The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-02-03

why IS COHnetclcut called the | Nutmeg state
 How soon after death should a person send condolences What is cirrhosis of the liver
 Are there any Seventh Day Adventists in Waterbury
 Is there Hotel Carpenter in Manchester, N. H.
 Are frogs and toads amphi- bians
 Does an alien become a citizen
 by marrying an American
 Waterbury grand list for the
 years 1853, 1860 and 1870
 Besides answering such specific questions as those noted above, the department has given daily assist tance to large numbers of high school and grammer school stu dents in finding material to be used in the preparation of assignment, has collected material for debates, club papers and holiday programs and has compiled reading lists for individuals and for study groups.
 While not actively engaged in reference work members of the department have classified pamph-
 
 clipping and preservation, noted articles in current magazines which might be asked for before the per iodical indexes listing them have been received and kept up to date an index to current book review literature.
 The Business and Industrial De-
 paftmcnt.
 The business and industrial de- partment was used by 23,322 people during the year. This is a gain of 3,547 over the number of people using the room in 1880. The cir culation of books shows a gain of 1,516 for the year and the num- Der of questions asked, gain of 522. of the S,36O questions some were comparatively simple to an sWer and others were answered only after several hours of diligent search. For example: it was very easy to find book containing the fundamentals of electricity but rather more difficult to find dia- gram of q Tesla coil. illustrations of the type of question asked in this department and: the. source of the information given in each case may DIoNt ol IIllcItSl. ~ uuCStlOU as to the worlds copper production during the years 1920-1930 was an swered from the commerce year book. A telephone call for list of map printers in New York and Philadelphia was answered by con- sulting Thomas Register of Ameri- can Manufacturers. The statisti- cal abstract of the United States furnished a classified list of the rubber products of the United States for 1929. Telephone direc- tories gave the addresses of the medical center in New York city, Montgomery Ward in Chicago, The American Products company in Cincinnati and many others. The Industrial Arts Index, which in dexes technical periodicals, helped us to find recent information on factory management, organization of an engineering department, the storage of tools in a small factory and variety of other subjects. When our own resources have failed us we have almost always managed to obtain the desired in- formation by calling upon some larger library and arranging for an inter-library loan of books needed.
 The assigning of subject head ing to the pamphlets in this de- partment was undertaken and completed during the year. These pamphlets were formerly filed by number following the Dewey dec imal scheme of notation and could be used by the public only with the aid of an assistant. They are now shelved alphabetically by subject, much more simple and more tasily used arrangement. The topo- graphic maps owned by the library and for the past five years kept in a basement room with a compli- cated system of classification where by each state map had a code number, are now in the process of being moved to the business and technical department and placed in a filing cabinet in alphabetical order by state and section. Under this new arrangement they will be much more accessible to the public and more readily found by any member of the library staff.
 The Books
 The most flexible item in a H. brary budget is always the fund for books and it is this item more than any other which is affected by q reduction or cut in the total appropriation. It is unfortunate