40 CATALOGUE OF THE LIBRARY. 



annual installments, as best suited conditions existing at the times 

 when appropriations were asked for. Act No. 389 of April 12 ; 

 1902, provided for the purchase of books not to exceed $7',715.11, 

 United States currency, and the first order under this appropriation 

 was forwarded through the Insular Purchasing Agent May 21, 1902. 



GROWTH AND PRESENT SIZE. 



The nucleus of the library was formed by the transfer of about 

 fifty books from the Board of Health and subscriptions for scientific 

 periodicals for 1902, the latter beginning to arrive about July 1, 

 1902. The care of this material was so slight that the clerks of 

 the Bureau took charge of it until the beginning of the year 1903, 

 at which time the receipt of a large number of sets of periodicals 

 and separate books and manuals, ordered during 1902, and the 

 constantly growing list of subscriptions to current periodicals made 

 it necessary for some one to assume the work of accessioning, 

 classifying, cataloguing, and caring for the rapidty growing stock 

 of books, periodicals, and pamphlets, and the writer was appointed 

 librarian April 1, 1903. 



The growth of the library has been steady, large orders being 

 sent out two or three times during each year, and although the 

 receipts have been delayed by long distance from the source of 

 supply and the difficulty of finding in the market many of the 

 sets of scientific periodicals ordered, the number of volumes on 

 hand September 30, 1904, was 11,021, with outstanding orders for 

 more than 70 sets of periodicals and a'bout 250 other publications. 

 Since that date 4,902 volumes have been added by transfer, 1,062 

 by purchase, and nearly 400, not previously included, by subscrip- 

 tions for 1904, making a total number of more than 17,350 volumes 

 on hand. 



CHARACTER OF WORKS. 



All works in the library are of a scientific character and represent 

 the literature of the departments and divisions at present organized 

 in the Bureau of Government Laboratories. The subscriptions to 

 periodicals number about 250 and include many of the American, 

 British, and continental chemical, biological, zoological, entomolog- 

 ical, botanical, medical, photographic, library, microscopic, and 

 general scientific periodicals, and the larger number of these have 

 been on file since the establishment of the laboratories, the complete 



