Mr. TAWNEY. What is the nature of these publications?

Mr. PUTNAM. Sometimes they are local histories, perhaps, or genealogy; very largely books of that character. Often a book is not copyrighted because they do not want to give us the two copies and they know it will not be pirated.

Mr. TAWNEY. Would there be any considerable number of publications outside the public official reports?

Mr. PUTNAM. It would be more the locally published material published by private hands. Then sometimes very valuable early newspapers have come to us through the feeling of obligation toward us on the part of the local libraries. Of course, we have not undertaken this distribution in a large way, and we have not been in the way to. We do exchange with other large libraries on a strictly piece-for-piece exchange or value-for-value exchange. The next stage that the bill would provide would be that we, upon notice to the copyright proprietors, would permit them to withdraw any of the residuum of the material, or, failing this, that we should be at liberty to destroy it.

DESTRUCTION OF USELESS MATERIAL.

Now, there is a great deal of the material that we ought to destroy-clippings from newspapers, syndicated articles-which have obtained protection and need protection for only a few weeks, but at present rest over there and litter up our cellars.

Mr. BURLESON. Would it cost more to destroy them than to store them?

Mr. PUTNAM. No.

Mr. BURLESON. I would want to be sure of that before we undertook that enterprise.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; and then we ought to be sure that nothing that would be indispensable in any way to the copyright records should be destroyed.

Mr. BINGHAM. What amount of copyrighted articles in the form of books do you destroy?

Mr. PUTNAM. We have never destroyed anything as yet.

Mr. BINGHAM. You are simply a depository?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. BINGHAM. What about newspaper publications daily, weekly, and monthly?

Mr. PUTNAM. Only a small percentage of the newspapers of this country are copyrighted a few score; that is all.

Mr. BINGHAM. Those that are copyrighted you hold?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; and some others. We bind in all not over 150 different newspapers, although nearly 1,200 come to us.

Mr. BINGHAM. Then you only exercise destruction to the newspapers, not to copyright books?

Mr. PUTNAM. We have thus far destroyed nothing copyrighted. We are seeking authority to destroy a final residuum later on; articles that are worth nothing to the Government, or to other institutions, or to the copyright proprietor, though he has to be consulted.

Mr. TAWNEY. He has to have the discretion to say what shall be destroyed and what shall not be destroyed?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir. Under the bill the librarian and the register are to exercise this discretion. If the article is one that ought to be kept alive, the copyright proprietor is at liberty at that stage to send for it and withdraw it. That is a provision of the new copyright bill. If he does not, we in turn are at liberty to destroy it. If, again, on coming to that article we should revise our estimate of its value, it would then be possible still to hold it.

Mr. TAWNEY. How much space would be made available by the destruction of the material now in the library that you think could be destroyed?

Mr. PUTNAM. No space that can be utilized for the ordinary library purposes, because this storage is all in the cellar, in which no books should be placed which are in any use by the public.

Mr. TAWNEY. So that this space is not being utilized for anything else?

Mr. PUTNAM. No, sir.

Mr. BURLESON. But you would have to have another cellar after a while unless you can get rid of this stuff?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes.

Mr. TAWNEY. So far as the authority for destruction is concerned, we might easily give you that authority in the appropriation bill. Mr. PUTNAM. I sought authority at one time to turn over to the public library in the District some of our duplicates in general literature. There was a little misunderstanding about it. It was put into the bill by this committee, but on the floor a question was raised about it, and it was stricken out. The public library in the District as a lending library is supplying men in the government service with general literature that they can not get from us, and if we can help out that library with general literature that we have to buy in the first instance for Congress, but in which the interest of Congress has lapsed, it would help that library.

Mr. BINGHAM. Your operations run under the franking privilege in anything you do?

Mr. PUTNAM. We use the franking privilege for our official letters and official packages that have solely an official purpose, but we do not use the frank to send a book to another library for the benefit of an individual. He pays the expressage.

