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(2) Embossed or talking books for the blind may be transmitted, under cur-
rent International Postal Regulations, to all foreign countries at the rate of
1 cent for each 2 pounds, 3 ounces, or fraction thereof. In the event shipment
is made in such manner, such articles should be endorsed "Printed Matter for
the Blind (P. G. Pt. 2)" and any shipment shall not exceed 15 pounds, 6 ounces
in weight.

(3) Since the authorized distributing libraries and the Library of Congress
have no funds to prepay charges on loans of the character authorized by this
section, transportation charges must be paid by the borrower. Accordingly, each
borrower shall make an advance payment to the lending library (U. S. postage
stamps are acceptable) in an amount sufficient to pay the cost of postage from
the United States for materials to be loaned; and shall be responsible for pay-
ing the local postage for the return of material to the lending library.

(4) When requests for loans of the character authorized in this section are
made of the Library of Congress, they shall be addressed to the Loan Division,
Library of Congress, Washington 25, D. C., U. S. A.

(5) Talking book machine lending agencies are authorized to permit blind
readers, residents of the United States, temporarily domiciled abroad, to take
the talking book machines loaned to them when they go abroad under the same
three conditions stated in subparagraph (1) of this paragraph for embossed
books and talking book records. [16 F. R. 690, Jan. 25, 1951]

§ 501.7 Use of Aeronautics Reading Room. Readers requesting reference and
bibliographic assistance in aeronautics and related sciences are served in the
Aeronautics Reading Room, to which are delivered the available materials
required in their work. Applications for access to the collection on aeronautics
in the bookstacks are referred to the Chief of the Stack and Reader Division
for decision. Admission to the enclosure in which current unbound aeronautical
periodicals are shelved must be approved by the Chief of the division or his
assistant.

$501.8 Reference and bibliographic assistance; use of card catalogs; assist-
ance by consultants. Readers requesting reference and bibliographic assistance
in the general collections and aid in the use of the card catalogs apply to the
staff of the Division on duty in the general reading rooms. Requests for special
assistance provided by the consultant service, the special projects, and the
bibliographic unit are referred to the appropriate officials. The services pro-
vided in response to reference and bibliographic requests received by telephone
or by mail are governed by policies and regulations established by the Librarian
of Congress.

§ 501.9 Service of materials in the Hispanic Foundation. Services to readers
requesting reference and bibliographic assistance in Hispanic culture, except in
subject fields specifically assigned to other units of the Library, are provided in
the Hispanic Room to which are delivered available materials required in their
work. Applications for access to the bookstacks are referred to and acted upon
by the Chief of the Stack and Reader Division.

§ 501.10 Investigation and use of manuscript materials. Services to readers
in the Manuscripts Reading Room are provided in accordance with prescribed
conditions of registration for investigation and of use of materials and informa-
tion therefrom in the custody of the Manuscripts Division. The use of such
materials is restricted to the Manuscripts Reading Room. Investigators requir-
ing materials from other collections in the Library for use with materials in the
custody of the Manuscripts Division may requisition and use such materials in
the Manuscripts Reading Room insofar and on such conditions as they are
avail ble for use therein.

§ 501.11 Service of maps. Services to readers in the Maps Reading Room are
provided in accordance with prescribed conditions of use of the materials in the
custody of the Maps Division. Special facilities are provided for use of maps.
Investigators requiring materials in other collections of the Library for use with
materials in the custody of the Maps Division may requisition and use such
materials in the Maps Reading Room insofar and on such conditions as they
are available for use therein.

§ 501.12 Use and service of music materials. Services to readers in the Music
Reading Room are provided in accordance with prescribed conditions of use of
the materials in the custody of the Music Division. Investigators requiring
materials from other collections of the Library for use with materials in the
custody of the Music Division may requisition and use such materials in the
Music Reading Room insofar and on such conditions as they are available for use
therein. Applications for access to the bookstacks are acted upon by the Chief

of the Music Division. Recordings of folk music may be purchased from the
Recording Laboratory of the Music Division. Catalogs are available upon
application thereto.

