Mr. GILLETT. Is that in the appropriation bill?

Mr. PUTNAM. It is in the appropriation bill on page 46. It is headed by a chief of division, with the same salary as the other chiefs of the important divisions.

Mr. JOHNSON. Have you the man already in the Library who would have charge of this division if we were to create it?

Mr. PUTNAM. No; I would have to get him from without.

Mr. JOHNSON. How many books did you say you had that would probably come under this division?

Mr. PUTNAM. This one collection alone given by Mr. Schiff includes about 10,000 volumes, and then, of course, we have some other books, including Turkish, chiefly given to us in times past. We have a very important collection of Chinese and Japanese books. This division was to include not merely Semitica but Orientalia.

I appreciate very well, Mr. Chairman, that such subject matter as this seems remote from the immediate uses of the Library; but, on the other hand, in the long future I think we ought fairly to assume that this is a national library, and must in its collections recognize the area deemed appropriate by other national libraries.

The service that we may do in such a field as this is not limited to the investigator in Washington any more than it is limited to the Government officials. It extends to the outsider, for instance to the professor in a university or college, especially to the south and the west, who is carrying on research under very great difficulties from lack of an adequate collection of books. We lend books to his library for him, and he utilizes his vacations and other recesses to come here to Washington. Material of this sort is growing scarcer and scarcer, and if we put off the day for its acquisition to a future, when we shall have cleaned up every other department, if that time should ever come, the difficulty of getting it, the expense of getting it, will be greatly increased. In the meantime, here are certain very public-spirited and generous citizens who are willing to come forward and buy the material for us, provided we do our share.

Mr. GILLETT. How was this library of Mr. Schiff's formed?

Mr. PUTNAM. It was formed by a Jew named Deinard, who has spent his life in collecting books in the commerce of books, too-in Russia and all over Europe, and had shaped up this particular collection during some years past. He had it in a small place in New Jersey. He is well known as a bibliographer and is known among scholarly men for his scholarship.

Mr. GILLETT. So you think it is a particularly valuable collection? Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; I am sure it is.

Mr. GILLETT. It is not a mere aggregation of books?

Mr. PUTNAM. No; on the contrary, it is a collection that is both representative, as a working library needs to be, and has distinction in some of its items, as a scholarly library needs to be. I had, of course, this assurance before proceeding with the matter from men competent to judge. I had the catalogues here gone over by Dr. Casanowicz, of the National Museum. I had assurance from men in New York and Philadelphia who had examined the collection, and also had assurance as to the collector from various competent judges, including, for instance, Dr. Adler.

Mr. GILLETT. Mr. Putnam, why do you need such a complete organization? Why would not just a chief of division and a clerk do?

Mr. PUTNAM. I am glad you asked that, Mr. Gillett. For the first year I do not. I put this in because it seems to me proper whenever such a department is organized to set before you at the start what seems to me the later normal organization that we would have to look forward to. But if I could have the chief of division and one $900 assistant and a junior messenger, that would suffice for the start. But the important thing is that I should have a salary for the man at the head which will enable me to get such a man as will vitalize the collection. In this we have to compete with universities and institutions. There is no use of offering a man a lower salary without an assurance of promotion, which is never possible, of course.

Mr. GILLETT. You have got to have somebody, I suppose, who understands this literature and language?

Mr. PUTNAM. A man who understands this literature. has had the proper academic education, and has a reputation for scholarship in connection with it.

Mr. GILLETT. Why do you need a junior messenger?

Mr. PUTNAM. That is a boy to paste labels and run for books and move them about. It is only a boy, but it is very extravagant to use a $900 employee for doing $360 work.

Mr. GILLETT. Did Mr. Schiff buy this collection for the purpose of giving it to the Library?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes. I think it very important that we should cultivate in citizens who have collections or who can afford to get them for us, the feeling that they will be welcomed, and that we will do our fair share toward making them available. Now, it is a great thing for us to be saved the actual expenditure of money for this material, which chiefly interests the special investigator, but which brings to the Library a very considerable distinction, and is in indirect ways important to us. I know of collections that are on the way to us that would not come unless we showed some sympathy for the point of view they represent. And so I feel that to recognize this one department by such an organization would be a judicious investment.

