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tine Republic, Buenos Aires, Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, British Columbia, Cape of Good Hope, Guatemala, government of India, Central Provinces of India, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Manitoba, Mexico, Natal, New South Wales, Nova Scotia, Orange River colony, Peru, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Western Australia. As a rule, these statements of wants have been communicated to the Smithsonian Institution for transmission abroad or sent direct from the Library to the distributing authorities. In the case of four of the above countries, however, the Department of State was requested to procure the desired material through diplomatic channels, as previous attempts to obtain it through the international exchange service had been unsuccessful.

In response to requests outstanding a year ago, and from some of those above mentioned also, special shipments of documents have been received as follows: Austria, 90 volumes and pamphlets; Baden, 396; Barbados, 46; Bremen, 114; British Guiana, 8; Belgium, 189; Bolivia, 76; British Columbia, 68; Cape Colony, 173; Cuba, 40; Costa Rica, 10; Denmark and Iceland, 195; Ecuador, 6; Egypt, 157; France, 53; Department of the Seine, 647; Imperial German Government, 143; Guatemala, 143; Hesse, 87; Government of India, 395; Andaman Islands, 21; Bengal and Assam, 221; Bombay, 21; Burma, 567; Central Provinces of India, 293; Coorg, 31; Italy, 13; Manitoba, 45; Mexico, 38; Montenegro, 121; Natal, 51; New Zealand, 18; Peru, 18; Portugal, 128; Prince Edward Island, 220; Prussia, 29; Rhodesia, 58; Roumania, 308; Saxony, 22; Spain, 67; South Australia, 144; Sweden, 326; Switzerland, 46; Transvaal, 32; Uruguay, 13; Venezuela, 13; and Württemberg, 11. These are additional to the regular consignments from the 88 countries on the international exchange list.

Gifts from foreign governments also include a complete set of over 23,000 cadastral sheets of the maps of the prov60811°—10——4

inces of Egypt, presented by the Survey department of that

country.

Exchange of By Joint Resolution of March 4, 1909, the Public Printer

Daily Congres

sional Record was authorized and directed "to supply to the Library of Congress such number as may be required, not exceeding one hundred copies, of the daily issue of the Congressional Record for distribution, through the Smithsonian Institution, to the legislative chambers of such foreign governments as may agree to send to the United States current copies of their parliamentary record or like publication, such documents, when received, to be deposited in the Library of Congress." The purpose of this resolution was to carry into effect the provisions of the Brussels Convention of 1886 relating to an immediate exchange of parliamentary proceedings. The daily Congressional Record was accordingly sent currently during the last session to the legislatures of the following countries: Australia, Austria, Baden, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, France, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, New South Wales, New Zealand, Portugal, Prussia, Queensland, Roumania, Russia, Servia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Transvaal, Uruguay, and Western Australia-31 copies in all. In exchange the Library of Congress has received the proceedings of these foreign parliaments, generally by mail, as soon as printed. A similar provision in regard to the public acts of Congress, as printed in separate form (slip laws), would doubtless enable us to procure current issues of foreign laws in the

Foreign municipal documents

same manner.

The two groups of accessions through the Division of Documents this year calling for special mention are the municipal documents of foreign cities and the current publications of the various states and territories of the United States.

In December last a communication was addressed to the Department of State, inquiring whether it would be practi

cable to procure certain classes of municipal documents for the use of the Library by circular instructions to the American consular officers in a select list of foreign cities. The desired material consisted of the general administrative reports, public accounts, proceedings of the municipal council (if published), and city ordinances for the last ten years, if possible, and future issues as they appear; also special publications relating to the various activities of each municipality, such as public works, town planning and housing, gas, electric lighting, street railways, local taxation, public health, schools, charitable institutions, employment bureaus, municipal insurance against accidents, unemployment and old age.