§ 501.13 Use and service of Orientalia. Services to readers in the Orientalia
Reading Room are provided in accordance with prescribed conditions of use of
the materials' in the custody of the Orientalia Division (materials, written or
printed, in Chinese, Japanese, Semitic, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, etc.). Readers
requiring reference and bibliographic assistance in all fields of Oriental culture
are reserved in the Orientalia Reading Room, to which are delivered materials
from the general collections insofar and on such conditions as they are available
for use therein.

§ 501.14 Use of prints and photographic collections. Services to readers re-
quiring reference and bibliographic assistance in the collection of prints and
photographs are provided in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room in accord-
ance with prescribed conditions for use of the materials as determined by the
Chief of the Division. Investigators requiring materials from other collections
of the Library for use with materials in the custody of the Prints and Photo-
graphs Division may requisition and use such materials in the divisional reading
room insofar and on such conditions as they are available for use therein. Prints
from photographic negatives, and photocopies of prints and photographs in the
Division's collection, when not subject to copyright or other restrictions, are
procurable at specified rates from the Photoduplication Service of the Library.
§ 501.15 Service of rare books. Services to readers in the Rare Books Reading
Room are provided in accordance with prescribed conditions of registration for
investigation and of use of the materials in the custody of the Rare Books
Division. Investigators requiring materials from other collections of the Library
for use with materials in the custody of the Rare Books Division may requisition
and use such materials in the Rare Book Room insofar and on such conditions
as they are available for use therein.

§ 501.16 Service of microfilms and micro-print materials. Services to readers
in the Microfilm Reading Room are provided in accordance with prescribed
conditions of use of the microfilm and micro-print materials in the custody of
the Room and of operations of reading machines. Investigators requiring ma-
terials from other collections of the Library for use with materials in the custody
of the Microfilm Reading Room may requisition and use such materials in the
Microfilm Reading Room insofar and on such conditions as they are available for
use therein.

§ 501.17 Use of law reading rooms; circulation of legal materials; reference
inquiries. (a) The reading rooms of the Law Library are free and accessible
to the public without formality. Those volumes which are not on the open
shelves may be obtained for reading room use by filling out and presenting to a
reference assistant a slip provided for the purpose, indicating thereon the author
and title of the work desired and the name and address of the reader.

(b) The collections of the Law Library are available in part, for use outside
the Library for a limited period, to authorized borrowers in Washington, D. C.,
and through interlibrary loan to the general public residing in other parts of the
country, in conformity with Loan Division procedures. Books which are lent
for use outside of the Law Library reading rooms must be charged in the Law
Library as well as in the Loan Division, where a formal charge is made. (See
§ 501.5)

(c) Reference inquiries, and requests for service, which cannot be satisfied by
other libraries or scholarly institutions nearer the inquirer, may be submitted to
the Library of Congress which will respond to them insofar and on such condi-
tions as personnel can be made available.

§ 501.18 Offers of materials for purchase; evaluations. (a) The Library so-
licits offers of library material (including books, periodicals, pamphlets, manu-
scripts, maps, views, music, recordings, motion pictures, photographs, posters,
fine prints, etc). Printed lists or catalogs of library materials offered should
be submitted in three to five copies, depending on the number of subjects or
forms of material included. Typewritten or manuscript lists should be submitted
in duplicate. Offers should specify author, title, place of publication, publisher,
date of publication, whether or not copyrighted, edition note, series note, binding,
number of pages or volumes, and price of each item offered. All offers of ma-
terial and all other correspondence concerning the acquisition by purchase of
materials for the Library's collections (including invoices, statements, and ques-
tions concerning payment for material purchased by the Library) should be
addressed to: Order Division, Library of Congress, Washington 25, D. C.

(b) Materials should not be sent "on approval" unless specifically requested by the Order Division.

