4 DIRECTORY OF AMERICAN MUSEUMS 



relative efficiency. It is also hoped that the publication of such 

 information may stimulate the development of museums by showing 

 what is already being done. 



The scope of the directory was finally determined after receiving 

 suggestions from the council of the Association and others, and a 

 form for the return of information was prepared. The mailing of 

 these forms was begun in February, 1900. Since that time informa- 

 tion has been gathered as rapidly as the time and funds available 

 would permit. All manuscript has been prepared since February i, 

 1910, and the account of each museum has been submitted for revision, 

 except in a few cases during the course of publication. It was origin- 

 ally planned to issue the directory in May, 1910, but delay in secur- 

 ing returns from many museums necessitated postponement, seven 

 or eight communications being necessary in a number of cases. 



An effort has been made to include the museums of both North 

 and South America, but the time consumed in the mails to South 

 America has made it impossible to obtain satisfactory results in this 

 part of the work. Such information, however, as has been obtained 

 is printed, with the names of other museums secured from various 

 sources. As the work progressed it became evident that no line of 

 demarcation could be drawn between active museums and collec- 

 tions hardly worthy of the name, and it was decided to include all 

 except private museums not open to the public. No effort has been 

 made to compile data regarding medical or other special museums, 

 but accounts of some of these have been received and printed. 



The mailing list was originally compiled from a number of publi- 

 cations covering a part of the field of the directory. This list has 

 been extended by suggestions from the institutions to which manu- 

 script has been sent. For this purpose a list of the museums in each 

 state or province was included with nearly all manuscript submitted 

 for approval, with a request that it be verified and extended if neces- 

 sary. Among previous publications that of Merrill 1 is worthy of 

 special mention. This contains accounts of scientific museums 

 similar in many respects to those of the present work, the chief addi- 

 tion in the latter being administrative information intended to indi- 

 cate the organization and importance of the museums described. 

 In a number of cases where we have been unable to obtain satisfac- 

 tory information the account is based upon Merrill, due credit being 

 given in each instance. In other cases where a similarity of accounts 



1 Natural History Museums of the United States and Canada. Bull N. Y. State Mus. t 

 62, 1903. 



