REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN 

 Dr. N. L. Britton, Director-in-Chief. 



Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report 

 for the year 1910. 



The annual census of the library shows that the present 

 number of bound volumes is 22,939, an increase of 1,231 

 volumes during the year. Lists of accessions have been 

 published from time to time in the Garden Journal, as 

 usual; among these have been 46 volumes received as gifts. 



The Librarian spent the months of May, June, and July 

 in Europe, his chief mission being the purchase of books 

 for the library; nearly all the books added this year on the 

 account of the special book fund, numbering in all 964 

 bound volumes and 1,138 pamphlets, were secured during 

 this trip. The number of books bound this year in 469; 

 of these, 71 are the property of Columbia University, on 

 deposit at the Garden. The appended list enumerates 

 the serial publications currently received by the library. 



The most complete bibliography of botanical literature, 

 although it is now nearly forty years old, is the second 

 edition of Pritzel's Thesaurus. This has been used as a 

 handbook in our library ever since its establishment, and a 

 persistent effort has been made, while not neglecting the 

 newer literature, to complete the representation of the 

 older literature as recorded by Pritzel. The entries in 

 the Thesaurus are numbered, there being 10,871 in all; 

 in many instances a "number" represents a mere pamphlet 

 of a few pages or even a single page, while in other cases 

 it represents a large set of volumes or various editions of 

 the same work, so that a Pritzel "number" is nothing 

 very definite. Yet it may furnish some idea of the field 

 still open to us in our attempt to complete our representa- 

 tion of the older literature, to mention that of these numbers 

 almost exactly one half are still wholly unrepresented in 



