REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



Office of the Librarian, 

 Washington, D. C, Septemher 30, 1919. 

 Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith the executive report of 

 the Library for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919. 

 Respectfully, 



Claribel R. Barnett, Librarian, 

 Hon. D. F. Houston, 



Secretary of Afjriculture, 



SUMMARY. 



A glance over the tables of miscellaneous statistics of the Library 

 for the years 1909 to 1919, given in the table in Appendix 1, will 

 show the effect of the European war on the development of the 

 Library in so far as this can be sliown by statistics.- Up to the fiscal 

 year 191G there was a steady gain in the use of the Library and in 

 its gro\yth. Since 1916 there has been a decrease each year in the 

 circulation and in the number of accessions, aside from current 

 periodicals, of which the number received has increased in the last 

 two years. The decrease in the accessions has been due to several 

 reasons. In tlie first place, there have been great difficulties in the 

 way of getting books from foreign countries both by purchase 

 and exchange. In the second place, books published in the United 

 States have been raised iji price, and as a consequence not as many 

 books could be purchased for the money available. Many periodi- 

 cals, too, have raised their subscription prices. And, finally, all sup- 

 plies needed by the Library have cost more, which has cut down the 

 amount of money available for the purchase of books. An indirect 

 I'eason for the decrease in accessions has been the loss of many 

 trained assistants since the war, Avhich has interfered with the rou- 

 tine work of obtaining exchanges. Last year the main Library lost 

 half of its staff and the year before nearly as many. It is scarcely 

 necessary to point out the serious loss of efficiency involved in so 

 many changes. In a library such as this, length of service is a 

 greater asset even than it is in most libraries, for familiarity with 

 the Department and Avith the scientific literature relating to agri- 

 culture is necessary before an assistant can do effective w^ork. This 

 familiarity can be gained only through length of service. The prin- 

 cipal reason for the loss of so large a number of assistants from the 

 main Library staff has been low salaries. Owing to certain for- 

 tunate circumstances the salaries of the librarians and library as- 

 sistants of the bureau, division, and office libraries are considerably 

 higher than these of the main Library, the average salary being 



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