20 Report of the President 



The growth of the Library of the Museum during the past 



few years places it among the first five libraries in the country 



n _ , on the subjects of zoology, palaeontology 



Growth of the , , . T . . ^ ,' , . , 



and general science. Inclusive of the serial 



y publications and other volumes deposited 



with the Museum by the New York Academy of Sciences, it 

 contains 62,000 volumes; to this should be added the Osborn 

 Library of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Zoology, which con- 

 tains 1,465 volumes and about 4,000 pamphlets. The total 

 accessions during the year have been 2,656 for the General 

 Library, and 651 for the Osborn Library. Exchanges of the 

 Museum publications, as well as of duplicate volumes, have 

 been established with all the important universities and 

 museums in the United States, and the principal universities, 

 museums and learned societies of the world, as, for example, 

 the British Museum and the Vienna Academy of Sciences. 

 There are now 316 of these institutions with which the Amer- 

 ican Museum regularly exchanges its publications, and the 

 actual value of the publications received in exchange is ap- 

 proximately $1,500. Through the system of inter-library 

 loans our books now reach students and investigators in widely 

 separated parts of the world ; during the year we have made 

 such loans to Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia 

 University, Hamburgisches Kolonialinstitut, United States 

 Geological Survey, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences 

 and the Field Museum of Natural History, as well as to other 

 institutions in the South and West. 



The experiment of opening a special Public Reading Room 

 provided with popular natural history works on Museum col- 

 lections has not been followed by sufficient patronage to war- 

 rant the expense of its continuance. The needs of those 

 desiring literature on the collections are met by the provision 

 of series of standard books and special guides which have been 

 placed on tables in several of the exhibition halls. The seri- 

 ous-minded reader will find, as in the past, ample accommoda- 

 tion in the regular Reading Room of the Library. 



Gifts to the Library are especially desired among the rarer 

 monographic works in various branches of natural history and 

 anthropology. The New York Public Library has recently 