(c) Reference inquiries as to the probable present cost and possible source for purchase or sale of a specific book or other piece of library material should also be directed to the above address. An exact transcription of the title page and any additional information such as edition, series note or copyright date should be submitted with the inquiry.

§ 501.19 Card distribution. Printed catalog cards are supplied under the procedures specified in the latest edition of the Handbook of Card Distribution, supplemented by emendations in the bulletin, Cataloging Service, published by the Library of Congress, Processing Department. Cards may be ordered by author and title or by serial number. Card order slips required for the purpose are furnished to subscribers upon request.

X. THE "NATIONAL" LIBRARY

In a report to the House during the 83d Congress, 2d Session, the House Appropriations Committee said:

As a corollary to the study and development of adequate legislative authority, the new Librarian should be mindful that the Library is the instrument and the creature of Congress. Its duties historically have been to meet the needs of the Members of Congress first and to limit its service to others to that which can be furnished with the funds and staff available.*

A reading of sources would indicate that identification of the Library of Congress as a "national" or "Federal" institution has been persistent and recurrent on the part of its friends in contrast to an apparent desire on the part of Congress to treat the Library as its own. Nearly all of this identification has proceeded from past Librarians, associates of the Library itself, the press, and some Presidents of the United States. Collaterally, the Congress, by authorizing the Library to accept gifts and bequests, to buy special collections, and to enter into expanded fields of Library activities, has increased the Library's services to the public beyond any concept of a strictly congressional library.

A pamphlet issued by the Library's Personnel Division (Washington: 1953) says:

The Library of Congress is also identified as the National Library. In the words of former Librarian Archibald MacLeish, "The Library of Congress is a people's library which provides to the people, through their representatives in Congress, and their officers of government, as well as directly, the written record of their civilization. It is also, and at the same time, a reference library which provides scholarly facilities for the study of that record not to a limited number of selected scholars only, but to the Government, and to the people, of the United States."

1934

Before its destruction by the British in 1814, the Library of Congress was primarily a collection of books useful to the immediate needs of the Senate and House Members in their legislative capacities, and was a collection also administered part time by the Clerk of the House.

The acquisition of the Jefferson collection increased its breadth and usefulness generally. Those who proposed the purchase of Jefferson's books said "that so valuable a library, one so admirably calculated for the substratum of a great national library, was not to be obtained in the United States; etc." 35

83 H. Rept. 1614, 83d Cong., 2d sess., p. 4.

34 The Library of Congress and You, Library of Congress, Personnel Division, Washington. 1953, p. 1.

35 The Story Up to Now, by David C. Mearns, p. 30. Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress, June 30, 1946 (H. Doc. No. 6, 80th Cong., 1st sess.).

Of those who served during the 19th century, three, George Watterston, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, and John Russell Young were the most active in soliciting, acquiring, and prompting Congress to expand the Library's collections and activities.

George Watterston, appointed on March 21, 1815, by President Madison was the first full-time Librarian. In a desire to restock the shelves destroyed by the British, he inserted a card in one of the Library's public prints, and so fastened upon the Library the definition of its national character. He wrote:

Congress, having supplied the loss occasioned by the rude and conflagrating hand of our late enemy by the purchase of a library perhaps equal in value, as far as it extends, to any in Europe, and intending, as they no doubt do (Congress was in recess), to make it the great national repository of literature and science, and in some instances of the arts also, it is desirable that American authors, engravers, and painters who are solicitous to preserve their respective productions as mementos of the times, would transmit to the Library a copy of such work as they may design for the public eye."

Dr. Herbert Putnam told the American Library Association at Waukesha, Wis., in 1901:

If there is any way in which our National Library may "reach out" from Washington it should reach out. Its first duty is, no doubt, as a legislative library to Congress. Its next is as a federal library to aid the executive and judicial departments of the government and the scientific undertakings under government auspices. Its next is to that general research which may be carried on at Washington by resident and visiting students and scholars. . . . But this should not be the limit. There should be possible also a service to the country at large: a service to be extended through the libraries which are the local centers of a research involving the use of books.37

President Theodore Roosevelt said in his annual message to Congress delivered December 3, 1901:

Perhaps the most characteristic educational movement of the past 50 years is that which has created the modern public library and developed it into broad and active service. There are now over 5,000 public libraries in the United States, the product of this period. In addition to accumulating material, they are also striving by organization, by improvement in method, and by cooperation, to give greater efficiency to the material they hold, to make it more widely useful, and by avoidance of unnecessary duplication in process to reduce the cost of its administration.

