Abstract
THE Year Book, 1944, of the American Philo sophical SocieM overs the year January 1, 1944–December 1944. During the year a radical change was made in the policy of the Society's library to exchange and distribution of the Society's puacptions, based on the conviction that acquisitions for the library and the distribution of the Society's publications can be more effectively promoted through subscriptions than by the system of exchange. Under the new policy, the library receives in exchange for the Society's publications relatively little, depending rather on subscription or direct purchase of materials vital to the development of its holdings. The Library Committee is also mindful of the possibilities of current trends in library and research disciplines like those started by Binkley and recently developed by Fremont Rider in his volume “The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library”. The problem of bringing the rich resources of the library to the attention of scholars and making them available for study and research has been a major concern of the librarian. Two special committees were set up during the year to assist in this way, in the special fields of American linguistics and archaeology and of Americana. Of exceptional in terest in this Committee's report are the notes by C. Dan Doren on the Franklin-Mecon correspondence, by G. Chinard on the strange fortune of two volumes of the Transactions associated with Franklin, and on the Elihu Thomson collection. The report of the Committee on Research includes a list of grants made from the income of the Penrose Fund and a summary of the grants made during the period July 31, 1933–December 31, 1944, together with reports from recipients of grants, arranged alphabetically under the classification of subjects represented in the membership of the Society. Because of the partici pation of many scientific men in research connected with the war effort, particularly in certain fields, the request for grants dui ing the past two years was not as large as previously, but the Committee has not lowered the standard set for making grants.
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American Philosophical Society. Nature 158, 266 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/158266a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/158266a0