About the other items, Mr. Chairman, as they were all explained last year, I think it would be unfair to take up your time with reviewing them unless you desire to ask some questions.

ASSISTANTS.

Mr. JOHNSON. I notice that some of the assistants get $1,400 and others $1,500, and in each case where they get only $1,400 you request that it be increased to $1,500, so as to equalize them all. Is there any substantial difference between the duties these assistants perform?

Mr. PUTNAM. No, sir; not in the responsibility or importance of their duties, nor in the qualifications of the individuals. With one exception they have all been in our service for many years. They have had, most of them, advanced academic training, and they are not merely carrying on, each in his own way, his routine duties while the chief is there, but in the absence of the chief they assume charge of the division.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, a man who is getting $1,400 is doing as responsible work as the man who is getting $1,500?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir; that is the ground of the recommendation, and not merely a desire for a formal equalization.

BOOKS FOR THE BLIND.

[See also p. 13.]

Mr. JOHNSON. Now I want to ask you about the $7,500 item for books for the blind. Books for the blind hitherto have been purchased out of the appropriation for the increase of the Library, have they not?

Mr. PUTNAM. Where we bought any, but we have bought very few. Those books, of course, are of no interest to Congress directly or to the Government or to the ordinary investigator. They are books simply for the general reader here in the District. A blind person reading for recreation or even for self-instruction is what we in library parlance call a "general reader." He is local here. He would naturally be supplied by the Public Library of the District; but we have had a reading room, and of course we have supplied some of these books. They are very expensive. A book like Bryce's American Commonwealth, which in ink type you could buy over the counter for three or four dollars, would cost over thirty in raised type and occupy 10 huge volumes. Now, it is a large sum to take out of the appropriation for a single book to interest only the general reader, and we have not bought many. I think we ought to buy more, and part of this $7,500 would be for the purchase of books in raised type, but only part of it. What I wanted also to do with that was to have a more significant bureau of information there regarding the blind, and some blind people actually at work. They can operate the typewriter, and they can do various things that involve the use of apparatus, and I wanted to have some apparatus, to take advantage in that way of the visits of thousands of people from all over the country who come there very keen to know what the blind can do and what is being done for them. I wanted to get some books with this amount, and wanted to be able, where necessary, to buy books out of this, but also to employ some service.

Mr. GILLETT. That is for the advantage simply of a few blind persons living in Washington?

Mr. PUTNAM. In so far as the books are concerned; yes. That is why I do not emphasize that part of it.

Mr. GILLETT. How much have you in the way of books already, and how much did they cost; can you estimate that?

Mr. PUTNAM. I can not estimate that, because it runs back over a number of years.

Mr. GILLETT. Could you send in an estimate of it?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; I will (see p. 7). We have been buying perhaps 30 or 40 books a year—not more—on an average.

Mr. GILLETT. I believe you do send them out to other parts of the country.

Mr. PUTNAM. We have not done that in the past, because there are other organizations undertaking to do that. We are now beginning to send some to the southward.

Mr. GILLETT. You mean there are charitable organizations which do that?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; free-lending libraries. The Philadelphia Library sends them all over the country.

Mr. GILLETT. You mean a library especially for the blind?

Mr. PUTNAM. A library for the blind in Philadelphia, and some of the educational institutions lend very freely; the Perkins Institution does, and the institution at Overbrook.

Mr. GILLETT. Then your idea is this, as I understood you, to have some blind people at work here and have a sort of

Mr. PUTNAM (interposing). Bureau of information and demonstration.

Mr. GILLETT. That would be a new departure in the library. Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; it would be a departure in the library. Mr. GILLETT. It does not belong to library work particularly. Mr. PUTNAM. Not if you go into general manual work; but they would be doing library work, work useful to the library-for instance, in sorting and typewriting.

Mr. GILLETT. With books for the blind, you mean ?

Mr. PUTNAM. No; they can operate a typewriting machine. Of course, it has to have some special contrivances.