The Department courteously agreed to render the assistance requested and, under date of January 4, 1910, issued circular instructions to the consular officers abroad to procure and forward the publications wanted. Up to June 30, 1910, 1,107 documents had been received from fifty-one foreign municipalities in response to these circular instructions, and the Library had been advised that packages had been despatched from sixteen other cities. In addition to this special gathering of material we have communicated directly with those foreign cities which supplied collections of their publications in 1903, for the purpose of bringing the sets of these documents up to date. As a result of the special attention given to this class of publications during the year the Library now has a good representative collection of the official issues of the following cities:

SOUTH AMERICA: Buenos Aires, Guayaquil, La Paz, Lima, Montevideo, Rosario de Santa Fé.

GREAT BRITAIN: Birkenhead, Birmingham, Blackburn, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Carlisle, Croydon, Dumferline, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Glasgow, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham, Preston, Salford, Sheffield, Sunderland.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: Budapest, Prague, Vienna.

BELGIUM: Anderlecht, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Liège, Verviers.

State documents

Monthly list of state publications

FRANCE: Bordeaux, Grenoble, Lille, Limoges, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Paris, Rheims, Roubaix, Rouen, St. Étienne, Toulon.

GERMANY: Aachen, Arnsberg, Barmen, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bremen, Breslau, Cassel, Chemnitz, Coblenz, Coburg, Cologne, Danzig, Dortmund, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Elberfeld, Essen, Frankfurt a. M., Freiburg i. B., Hagen, Halle, Hamburg, Hannover, Karlsbad, Königsberg i. Pr., Krefeld, Leipzig, Lübeck, Magdeburg, Mannheim, Munich, Münster, Nuremberg, Pförzheim, Plauen, Posen, Quedlinburg, Schöneberg, Stettin, Strassburg, Stuttgart, Trier, Wiesbaden.

GREECE: Athens.

ITALY: Bergamo, Bologna, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples,
Palermo, Pavia, Rome, Turin, Venice.

Netherlands: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Schiedam. Luxemburg.
RUSSIA: Libau, Moscow, Odessa, Riga, Warsaw.

SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES: Christiania, Copenhagen, Gothenburg,
Stockholm.

SPAIN: Barcelona, Madrid.

Switzerland: Berne, Geneva, Neuchâtel, St. Gall, Zürich.

INDIA: Bombay, Calcutta, Rangoon.

AFRICA: Alexandria, Johannesburg, Tunis.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington,

An important increase shown by the statistics for the past year appears under the heading "Gifts of state governments," 6,386 volumes and pamphlets having been received, as compared with three or four thousand in earlier years. This is chiefly due to a more effective method of acquisition depending on a new undertaking of this division, namely, the issue of a "Monthly list of state publications.”

Under date of December 15, 1909, a circular letter announcing this project was addressed to state librarians and other officers charged with the distribution of state documents on whose cooperation the success of such an undertaking would obviously depend. It was pointed out that a catalogue of this character, with a quarterly subject index cumulative throughout the year, would be of value to state libraries and legislative reference departments, and also to many university and city libraries, public officials, and students of political and social sciences. We inquired whether a copy of each official publication of the state could be sent to the Library of Congress not later than the last day of the month in which

it appeared so that its title might be included in the proper number of the list. Favorable replies promising cooperation were received from most of the states and it was accordingly decided to undertake the publication beginning with the month of January, 1910. The time required for the preparation of these lists for the press has been found in part by eliminating, as far as possible, individual acknowledgments by card and certain records previously necessary to the work of the division. The printed lists have been substituted in both cases, one copy being sent in lieu of acknowledgment to each state officer and institution contributing material. Beyond this, no free distribution has been provided for, but the publication is sold on subscription by the Superintendent of Documents at 50 cents a year. The number of subscribers to date is 126. The six numbers for the half year January to June, 1910, amount in the aggregate to 219 octavo pages.

From the standpoint of the Library, the result of this undertaking has been most satisfactory, because current state documents are now available for the use of readers, both in a much larger number and more promptly. Thus the number of volumes and pamphlets in this class of publications received in the first half of each of the last four years for which statistics are available is as follows:

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The increase since the Monthly list was started is even more significant than these figures indicate, because a considerable part of the accessions in this field during previous years consisted of back volumes requested to complete the sets in the Library, whereas the receipts during 1910 were almost entirely confined to current issues. Furthermore,

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