The International Exchange System 4 J 3 



ernment library corresponding to our own Library of 

 Congress. 



The entire cost of the exchange service was borne at first 

 by the Smithsonian fund, although from the very first the 

 facilities of the service were placed at the disposal of govern- 

 ment bureaus engaged in scientific work. An idea of the 

 increase in the cost may be had from a glance at the accounts 

 of expenditures for this purpose, which shows that from 1846 

 to 1850 the cost of exchanges was $1,603. F r tne year 

 1860 alone it was $2,348.04. In 1870 it had grown to 

 $4,165.62. In 1876 the distribution of government docu- 

 ments was first made extensively, and the cost increased to 

 $10,199.10, while in 1885 it was $13,307.59, and in 1895, 

 $16,997.99. 



The Institution continued to maintain the exchange service 

 at its own expense until 1881, when the first appropriation of 

 $3,000 was granted by Congress ; and without reference to 

 aid given by the Institution to government bureaus for their 

 exchange service between 1851 and 1867, during which 

 period it is estimated that over twenty thousand packages of 

 publications were transported for the national government, 

 at a cost of about $8,000, from January i, 1868, to June 30, 

 1886, the Institution advanced for the support of the Inter- 

 national exchange system in the interest and by the authority 

 of the national government, $38,141.01 in excess of the 

 appropriations for the exchange of official government docu- 

 ments and $7,034.81 in excess of appropriations from July i, 

 1886, to June 30, 1889, f r tne purpose of carrying out the 

 convention entered into by the United States an aggregate 

 advance of $45,175.82. 



As now conducted, the rules for the control of the exchange 

 service provide, in addition to the distribution of the United 

 States government publications to foreign libraries, for the 

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