INCREASE OF THE LIBRARY.

Mr. BINGHAM. On what character of books do you spend the appropriation of $109,500 for the increase of the library?

Mr. PUTNAM. We spend it for books which, in the first place, do not come to us from copyright; and, in the second place, in choosing from the rest we lay the emphasis on two fields-first, of course, on America. As a national library we are a library of record, and ought to be as complete as possible in American imprints, the output of the American press, and

Mr. BINGHAM. Do you ever duplicate?

Mr. PUTNAM. We duplicate for the use of Congress. We must have half a dozen copies of Rhodes's History of the United States, for instance.

Mr. BINGHAM. I mean with this purchase money.

Mr. PUTNAM. Very little at all. In regard to other literature than American imprints, our choice is of the books that are needed by the scientific investigator in this country. We are not a library that deals with the general reader, except as he is a Senator or Member of Congress or a member of the family of a Senator or a Representative. We are a club library for Congress, but we are not taking the place of a local library, such as the public library of the District or other local libraries for the general reader or ordinary reader or children. We are interested chiefly in men engaged in research to extend the boundaries of knowledge, whether astronomical, or archæological, or political, or economical-whatever it may be.

Our policy is very well illustrated, if I may illustrate it for a moment, in the very special field of music. In the bill I make a special appeal for the division of music, and I would like to explain to this committee what we mean by music within our province. Now, to some persons "music" means that sort of thing [exhibiting copies of" ragtime" songs] coming to us from copyright-" coon

songs.

Mr. TAWNEY. Such as "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-night?" Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir. Or it may mean what these may mean, coming to us from copyrights-" Old Black Joe," "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," etc. These are the original compositions, deposited under the copyright law. They have interest for the historian and the sociologist, but they are not what we look for in our purchases. Or it may be this, a very heavy piece of parlor music for the piano, coming to us from copyright, that we did not have to buy. It may mean something still more significant, coming to us from copyright, of a composition for the orchestra. What it does mean in our purchases and serious development of the collections is the kind of music that the student of music, the critic, the historian, and the scientific investigator needs to get at. For instance, here is Händel, "The Messiah," one volume of an edition of over 100 volumes, which an ordinary performer does not need, but which the scientific investigator needs in this edition. Or it may mean a copy of a work which is not published, but which we get in the facsimile reproduction, which a private individual can not get, but which we can get, because we are the Government of the United States--a part of the Government of the United States-and maintaining a collection for a scientific purpose. Or it may be a hand copy which we are permitted to have made, because we are such an institution, but which no private individual can get permission to have made. It may mean a musical work published by a government, as some of these are. The Government of Belgium actually publishes music, and the Government of Austria does, and the Government of Prussia subventions publication, and some of these before you are actual compositions published by such governments.

Mr. TAWNEY. Do you have to pay for those?

Mr. PUTNAM. In some cases we have got them by governmental exchange.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we are not concerned with music as an art, any more than with painting or with sculpture as an art. But there is a great literature of music. There is a history and a science, and while there are on one side performers of music, just as there are cainters and sculptors, so on the other side there are students of

music who need its literature, including scores, just as there are students of painting and of the other fine arts who need the literature of these, including prints, and we do not buy any such material as that except what would be of interest to such people.

In the selection of books in general we consider this: What are the other libraries of this country doing for the investigator? And how can we supplement that? We are not attempting to buy books such as the great endowed libraries are buying, like the Lenox or the John Carter Brown. We would not attempt to bid on books such as are contained in that catalogue [exhibiting catalogue]; but I have felt ever since I have been in office here that for us, coming into the market at a late date as a purchaser, we ought to apply our funds to the purchase of material necessary for the investigator, material of interest from its content, not merely curious in its form (museum books). Here is a catalogue of books of which we have not two items in the library-very tempting, very tempting, but we pass it by. Mr. BINGHAM. Why tempting? What do they sell for?

