No. 51.— 1900.] 



ANNUAL REPORT. 



153 



Booh Catalogue.— At determined regular intervals, not necessarily 

 the same for all sciences, the Central Bureau in London will compile 

 from the slips and issue in a book form an index to authors as well as 

 an index to the subjects treated in the literature published within the 

 determined period. The book catalogue will be obtainable in parts 

 corresponding to the several sciences for which slips are provided, and 

 in some cases, in Zoology for example, it may be found desirable to 

 issue separate volumes for special sections of the subject. It is 

 proposed also to supplement this frequent periodical publication of 

 book catalogues by issuing collective indices covering periods of at 

 least five or ten years. The titles of the publications and the subject 

 entries will appear either in English, French, German, Italian, or 

 Latin, and the titles of publications appearing in other languages will 

 be translated into one of these five for the purpose of indexing, 

 but the original title will be preserved and issued with the translation. 



The final schedule of classification for each subject is now being 

 worked out by an International Committee, which was appointed by 

 the 1898 Conference for the purpose, but the schedules proposed by 

 the Royal Society's Committee, whose work closed on March 30 of 

 last year, may be taken as an example of the way in which the subjects 

 will be subdivided and catalogued. 



As an example, the schedule proposed for subject F, Chemistry, is 

 given at the end of this note, and shows the elaborate system of 

 classification which will enable the worker in any special branch to 

 readily obtain the current literature bearing on his researches. 



Where the different subjects overlap one another arrangements will 

 be made as much as possible for similarity of numbering. Thus, in 

 the case of Palaeontology, a publication will be numbered according 

 to the system used in Geology for the stratigraphical horizon of the 

 fossils referred to, according to the Zoological and Botanical systems 

 to indicate their position in the animal or vegetable kingdom, and 

 according to the scheme for Geography to show the country in which 

 the specimens were found. A Paper, for instance, on Cretaceous 

 Fishes from Asiatic Turkey would bear the symbol, K75, l&ei ; K 

 standing for Palaeontology ; 75, the number for Cretaceous in the 

 Geological schedule ; 14, that for fishes in the Zoological ; e, for Asia ; 

 and ei, for Asiatic Turkey and Arabia. 



The systems of classification indicated above for Chemistry and 

 for Palaeontology are sufficient to show the immense value the catalogues 

 will be to special workers, who, under present circumstances, have no 

 certain means of readily discovering the whole of the current literature 

 bearing on their particular lines of research. 



II.— The Formation of Regional Bureaux. 



The Royal Society's Committee, by inquiry of experts in the 

 various subjects, estimated that the number of communications to be 

 analyzed and indexed would not fall far short of 40,000 in each year. 

 To deal with such a body of literature, according to the detailed scheme 

 indicated above, would naturally be beyond the powers of any one 

 unaided Society, and the formation of Regional Bureaux was con- 

 sequently undertaken. 



The term " Regional Bureau " is introduced to indicate an organiza- 

 tion, wherever established, for the purpose of collecting and indexing 

 the scientific literature of a particular region. The region may be 



