Loans

the Library. They comprise one of the largest collections of Haden's etchings in the United States and include unusual and rare states and impressions.

(e) Illustrating the history of lithography. (397 prints). This exhibition covers the whole period of lithography, and comprises the works of the best lithographers of the American, Belgian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Swiss schools. The prints are arranged chronologically by lithographers in order that a study may be made of the development of the art. The history of each school is strikingly presented. There are represented in large numbers such masters of lithography as Whistler and Pennell, of the American school; Prout, Harding, Bonington, Lewis, Haghe, Nash, Way, Watson, Short, Shannon, and Hall, of the English school; Vernet, Fragonard, Grevedon, Gericault, Charlet, Isabey, Raffet, Fantin-Latour, and Lepère; of the French school; Senefelder, Strixner, Lauter, Kampmann, of the German school; Calame, of the Swiss school; Lauters and Raps, of the Belgian school; Storm van's Gravesande and Verboeckhoven, of the Dutch school.

(f) Engravings (375) selected from a collection of prints presented to the Library of Congress by the Italian Government “in acknowledgement of the generous action of the American Congress and nation in behalf of the sufferers from the earthquake."

The loans of material for outside use have included 11,658 photographs (of painting, sculpture, and architecture) lent to educational institutions and classes in art, all of which have been scrupulously returned, and the initiation, through the American Federation of Arts, of what may prove a system of loan of groups of prints desired by local institutions or art societies for temporary exhibit in their own galleries or museums. It is duplicate copyrighted material which is thus made available, so that the loan is arranged without an inconvenient depletion

of the collections at Washington, while the expense (of packing, transportation, and insurance) is defrayed by the Federation and the local society jointly, and the responsibility (to the Library) is assumed by the Federation.

BINDING

The number of volumes bound during the fiscal year was 51,207, as against 41,965 for the year preceding. The work of the branch bindery included, of course, in addition to such binding, the mounting and repair of manuscripts (over 10,000 pieces treated), maps, and prints, to which in the aggregate a dozen persons are regularly devoted.

The materials used upon the books bound were distributed as follows:

(From the report of the Chief, Mr. Hanson)

The total number of volumes catalogued amounted to 116,038. In addition, 880 parts of volumes were added on the serial record and shelf lists, and 4,438 volumes were, after careful search and comparison, rejected as duplicates and turned over to the Order and Documents divisions.

There was accordingly a falling off in the number of volumes catalogued as against the preceding year. The main reasons for this are:

(a) The building of the new stack, which for six or seven months interfered considerably with the work in the main catalogue room, and finally necessitated a general rearrangement of desks, furniture, and reference books in order to offset somewhat the loss of light from the west.

(b) The decrease in the number of assistants actually engaged on cataloguing, owing to increased pressure of proof reading," classification, and shelf listing.

Besides, the past year has emphasized even more strongly than the preceding one the difficulty in securing and retaining trained and competent cataloguers, there having been 21 resignations and 23 new appointments during the period July 1, 1909, to June 30, 1910. This is inclusive. of student assistants, but takes no account of those who resigned and were reappointed within the year. Among the resignations are an unusual number of the oldest and most experienced cataloguers, whose loss will be keenly felt for a number of years, for only after years of hard training can the new assistants now obtainable hope to measure up with their predecessors, whose training in this Division extended over periods varying from seven to twelve years.

In general, it may be safely said that the highest and most responsible duties of the Catalogue Division—i. e., the original classification of books and the final revision of catalogue entries—require assistants with (a) an educational basis, consisting of a full college course (preferably leading to the A. B. degree) and an additional three to five years of post-graduate work; (b) practical experience in certain large university and reference libraries, extending over several years. For cataloguing and classification of

a The printing of the classification schedules, the list of subject headings, the preliminary catalogue of American and English genealogies, and particularly the great increase in the number of titles to be reprinted, because the stock of cards has been exhausted, accounts in a large measure for the increase in proof reading.

what may be termed the medium grades—i. e., work subject to revision by classifiers and revisers of the highest grades assistants with a college degree and four to five years of practical experience are required.

It is the above-mentioned classes that suffer most from resignations and in which it is becoming more and more difficult to fill gaps by appointment from the outside or by promotion from the lower grades. On the one side salaries are not sufficiently high to attract outsiders of proper training, and on the other the high-school graduates who must be depended upon for the clerical work of the lower grades, do not, as a rule, qualify for the most difficult work of the medium grades, nor do the assistants of the medium grades, except in rare instances, acquire that fundamental cultural training requisite for the duties of the highest positions. If the standard of work is to be kept up, therefore, it would seem that efforts must be made to provide salaries that will not only attract persons of broad education and large experience, but serve to keep them in the service after they have once acquired familiarity with the methods of cataloguing and classification peculiar to this Library.

The following classes were completed during the year: Recataloguing General periodicals (AP); Heraldry (CR); Genealogy (CS); Remainders of works on Temperance, Crime, etc. (HV); Constitutional government (JF); Civil government, U. S. (JK); Civil government, Europe (JN); Colonies and colonization, Emigration (JV); International law and relations (JX).

Recatalogued in part, and under way are: Philosophy (B); Fine arts (N); Philology (P).

Cards representing books printed in America prior to Americana 1821 have been filed during the past year for about 5,000 titles, the arrangement being as follows: (1) By author; (2) by place of publication; (3) by date of publication; (4) by printer.

Printing

The last named list has offered by far the greater difficulties, as in so many cases all clues to the identity of the printer seem to be lost. Nearly 300 titles still remain on which the printers have not been absolutely identified. Cards have also been selected and set aside for books printed after 1820 in certain of the Southern and Western States. In addition to the schedules of classification noted in the report of the Chief Classifier, a preliminary catalogue of American and English genealogies in the Library of Congress is now in process of printing. This catalogue will comprise about 1,000 pages and include all the English and American genealogies in class CS, Genealogy, added to the Library prior to August 1, 1910, with a few additional titles selected from collections in local history and biography.

The Proof-reading section has handled 53,096 entries, of which 13,826 were entries reprinted because the stock of cards had been exhausted.

Ten new catalogue rules were printed as follows:

(a) Available for use in other libraries (numbered series)34 Courts of law.

35 Capitals Titles of honor-Royalty.

36 Hospitals and charitable institutions.

37 Impeachment trials.

(b) For use within the Library only (unnumbered series)— Call numbers.

Dissertations, German, 1908–9.

Subject headings.

Subject headings (Abbreviations).

Indians-Tribes.

Reference books in divisions, office books, etc.

Other special requisitions were:

Circular containing references on Library science. 4 p.

Preliminary list of language subdivisions. New edition. 30 p.

Preliminary list of subject headings (additions and corrections) No. 4, 19 p.; no. 5, 22 p.

List of subject headings, A-D.