Until 1897 the library of the Illinois experiment station and the university library were separately housed, cared for and supported. In that year the state erected a library building for the university and in it the experiment station deposited its collection of nearly five thousand titles. From that time the station ceased buying books from the Hatch fund, with the possible exception of a very few books for laboratory equipment, and it has never bought any from the Adams fund. The books deposited by the experiment station in the university library were classified and cataloged and became a part of the library. The only difference in treatment from books otherwise acquired was that the experiment station books were accessioned separately so that it would be possible to take them out of the library again if desired. All books and periodicals bought or exchanged for the experiment station since 1897 have been dealt with like those bought or exchanged for the university. The questions of administration come therefore for the most part under the general library policy. Books are purchased for the university either out of the legislative appropriation for the library or the appropriations for the university and its different colleges and departments of investigation. =1. Library funds.= The library funds are assigned to the various departments in the colleges of the university by a committee on the apportionment of library funds, consisting of the president, the librarian and the deans of the colleges, who act on the recommendations of a senate library committee. This is composed of the president and the librarian and seven members representing the following interests; Agriculture, Engineering, Science, Graduate school, Library, The languages, literature and arts, and The philosophical and social sciences. Besides preparing for the first mentioned committee on apportionment, detailed estimates of the library needs of the various colleges, schools and departments, the library committee acts as an advisory board to the librarian in matters of library administration and policy. The college of agriculture, which in Illinois is of course intimately connected with the agricultural experiment station, receives its share of the library funds for the purchase of books selected by its professors and investigators. =2. Maintenance Funds, called Equipment funds in the Library to distinguish from Library funds.= Books are also purchased out of the legislative appropriations for the support of certain colleges and out of allotments made by the trustees from the general university funds for colleges not specifically provided for by the legislature. In the case of agricultural books these funds have the two purposes: the maintenance fund for the college of agriculture and the experiment station and, second, the appropriations for special departments of investigation in the experiment station.