REPORT OF NATIONAL, MUSEUM, 1924 11 



To the residents and schools of the city of Washington the Mu- 

 seum serves also as a local establishment, though without direct 

 local financial aid. To those who live in the District of Columbia, 

 opportunity is afforded for participation in the many conventions, 

 meetings, lectures, addresses, and special exhibitions given in the Mu- 

 seum buildings, besides the advantages of the permanent exhibits. 

 While the Museum has no docent service, its scientific staff is ever 

 ready and freely gives of its time to explain the collections to visitors 

 — those from Washington or strangers within its gates. Several 

 of the curators who have connections with local colleges and uni- 

 versities make it a practice to bring students from such institutions 

 at regular intervals to study the collections. Likewise members 

 prominent in the Boy Scout movement are active in arranging that 

 the Boy Scouts make good use of the facilities here afforded. 



While comparatively few staff members have been in direct con- 

 tact during the year with the elementary schools and the private 

 organizations for the popularization of natural history and the in- 

 dustrial arts, yet every division of the Museum has been constantly 

 called upon to answer questions relating to its specialties. These 

 answers often require considerable work involving correspond- 

 ence or telephonic communications with newspaper informa- 

 tion bureaus, or interviews with persons sufficiently interested to 

 call at the offices and laboratories, and they consume a considerable 

 part of the time of some of its members. They are probably, how- 

 ever, of more educational value than many a lecture. Newspaper 

 men are in the habit of looking for and obtaining material for their 

 popular articles from the Museum. Even writers of books, par- 

 ticularly those on popular natural history, do not hesitate to first 

 gather and store up material during interviews with the curators, 

 and then submit the chapters of their publications to the curator 

 for revision and approval. Editors of popular magazines similarly 

 send manuscripts or proof for amplification or correction, or to 

 make sure that the authors have kept within the boundaries of 

 known facts. All these activities are distinct from the higher work 

 represented by the scientific research constantly going on in the 

 divisions and revealed in papers read before scientific societies or 

 published in technical journals. 



Specimens received by mail and material sent from other museums 

 for identification also occupy much attention. The members of the 

 staff spend considerable time and labor in identifying material for 

 persons and institutions in various parts of the country. 



The collections of the Museum in the field of the arts and in- 

 dustries are more and more becoming recognized as a vast reference 



