lecting loan slips. Later, one had to go in person to 

 request a book, but the library delivered all items until 

 the early 1960s. In a few respects, the good old days 

 actually were as good as they are remembered. 



By the late 1950s the library had expanded slightly. 

 All space on the north side of the east north range was 

 occupied except the large corner office of the curator 

 of vertebrate paleontology. On the south side, the li- 

 brary had the first office off the lobby; the National 

 Collection of Fine Arts used the cooled storage room 

 just down the hall for paintings. The area from this 

 point to the anthropology laboratory on the corner was 

 decked over, with bookshelves on both levels. The hall- 

 ways on both sides ol the range were filled with cases 

 of fossil plants. The main catalogue, the serials record, 

 and several desks all fitted into one of fice on the north 

 side. 



The pc^rtion of the Smithsonian library located in the 

 Museum was treated in the Aiuiual Refjort as an integral 

 of the United States National Museum until 1948. 

 Thereafter, information on the library in the Museimi 

 appeared in a separate library section of the Annual 

 Report. A major administrative event for the library 

 occurred in November 1951, when the main office of 

 the library moved from the Castle to the Museum, and 

 the Natiu al History Branch was merged into the Smith- 

 sonian library. 



Additional Space 



In terms of physical change, the big event was the com- 

 pletion of the east wing, which freed a great deal cjf 

 space. What had been the anthropology laboratory, 

 overlooking the east courtyard, now became the main 

 reading room. The card catalogue moved out into the 

 hall. Most of the west side of the east range was decked 

 over for stacks; a sturdy but creaky catwalk crosses the 

 reading room, connecting the south deck with the west 

 one. The head librarian moved into the corner office 

 occupied earlier by vertebrate paleontologists, and some 

 open areas on the north side of the east north range 

 were decked over to complete the stack area. In 1965, 

 after the Division of Mammals moved to the third floor, 

 the library expanded into the west north range. The 

 binding and acquisitions operations went downstairs, 

 and rows of bookshelves stretching off into the darkness 

 occupied the upper level. 



In May 1983, in a reversion to the general setup of 

 1910, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries divided, so 

 that there is now a Natural History Branch in the west 

 north range, with a separate new-book shelf and check- 

 out desk. Since the library filled up, many books have 

 been sent to the general-purpose building on North 

 Capitol Street and others to the Museimi Support Cen- 

 ter. Much as they prefer to hold a publication in their 

 hands, the scientific staff will have to depend on the 

 electronic transport of data to answer some of their 

 questions. 



Almost from the inception of the National Museum, 

 sectional libraries were scattered throughout the build- 

 ing. During the 1920s the Annual Report listed thirty- 

 six, twenty-one of which were directly associated with 

 the activities of the Museum: "The 36 sectional libraries 

 of the Museum are the immediate working tools of the 

 curators and their assistants. Many of them contain rich 

 collections of highly specialized material, some of which 

 has never been catalogued."*' 



Specialized Book Collections 



In the building today there are specialized collections 

 in almost all the departments and in many divisions. 

 Periodically an administiator suggests using the space 

 for offices, and periodically the curators have apoplexy 

 over the idea. These caches, not all of which qualify as 

 libraries, range from 2,000 to 53,000 books. For ease 

 of bookkeeping, some of these disparate groups are 

 combined, while others, like hard-to-catalogue collec- 

 tions of reprints, are officially ignored. In addition to 

 its departmental library, for example. Botany has a 

 collection of reprints on grasses of which Agnes Chase 

 was so protective that she stationed her desk right in 

 the middle of it. Of course, most scientists have their 

 own personal collections, usually including a lot of books 

 checked out of the Museum library. 



Only two book collections in the building have plaques 

 on the door. One is the Kellogg Library of Marine 

 Manniials, in the east wing. The other, in the main 

 building, is the John Wesley Powell Library of An- 

 thropology. In 1981 John Ewers thought it was high 

 time that something was named after Powell, so he 

 decided on a plaque and a small ceremony. It seems 

 that Powell had had a bet with his colleague JW ("No 

 Stop") McGee as to who had the larger brain. Both 

 arranged for their brains to be saved, and when they 

 were posthimiously measured, Powell won. The point 

 to all this is that John Wesley Powell's brain was brought 

 in for the ceremony — a token of affection Powell would 

 have appreciated, had more of him been present. 



Data Processing System 



While the library serves the entire Institution, the Mu- 

 seum has its own Automatic Data Processing system, a 

 second common facility of great value to many scien- 

 tists. Data processing in the post-carbon paper sense 

 has a history of about twenty years at the Museum. In 

 the early 1960s awareness of the new technology had 

 grown to the point that a committee was formed to look 

 into it. 



Some scientists, such as James Peters, were imme- 

 diately enthusiastic about sophisticated statistical tech- 

 niques as aids to their investigations. "Peters and others 

 have written programs . . . which . . . make it possible 

 to carry out analyses previously impossible because of 

 the amount of time required," Smithsonian Year ob- 

 served in 1967. "Peters is also developing a computer- 



148 



The Museum 



