Evening star., 1936-05-09
CAPITAL IS LIBRARY CENTER
Leads Country and Ranks Among First Four Five Cities Of
World in Wealth of Facilities for People of Letters
and All Other Users of Books.
has. what q probably the largest col

las. what n probably the largest col
lection Of Russian books outside OF
Russia, and Of Chinese books outside
Of China and Japan. Its collection Of
manuscripts includes the papers Of
nearly all the Presidents of the
United States, including the original
draft, in Lincoln's handwriting, Of
the Gettysburg Address.
1t Is the custodian Of the originals
of the two documents on which the
nation is founded-the Declaration Of
Independence and the Constitution,
which are on display in q shrine de-
signed by Francis H. Bacon. Near
them is q case containing the Guten-
berg Bible, one of three remaining
perfect copies, on vellum, Of the first
book printed in Europe from movable
type-the Latin Bible printed about
l454 by Johan Gutenberg in Mainz.
Many of the separate collections of
the Library Of Congress are libraries
in themselves. The Law Library con-
tains $4,000 volumes, including those
housed in q branch in the Capitol.
The Rare Book Collection, with a
beautiful reading room Of its own, in
cludes such books Of such unusual as
sociation as q volume from the IL
brary OF Gar Nicholas OF Russia, and
such monuments in the history Of
printing as collection Of 1853 books
printed before 1901. The Service
For The Blind circulated $4,000 books
last year. including ss2 volumes" of
Talking Books, which may be run OF
on . specially devised phonograph.
The collections donated by book-col-
lectors range from the Thacher col
lection Of incunabula and Americana
to the library Of books on magic and
the occult bequeathed by the late
Harry Houdini.
Washington has many other gov
ernment Libraries notable for their re-
sources in special fields. Some of
them rank among the great libraries
of the United States.
Some Of them rank among the
great libraries OF the United States.
both as to size, the excellence of
their material, and the efficiency
Of their management; and to the
investigator and student. and to
Government oficials seeking infor-
nation on problems connected with
ofiicial business. their specialized col
lections are extremely valuable. A
bare list Of them would cover pages;
the mention of q few. therefore, will
have to stand for all.
The Army medical library, formerly
the library Of the surgeon generals
once, Is the leading medical library
in the world. 1t aims to secure every
thing published in the field Of medi-
cine or allied subjects. The collec-
ton includes books, periodicals.
pamphlets, prints, engravings, photo
graphs. paintings. clippings. auto
graphs and manuscripts. Its re-
search activities include the tracing
Of the origin of a given disease; the
use Of certain given remedies; and
similar work ranging from questions
of simple anatomy to obscure patho-
logical conditions. Its publications
include its Index Catalog. a monu-
ment in the library world of the cata-
log published in book form and the
worlds standard photography on medi-
cal subjects. The latest edition, nm
ished In 1916, Is in 81 volumes, and
third edition Is in progress.
The main library of the Department
Of Agriculture is one of the richest
collections Of agricultural literature
in the world and may be considered as
the national agricultural library. 1t
is scientific, technical and statistical
in character and includes some 200, 900
books and pamphlets and about $500
current magazines. Its collection COW
ers such subjects as horticulture, bot
any, entomology, chemistry. bacteriol-