Report of the Librarian. 
lvli 
the cases and reclassify. The cases being emptied were thor¬ 
oughly cleaned and the hooks dusted. The cases were then 
numbered, the shelves lettered and the locks repaired. In re¬ 
placing the books on the shelves after their arrangement in 
series, an attempt was made to place related series together. 
On account of the necessity of economizing space it was not 
always possible to do this, but in general the distribution has 
been as follows: 
General works (Such as journals of scientific societies), 1-12, 
19, 25, 30, 31. 
Works treating the field of letters, 
Agriculture, 28, 29. 
Anthropology, 25, 26. 
Archeology, 25, 26. 
Astronomy, 20, 21. 
Bibliography, 23. 
Botany, 22, 
Engineering, 20. 
27. 
Geography, 13. 
Geology, 13-18. 
Mathematics, 21. 
Medicine, 29. 
Meteorology, 21. 
Statistics, 23, 24. 
Zoology, 22. 
In the fall of 1881, the librarian received authority to engage 
clerical assistance to begin the cataloging of the library. The 
plan that seemed best adapted to the library in its present 
form was a shelf catalogue making use of cards. Mr. L. S. 
Cheney, then fellow in the University of Wisconsin and the 
librarian’s assistant, was engaged to begin the work. The task 
w T as soon found to be much more arduous than had been sup¬ 
posed, owing to the careless manner in which the early volumes 
had been bound. In numerous instances, parts of several vol¬ 
umes had been bound as one volume, the missing portions being 
scattered under other covers. Title pages and indices were 
frequently missing but as frequently bound in the middle of the 
volume. Books had thus to be examined page by page and a 
“carving process” applied to the bound copies before anything 
like order was brought out of chaos. Authority was given at 
the next annual meeting to ccntinue the wcik and several stu¬ 
dents of the University have at different times assisted the 
librarian as Mr. Cheney did at first. The card catalog which 
has finally been completed and from which the printed catalog 
