In addition to the official government publications, a big part of the exchange program involves the Library's surplus materials. The unwanted and extra material from copyright is part of this group, as well as the surplus materials, about 800,000 a year, that are transferred to the Library from federal libraries and agencies. Librarians from the Exchange and Gift Division pick through the surplus, put together lists of items and offer them to the foreign and U.S. libraries in the exchange program. Photos by Yusef El-Amin Gifts are another source of material for the Library. More than 46,000 items arrived in Exchange and Gift in fiscal 1996, and more than 2.5 million pieces were received by custodial divisions.
Gifts come in many packages.
They could be as simple as a family donating their generations-old Bible or as complicated as the extensive papers and letters of a U.S. president or Supreme Court justice. Mr. Panzera said many unusual items find their way to the Library. He was pleased with the recent gift acquisition of a 1911 commemorative work on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. It had been owned by a man who worked on the railway, and his relatives donated it to the Library. People just appear at the door.