112 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



Society's sole charge. Subsequently it was resolved to extend the 

 catalogue to works in other libraries not included in that of the 

 Royal Society. 



In 1864 it was decided to offer the Catalogue to Government for 

 publication, and in 1866 the printing of the first series of the Cata- 

 logue, covering the period from 1800 to 1863, was commenced by the 

 Stationery Office. The sixth and last volume of the series was 

 published in 1872. Two additional volumes, covering the period 

 1864— 1873,' were published in 1879. The Treasury then declined to 

 continue the publication of the Catalogue, which, however, was 

 undertaken by the Society, assisted by a sum of £1,000 voted by 

 Parliament towards the charges of publication of the decade 1874 — 

 1883. The unexpended portion of this grant was invested in a policy, 

 under which £1,000 will become available for the purposes of the 

 Catalogue in October, 1899. 



So far back as June, 1864, it was resolved by the Council that the 

 Catalogue according to authors should be followed by the immediate 

 publication of an index according to subjects. Such an Index 

 Rerum was constantly under consideration, and many plans for its 

 preparation have been discussed. The work at last took practical 

 shape in 1893, when our Fellow Mr. Ludwig Mond most generously 

 presented a sum of £2,000 to the Society, in aid of the work of pre- 

 paring the Catalogue and the Subject Index. Out of this liberal 

 donation there remains unexpended a sum of £1,500. A special 

 staff was organised, by whom more than 140,000 slips have now 

 been mounted and arranged in boxes, and of these over 46,000 have 

 already been provisionally prepared for press. Since the last anni- 

 versary, the department has to some extent been re-organised by the 

 Committee, women being now employed in the Index Rerum Depart- 

 ment, and Miss Chambers having been entrusted with full control 

 over the whole. The total number of women employed in the two 

 departments including junior copyists is now twelve. 



It has, however, long been felt that the continuation of such a work 

 was almost beyond the resources of the Royal Society, and therefore 

 about two years ago a committee was appointed to take into con- 

 sideration a suggestion that the preparation of complete indexes to 

 scientific publications should be effected by international co-operation. 



This very important subject has continued to engage the attention 

 of the Council during the past year ; and the suggestion of inter- 

 national co-operation having been recommended to Her Majesty's 

 Government for favourable consideration, official invitations have 

 been issued to an International Conference to be held in London in 

 July next. 



Meanwhile others have been equally aware of the great importance 

 attaching to the indexing of literature, and only in September last 



