Vol. VIj EVERMANN— DIRECTOR'S REPORT FOR 1916 259 



Librarian's Report 

 By Edward P. Van Duzee, Assistant Librarian 



Please allow me as assistant librarian to submit the following report on 

 the work done in this department during the past fiscal year, together with 

 a few suggestions for the coming year. 



My connection with the library began on June first, 1916. I then found 

 that after the removal of the library to the new Academy building the 

 books had been placed on the shelves. The periodicals, the publications of 

 societies and the administrative and scientific reports of the Federal and 

 of the state governments, had been segregated and arranged in proper 

 order, but only partially collated. Some of the more important individual 

 books had been sorted out and arranged on the shelves in the reading room 

 and a start had been made toward classifying them after the Library of 

 Congress system. After correspondence with neighboring libraries and 

 consultation with yourself and the members of the Academy staff it was 

 finally decided to follow the majority of similar institutions and adopt the 

 Decimal Classification as the one best suited to our needs. The first work 

 done was the classification and arrangement of the miscellaneous books in 

 the main library. The books so treated numbered 2650 volumes. Author 

 and subject cards for these were written by Mr. Ignatius McGuire, and 

 Mr. John Carleson engrossed the call number upon the back of each 'book 

 and on each card. The sets of periodicals and publications of learned 

 societies have also been classified and the cards for them made and en- 

 grossed, and those in the English language and a considerable part of those 

 m foreign languages have been collated. The catalogue cards have been 

 alphabeted in two series, one including the author and title cards, the other 

 the subject cards, so there is now a fairly useful catalogue of the books in 

 the main library but including very few analyticals. Current accessions to 

 the library are entered and acknowledged as soon as possible after their 

 receipt. An accession register has been started but is not yet nearly com- 

 plete. Mr. McGuire has made the entries in this register, which now num- 

 ber 5401. 



The most important work in this department for the coming year will be 

 the classification and cataloguing of the state and Federal government 

 publications in the main library and of the books in the laboratories of the 

 departments of Botany, Ornithology and Paleontology, tlie books pertain- 

 ing to the other departments having been mostly attended to in connection 

 with the work on the main library. The preparation of a card shelf-list 

 and the completion of the accessioning are other important matters to claim 

 attention during the coming year. 



I would like to suggest the desirability of having a moderate appropria- 

 tion in this department, of perhaps $100, in the next fiscal year for the 

 purchase of Library of Congress and American Library Association an- 

 alytical catalogue cards for certain important sets of serial publications, a 

 smaller sum for the construction of a wall case in the reading room suit- 

 able for the shelving of current serials and new accessions, and not less 

 than $200 for the binding of a few important books and serial sets. The 