Mr. GILLETT. It must be more expensive to have them do that work than to have an ordinary typewriter operator.

Mr. PUTNAM. Not necessarily, if you can get along without the stenographic side of it, because they can afford to work for lower

pay.

Only a certain amount of work and a certain class of work can be handled advantageously in that way, but there are a few things they can do. I did not mean to have a corps of them, but two or three of them, at work. I have by law only the one $1,200 salary at present.

Mr. GILLETT. That is not paid to a blind person?

Mr. PUTNAM. No; that is not paid to a blind person. Now, the bureau of information—part of it would be national in its service, and would consist in the accumulation of material which requires occasional travel and attendance at meetings of organizations concerned in the amelioration of the condition of the blind and the information gathered there from discussion. This assistant ought to participate at such meetings and ought to have this information, so as to take advantage of this keen interest of the people coming to the library, who want to know all about the education of the blind and the employment of the blind-what they can do, how they can do it, and so on.

NOVEMBER 22, 1912.

Mr. CHAIRMAN: I was to supplement my statement at the hearing of November 20 by a memorandum on two points:

"1. How much the library already contains of a collection of books in raised type (for the blind) and how much did they cost?

"2. What provision of law would enable the library to benefit without cost by the publications of the American Printing House for the Blind produced out of the subvention granted by the Government?"

1. Our present collection, numbering about 1,600 volumes, is the result largely of gift, in part from institutions (such as the Perkins, in Massachusetts, and the Pennsylvania, at Overbrook) and in part from individuals. From 1901 to 1909, inclusive, for instance, the gifts totaled 374 volumes, the purchases 393. The records do not show the amount spent in purchase prior to those years. From 1902 to 1906 it was but $500; from 1900 to date less than $1,500, including orders recently placed aggregating about $400.

2. The most of our purchases have been from the American Printing House for the Blind, at Louisville. The subvention granted by the Federal Govern

ment to this (in effect a permanent appropriation of $10,000 a year) is applied to the manufacture of embossed books which, under the law (act of Mar. 3, 1879), are to be distributed to institutions for the education of the blind in the various States and District of Columbia, pro rata, according to the number of pupils in each.

A provision which would secure to the Library of Congress a copy of every book produced out of this subvention could, of course, be more skillfully drawn by the clerk of your committee than by me. I suppose that one in substance as follows might answer:

"The distribution of embossed books manufactured by the American Printing House for the Blind at Louisville, Ky., out of the income of the fund provided by the act of March 3, 1879, shall hereafter include one copy of every book so manufactured to be deposited in the Library of Congress at Washington."

N. B.-Such a provision would, of course, bring to us without cost many useful books. It would, however, cover only a fraction of the output of the Louisville establishment; and it would still leave to be procured only by purchase a large number of the publications issued there and the larger portion of those issued elsewhere-not merely in the United States, but in England.

The cost of such embossed books is indicated by a few examples:

Mr. GILLETT. I see that you suggest an increase in the distribution of card indexes of $5,500. Why is that?

Mr. PUTNAM. It is a progressive increase which we have had to ask for each year.

Mr. GILLETT. That will still more than pay its way?

Mr. PUTNAM. Oh, yes.

Mr. GILLETT. You need that for the increasing orders?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes. Last year the orders increased about 24 per cent. Now, each year, with the exception of a few, we have had a slight increase in the service, but it has not kept pace with the business, for I wished to keep enlarging the margin of receipts over expenditures. While it has not kept pace with the increase of the orders, it has been progressive. I have had to ask a larger sum for next year than I have for the past year because of a special increase in the orders which has run beyond the normal, and also for one other reason that by utilizing a salary which became vacant in the catalogue division, a salary of chief of the division, last year I saved this card roll the highest salary upon it, the salary of the chief. I have had to put him back on the card roll this year, and that means $3,000 added to that roll. These are very small salaries that the card roll tapers down to 20 cents an hour-but $5,500 is a very conservative estimate for what we shall require next year to handle the business that we must handle, absolutely, in order to keep up the service.