Mr. PUTNAM. Their prices run up. Here is one at £160 ($800). The prices of book curios run all the way up to $30,000 and more. The British Museum does not let an item of such a catalogue go. But in this country and under our circumstances and obligations I have felt that for the present we must apply every dollar to useful books, rather than to curious books.

PUBLICATIONS ISSUED BY THE LIBRARY.

Mr. BINGHAM. Do you issue any publications of any character other than your annual report?

Mr. PUTNAM. We issue bibliographic lists which are reference lists on topics of current interest, generally starting with some topic. which is under discussion in Congress. Then we issue catalogues of certain special portions of our collection, not bibliographies, but catalogues, as we did with a certain part of our print collection and of our music collection and certain of our map collections.

Mr. BINGHAM. To whom do you distribute that character of issues? Mr. PUTNAM. We distribute to the libraries on our exchange list. There are about 2,900 institutions that are on our exchange lists for those. We place the major part of the edition with the superintendent of documents for sale at a small price. I believe in charging for these and for all similar publications of the library, as I do with respect to publications of the Government generally, that are not merely administrative.

Mr. GILLETT. Does he sell many?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; he is selling them constantly.
Mr. GILLETT. How many-do you know?

Mr. PUTNAM. We issued a catalogue, called the "A. L. A." catalogue, because it was compiled without expense to us, of 8,000 books suitable for a small library. We were interested in issuing it because it was aiding our sale of catalogue cards and formed a sort of key to a portion of the stock. We did not distribute a single copy of that to an individual, but distributed to each one of some 8,000 American libraries, and the balance of an edition of 20,000 copies was sold. Mr. GILLETT. How much apiece?

Mr. PUTNAM. Fifty cents. We issued another book, an index to portraits

Mr. BURLESON. Was that other one self-sustaining?

Mr. PUTNAM. The sales covered the cost of the copies sold, but not the cost of the whole edition. In the index to portraits which we issued, the compilation of which cost us nothing, we did not distribute even a single copy to libraries. We made every library and individual who wanted a copy pay for it. In the case of the Journals of the Continental Congress we distributed a single set to each Senator and Member, and a very limited number, less than 300, to institutions. The remainder have been placed on sale and will all be soldan edition of 2,000.

Mr. BURLESON. Will that be a self-sustaining enterprise?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir. That is true also of one of the one other original text that we printed-the Records of the Virginia Company and not a single copy of that was distributed free. All were placed on sale.

Mr. BINGHAM. How large are the editions of the publications you make on a general subject?

Mr. PUTNAM. We issue those in editions of about 2,500 to a publication. We often have to reprint because of the great demand.

Mr. BURLESON. Those are sold?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; at from 5 to 15 cents a copy.

Mr. GILLETT. The demand comes from whom?

Mr. PUTNAM. It comes from professors in universities, from editorial offices, and students. They send us applications for them, but we send them a response to the effect that they can be had for a nominal price from the superintendent of documents.

Mr. GILLETT. That does not pay for the cost?

Mr. PUTNAM. It pays for the copies sold, because the price is put on by the superintendent of documents. He is obliged to fix the price at cost plus 10 per cent.

Mr. BINGHAM. Then all your publications except your annual reports are issued at your discretion?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

PRINTING AND BINDING.

Mr. BINGHAM. Now, we come to the bindery question. I wanted some knowledge as to your expenditures in connection with rebinding. How much do you spend as a rule? What are you allowed?

Mr. PUTNAM. We are allowed $202.000 for all printing and binding. That covers the work that we send to the main Government Printing Office, which includes all the publications in book form. even the annual report. We have to pay for the maintenance of our branch bindery and printing office in the library building. The branch printing office in the library building is occupied chiefly with the printing of our catalogue cards. That is our own great catalogue, but it is also our means of making available to the other libraries the product of our catalogue work. Over 1.000 libraries are now subscribing to those cards and thus strengthening their catalogues. The printing office in the library, equipped with linotype machines, is engaged also in the work of printing the forms