24 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 



Committee on printing and publication. — The advisory committee 

 on printing and publication imder the Smithsonian Institution has 

 continued to examine manuscripts proposed for publication by the 

 branches of the institution and has considered various questions con- 

 cerning public printing and binding. Twenty meetings of the com- 

 mittee were held during the year and 121 manuscripts were passeci 

 upon. The personnel of the committee during the year was as fol- 

 lows: Dr. Frederick W. True, Assistant Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, chairman; Dr. C. G. Abbot, Director of the 

 Astrophysical Observatory ; Dr. Frank Baker, Superintendent of the 

 National Zoological Park; Mr. A. Howard Clark, editor of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, secretary of the committee; Mr. F. W. 

 Hodge, Ethnologist-in-charge of the Bureau of American Ethnol- 

 og}^; Dr. George P. Merrill, head curator of geology. United States 

 National Museum; and Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, head curator of 

 biology. United States National Museum. 



Distrihution of puhlications. — In accordance with the law enacted 

 August 23, 1912, requiring that all Government publications be 

 mailed from the Government Printing Office, the Smithsonian Re- 

 port and publications of the United States National Museum and 

 the Bureau of American Ethnology have since been distributed 

 direct from the Government Printing Office. 



LIBRARY. 



The library of the Smithsonian Institution is its most valuable 

 single possession. The number of publications of learned societies 

 and of periodicals and other works pertaining to pure and applied 

 science which have been brought together by the Institution since 

 its organization aggregates more than half a million titles. In 

 1866 many of the scientific works in the library were transferred for 

 various administrative reasons to the Library of Congress, where 

 they form the Smithsonian deposit, which is constantly being in- 

 creased by new accessions. The number of additions to the deposit 

 during the past year was 32,195 pieces, including 20,603 periodicals, 

 3,765 volumes, 1,729 parts of volumes, 5,755 pamphlets, and 343 

 charts. 



In the Smithsonian and Museum buildings there are retained such 

 books of the Smithsonian Library as are needed for reference in 

 scientific investigations, and there is maintained a reading room, 

 where the curent numbers of nearly 300 foreign and domestic scien- 

 tific periodicals are on file for consultation by students in general 

 and by the staff of the Institution and its branches. 



In the main hall of the Smithsonian building steel stacks are being 

 constructed for the better care and preservation of the libraries of 

 the Government bureaus under the Institution. 



