Evening star., 1938-11-13

world, comprising more than five
million books and pamphlets, two
and a half million maps, charts,
and musical compositions, and un-
counted manuscripts - all made
available to readers.
The Library has probably the
largest collection of Russian books.
outside OF Russia, and of Chinese
books, outside of China. The Di-
vision of Aeronautics, although less
than ten years old, has the worlds
most comprehensive collection in
this field and includes approximate
ly $4,000 volumes.
Conditions peculiar to Washing
ton life make night library service
essential, for here dwell thousands
of persons in public service whose
hours OF labor, as a rule from to
4:3O. would prevent the privilege of
attendance at the Library for the
pleasure of leisure hours, as we'll
as study and amusement. The
needs of young and old, the scholar,
the business man, and the mechanic
those seeking information for
technical purposes or for recrea-
tion-all are considered. The SER
vices of the Library make some
thing more than a repository for
books. They make of it an organi-
zation fundamentally bound up with
the cultural life of the American
people.
BY 1887 the Library of Congress
had become highly articulated or
ganism performing multitude of
processes and maintaining a num-
ber of services hardly dreamed of
in 1897. with collections aggregat-
ing several million books, prints,
maps, music, and manuscripts,
which it would be tedious to re-
capitulate. The collection had
grown so rapidly that it had been
found necessary to relegate import
ant sets and thousands of folios
and bound volumes of newspapers
to the cellar, and the use of the
collection had expanded to a point
where it was no longer possible to
meet the demands for reading ta-
bles and study desks.
The first legislative move toward
the erection of the annex was made
when Representative Robert Luce,
chairman of the House Committee
on the Library, introduced a bill on
January Is, 1928, for the acquisition
of ground to the east of the Library
Another bill, approved June 13, 1890,
appropriated $6,50O,0OO for the con-
struction of the annex. for a tun-
mel connecting it with the main
building and for certain changes in
the east front of the latter, includ-
ing provision for the rare book
room.
The present library building has
capacity for about five million
books, whereas the new building
will shelve approximately 10 mil
lion volumes. 1t will accommodate
a reading audience of one thousand.
Calls for books are received by
means of pneumatic tubes, travel
ing at the rate of go feet a minute,
with access to the automatic eleva-
tors, the book carriers and news
paper lifts. Precautions have been
taken to protect the books from
damage while in transit.
Following an experience Of the
past two score years, no one would
venture the prediction that the an
mex will be ample for the needs of
the Library "for a century and a
half to come" It can however, be
safety asserted that the new an
mex, with approximately $50 addi-
tional miles of shelving and twenty
additional acres of floor space, has
been SO painstakingly designed that
the added accommodations and the
flexibility and increased celerity Of
operation will meet the demands for
many years to come and make it
possible to render to scholarship
and to the library world a service
more effective than ever before.
The new annex is simple in ar
chitectural design, yet dignified and
in rapport with its distinguished
neighbors-the Supreme Court OF
the United States and the majestic
Folger Shakespeare Library.