The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-12-23
CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY NOW
 CONTAINS ALMOST TWO AND ONE
 HALF MILLION BOOKS; BIC GAIN
Dr. Herbert Putnam Recaptulates the Advances of the Great Institution in Many Departments Oriental Sections Are Enhanced By Many Valuable Additions.

1 century, when Yiddish publications
 had undergone an enormous expan-
 sion. The origin of Yiddish is the
 German dialect of the Rhineland of the fourteenth century, which was
 carried into Poland and southeastern
 Europe by enforced migration of the Jews Thence it was carried in turn | by Jewish wanderings to every corner of the earth. As it stands today, its basis is largely an old German dialect
 written in Hebrew characters, con- taining in it's vocabulary, besides He brew, numerous words and terms of every language from every land where Jews have since lived. The Yiddish of one country may therefore be somewhat differentiated from that of another, owing to the historical fact that it incorporates numerous house. hold words of the newly adopted land, thus creating a sort of Yiddish yer nacular in every country. The Yid- dish literature in the United States assumes a respectable place as com pared Ito other literatures; and even if the predictions of some come true that the Yiddish tongue will be dead before long, the Yiddish literature will still offer a wide and interesting field for historians, philologists, and stu dents of comparative literature. An other Jewish -dialet< called Ladino, the vernacu1ar of the Mediterranean or Sephardic Jews, is represented in the Library of Congress by quite a con- siderable number of books. Ladino is based upon: the Spanish of the fif- teenth century which was carried all over the Mediterranean region through the stress of Spanish persecu- o6f i'm speaking Jews among recent immi- grants to the United States, and they have now developed a literature and press of their own.
 The portion of the Library now classified under the new classified tion contains 1,54S,500 volumes. Great progress has been made in eliminat-
 ing remnants of the old, classified tion. Practically, all ofz the old chap ters have, now been reclAssified, except such as contain works on. Religion, Law, and the few groups of literature the reclassification of which has not vet begun. The most pressing need Is the classification of Religion, which it is earnestly hoped may soon be be- gun and carried forward without seri- ous interruption. A list of forty-four libraries using the Library of Con- gress classification in whole or part is given.
 Depository libraries containing com plete sets of the Library of Congress catalogue cards now number AS, while 40 libraries of the United States Gov ernment have partial depository sets. Eleven government libraries now CO.,
 operate in the printing of, the cata- 1ogue. cards, the latest to be added to the list being the Library of the Surgeon Generals Office. -@ As that library is making nearly exhaustive collection of the current books on medicine the addition of cards for it's entries will greatly strengthen the stock as regards this class of books.
 Besides the complete, sets thus de- posted the Library sells to other li- braries copies of it's cards useful in the catalogues of their own collec- tions. The charge is but nominal-l on the average of one cent per copy. During the past year over 2,300 libra ries took advantage of this OppOrtun- | ity; and the receipts from sales-re- 1 presenting some 100000 cards sold | -totalled nearly $70,000. The con- sequent saving to the purchasing n- 1 braries-over the, cost of producing | the cards themse1ves--must have been l over five times this sum.
 The adoption of a uniform type for the use of the blind seems imminent l to the Assistant in charge of the | Reading Room for the Blind. It is anticipated that an agreement may be arrived at between the British and | American co-workers which will re- suit in a solution of this big problem.
 In the forty-five years during which the copyright work has been part of the business of the Library ofACon- gress the number of entries totaled 2,9S2,397. During the past nineteen years the net receipts of the office, above expenses for service, were $24O,- 688.40. During the last fiscal year 18,357 volumes were transferred to the Library from the deposits in the Copyright Office and 5,452 volumesI deposited in governmental libraries in the District of Columbia.
 The Report concludes with an ex- tended description of the work of the l Legislative Reference Division during the year.