Appendix VII. 



REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC 



LITERATURE. 



Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report on the operations of the 

 United States Bureau of the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature 

 for the year ending June 30, 1910. 



The International Catalogue of Scientific Literature is an international co- 

 operative enterprise having at present 32 regional bureaus scattered through- 

 out the world, supported by the countries taking part in the -work. The duties 

 of these regional bureaus are to collect, index, and classify all contributions to 

 pure science published within the several countries they represent. The mate- 

 rial thus prepared is forwarded to the Central Bureau in London, there to be 

 assembled and published. 



The catalogue consists of 17 annual volumes, one for each of the follow- 

 ing sciences : Mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, meteor- 

 ology, mineralogy, geology, geography, paleontology, general biology, botany, 

 zoology, anatomy, anthropology, physiology, and bacteriology. 



The Central Bureau is maintained entirely by the funds received from the 

 subscribers to the catalogue. The regional bureaus are in every case sup- 

 ported by the countries taking part in the enterprise, in the great majority 

 of cases by direct governmental grants. 



Since the beginning of the undertaking in 1901 the annual volumes have in- 

 creased in size to such an extent that the cost of publication at one time 

 exceeded the sum received from subscriptions, and it was necessary to cur- 

 tail somewhat not only the methods of classifying the various subjects, but 

 also the citation methods used in the subject catalogues. This is now being 

 done without detracting in any way from the value of the catalogue as a work 

 of reference, although the labor of preparation is in most cases much greater. 



The allotment for the present fiscal year was $6,000. Five persons are regu- 

 larly engaged in the Bureau, and occasionally, when funds permit, the assistance 

 of a specialist in some one of the sciences is temporarily employed. 



There were 25,082 cards sent from this Bureau during the year as follows : 



Literature of 1901 72 



Literature of 1902 173 



Literature of 1903 248 



Literature of 1904 465 



Literature of 1905 1, 163 



Literature of 1906 1, 502 



Literature of 1907 3, 160 



Literature of 1908 6,305 



Literature of 1909 11,994 



Total 25,082 



This number does not represent the actual number of citations sent, for on 

 account of a new ruling of the Central Bureau some of the biological cards 

 contained a number of citations each. However, the actual number of cita- 

 80 • 



