In regard to the purchase of books from the Adams fund, the fact that the experiment station worker needs in connection with an investigation certain books not already in the library, which books he is allowed to purchase from the Adams fund, is not, in the opinion of the office of experiment stations, reason for assuming that the books should not be purchased through the library or that they shall not be regarded as the property of the library. Therefore, in a library efficiently administered, there would be no inflexible rules which would make it impossible for any experiment station worker to retain in his laboratory for an indefinite period while he is carrying on his investigations, the books which he especially needs to have at hand, regardless of the fact that they were purchased through the library. As far as the office of experiment stations is concerned in the supervision of the accounts of the purchases made by the state experiment stations from the Adams fund, it has interpreted the law to mean that the funds can be used in part for the purchase of books needed to carry on a special experiment in progress but it does not hold that books so purchased must be held as the property of the department. On the contrary, it is inclined to believe that the funds will be safeguarded fully as well if not better, by the purchase of books through the library. As regards the assignment of funds for the library, there is lacking in many of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations any well matured policy. A hard and fast allotment of funds to departments is of doubtful wisdom. It would be better to be guided more by the use likely to be made of the books by the various departments than to attempt any impartial division among them. In all but a few of the state agricultural colleges and experiment stations the funds available for books are pitiably small. They need to be greatly increased. In some instances the purchase of scientific books seems unduly restricted as compared with expensive apparatus. As long as the funds are meagre, there is the more need for a well equipped, progressive librarian, with a knowledge of the resources of other libraries, who will co-operate with other libraries, and by exchanges and inter-library loans be able to supplement the resources of his own library. The library of the U. S. Department of Agriculture has been glad to lend its books to state agricultural colleges and experiment stations as freely as possible without interfering with the work of the department. The borrowing of a book needed for the special use of an investigator will often avoid the necessity of purchasing it and leave the funds available for the purchase of books of more general use.