12 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1935 



PUBLICATIONS 



Again this past year the drastic curtailment of printing funds 

 for the Government bureaus under the Institution has vitally affected 

 the work of those bureaus. The scientific series normally published 

 by the National Museum and by the Bureau of American Ethnology 

 have again been virtually suspended. During the emergency period 

 of the depression, when ordinary governmental expenditures were 

 greatly reduced, the brunt of the cut in Smithsonian appropriations 

 was borne by the printing fund, as only there could a saving be made 

 without throwing employees out of work. For 3 years the printing 

 appropriation has been reduced to a point where it is possible only 

 to do routine printing of blank forms and reports and a few very 

 small pamphlets, with the result that there is now on hand an ac- 

 cumulation of valuable manuscripts, many of them representing the 

 results of years of research by the Institution's specialists. This 

 basic information in biology, geology, and anthropology should with- 

 out further delay be made available to students and research workers, 

 and it is the hope of the Institution that, now the peak of the de- 

 pression is past, adequate funds will again be made available so that 

 a normal flow of scientific publications may again issue from this 

 Institution, whose very purpose, as incorporated by act of Congress, 

 is " the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." 



The publications issued during the year, paid for mostly from 

 the private funds of the Institution, totaled 64 ; 54 of these were pub- 

 lished by the Institution proper, 8 by the National Museum, 1 by the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, and 1 by the Freer Gallery of Art. 

 The number of publications distributed was 124,186. 



LIBRARY 



The accessions to the Smithsonian library during the year num- 

 bered 6,105 volumes and 6,578 pamphlets and charts, bringing the 

 total number of items in the library to 848,517. Most of the addi- 

 tions were exchanges for Smithsonian publications, but there were 

 also the usual large number of gifts from organizations and indi- 

 viduals. In addition to the routine work of the library, the staff 

 completed several important projects begun last year, with the as- 

 sistance of F. E. R. A. workers assigned to the library; these proj- 

 ects included sorting and arranging foreign scientific and technical 

 duplicates in the west stacks of the Smithsonian building, and sorting 

 and reassigning the contents of the sectional libraries of administra- 

 tion and engineering. 



Respectfully submitted. 



C. G. Abbot, Secretary. 



