62 Report of the President 



Another phase of the extension work carried on by the 

 Department is the lending of natural history and geographical 

 material for exhibition in the Branch Libraries 

 Loans to of the City. To our list of eighteen regular ex- 



Libraries hibits, two new ones have now been added, one 



on ''Bird Engineers," showing some of the types 

 of nests with the birds which made them, and one on "Moths 

 of the Limberlost," comprising the life history cases of the 

 moths mentioned in the book of that name. Besides these, to 

 meet special requests, temporary exhibits have been made up 

 and sent out, on Basketry, Pottery, Birds, Moths and Butter- 

 flies, and Indians. On April 6, at the Bruce Memorial Library, 

 West 125th Street, a talk was given by Miss Crosby on the 

 Museum's work with the blind. A special collection of mate- 

 rial used in teaching the blind classes was loaned to illustrate 

 the talk and afterwards placed on exhibition in the Library. 

 During 1920, 136,432 persons were reached by these collec- 

 tions, an increase of 31,865 over last year. 



In connection with these library collections, there has devel- 

 oped a new line of work which holds promise of future growth. 

 During the last year, the time allowed in the schools for the 

 study of geography has been virtually halved. In the effort 

 to impart something besides names and figures in the short 

 time allowed, the teacher in charge of geography classes in 

 Public School 62, Manhattan, appealed to the Museum for 

 the use of its library collections on geographical subjects. 

 These exhibits, together with maps, photographs and slides, 

 give the pupils a conception of different countries and different 

 modes of life which could not be obtained through text-books 

 alone. The extension service to the libraries is under the 

 immediate direction of Miss Ruth E. Crosby. 



As the exhibition collections are extended, there is an 

 increasing demand for guidance through the halls. This 



applies to the general visitors, but especially to 

 Exhibition classes of school children. Consequently a con- 

 Instruction siderable amount of the time of Department staff 



members is given to this practical instruction. 

 The bird habitat groups, the Age-of-Man Hall, the Darwin 



