THE INFLUENCE 

 OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIBRARIES, THE OR- 

 GANIZATION AND WORK OF SOCIETIES, AND THE 

 PUBLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE IN THE 

 UNITED STATES 



By John Shaw Billings 



Director of the New York Public Library 



-^^jHE more one becomes familiar with the early 

 If A history of the Smithsonian Institution, and 



rK^v) with the ideas, plans, and work of its organ- 

 vHwv^ izers and first officers, so far as these can be 

 ^ ascertained from the annual Reports and from 

 some of its special publications for the first twenty years 

 of its existence, the more will he become convinced that 

 this was a time of much seed-planting in many and various 

 fields, and that we are only now just beginning to see the 

 character and magnitude of the very great harvests which 

 are to result therefrom. 



It is proposed in this paper to consider very briefly the in- 

 fluence which the Smithsonian Institution has exerted upon 

 library and bibliographical work in the United States, upon 



the organization of societies of various kinds, and upon the 



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