forward with hope that the near future would show 
a sufficient income over the cost to repay the Royal Society for 
funds advanced. All these conditions were changed at the beginning 
of the war, and when printing was stopped in 1921 the Royal Society 
had advanced £7,500, in addition to gifts received from the British 
Government and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which sum 
and interest is still owing the society. Should publication be re- 
sumed by means of a loan or gift, the large stock of completed 
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