84 REPORT OF THE ACTING SECRETARY. 



necessary iueideiital expenses, $5,000, the same to be expended under the direc- 

 tion of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution." 



In concluding tliis report I can not but refer to the loss which the library of 

 the Institution shares with the entire establishment in the death of the Secre- 

 tary, Mr. S. P. Langley. His first services in connection with the 'Institution 

 were, in considerable measure, devoted to its library during the term of his 

 office as Assistant Secretary. Later, as Secretary, he reorganized the library 

 system, bringing together in one centralized administration the libraries of the 

 Institution and Museum and of the other branches of the Institution, with the 

 single exception of the Bureau of Ethnology. No one used the library more 

 constantly than did the late Secretary, and no one observed its rules so faith- 

 fully. He was interested in every class of literature that came here and in all 

 the departments of library work. Not only the general plan for the carrying 

 on and increase of the library, but all of its details were known to him, and he 

 made constant suggestions for the improvement of the work and repeated 

 inquiries as to its progress. 



Under his administration the quarters assigned to the library were multiplied' 

 many times, and his interest in the members of the staff led him to establish a 

 general reading room for those who were not strictly connected with the 

 scientitic work; and also later he established a sort of circulating library, 

 which even had a traveling section for the benefit of the employees of the 

 National Zoological Park and the Bureau of Ethnology. He greatly promoted 

 bibliographical work, both in the matter of publication as well as in the support 

 which he gave to the International Catalogue of Scientific Litei'ature. 



The Secretary was a daily donor to the library, since he made it a rule to 

 present to it, with a few trifling exceptions, all of the valuable scientific works 

 which were given him, either in exchange for his own publications or because 

 of his distinguished position in the scientific world. 



I can not but feel that the library, more than the other branches of the Smith- 

 sonian work, has met with an irreparable loss in his passing away, for joined 

 with his eminence as an original investigator he was essentially a book man 

 and had a profound and direct interest in everything relating to the book world — 

 scientific, historical, and literary. 



Respectfully submitted. 



Cybus Adler, 

 Assistant Secretary in Charge of Library and Exchanges. 



Mr. Richard Rathbun, 



Acting Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