In these efforts they naturally look for assistance to the federal library, which, though still the Library of Congress, and so entitled, is the one National Library of the United States. . . . It is housed in a building which is the largest and most magnificient yet erected for library uses. Resources are now being provided which will develop the collection properly, equip it with the apparatus and service necessary to its effective use, render its bibliographic work widely available, and enable it to become, not merely a center of research, but the chief factor in great cooperative efforts for the diffusion of knowledge and the advancement of learning.

38

Earlier in the nation's history, in his second annual message to Congress, December 2, 1878, President Rutherford B. Hayes referred to the library as "national in character"; later, President Chester A. Arthur said that the protection of its books had become "of national importance."

Accessions

A greater part of the Library's present-day national services to the public can be attributed to congressional acts. Under an 1832

20 Ibid., p. 41.

Ibid., p. 188.

: Ibid.

law, Congress made the Law Library a separate department of the Library, starting it on its way to expansion. In 1866, Congress made the Library the depository of the scientific library of the Smithsonian Institution, thereby increasing its use and circulation. In 1870, a strengthened copyright law, which required copies of each item to be copyrighted to be deposited in the Library, began a vast collection of books, prints, music, photographs for wide public use. In 1902 Congress prescribed that the Library should enter the catalog card business and sell copies of those printed for its own use. In 1931 another statute provided that the Library should undertake a nationwide service for the blind. By act of March 3, 1925, the Library was also empowered by Congress to accept gifts and bequests of personal property for the benefit of its collections.

Gifts, such as could be accepted by the foregoing law, and purchases have gone to swell the Library.

Beginning with the acquisition of the Jefferson collection, Congress thereafter provided for acquiring additional lawbooks (1832), the exchange of duplicates with other institutions (1840), Government documents to be placed in the Library (1867), copyright deposits (1846-70) and since the acquisition of Spanish and Mexican lawbooks (1854), the purchase of an European periodical file (1864), and early American maps (1864), the transfer of the Smithsonian collection (1866), the purchase of the Peter Force collection of American history (1867), the acquiring of the English county histories (1872), and national historical sketches (1876), the purchase of the Ben Franklin collection (1882), and the acquisition of the Toner medical collection (1882), and the Rochambeau military collection (1883), the gift of the Hubbard collection of engravings (1898), the transfer of the historical archives of the State Department (1903), the Yudin collection (1907), the acquisition of a copperplate collection from Italy (1910), the National Monetary Collection (1912), the Morgan letters (1912), books for the blind from the American Printing House at Louisville, Ky. (1913), the purchase of the Vollbehr collection (1930), the Pennell Fund and collection (1936), the Pinckney papers (1939), the Lincoln legal papers (1941), and the international exchange arrangement (1936).

The gift of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge in 1925 built an auditorium for chamber music. In 1935 and 1936 Mrs. Matthew John Whittall presented to the Library her unique collection of Stradivari stringed instruments and Tourte bows and donated to the Trust Fund Board a sum of money for the support of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation. A bequest of the late Dayton C. Miller contained an endowment to be used in connection with the flute collection which he had left earlier to the Library. The Bertha Elson endowment went toward aiding musical subjects and public interest in the literature of music.

Since the creation of the Trust Fund Board there have been bequests approaching $2 million in value. These have come from such benefactors as James Benjamin Wilbur, Richard Rogers Bowker, William Evarts Benjamin, Archer Milton Huntington, the Carnegie Corp., the Daniel Guggenheim Fund, Alexis V. Babine, and Annie May Hegeman.

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