Excerpt from Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress: For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1945 The Library has grown great, and the mark of its greatness is the growth of its responsibilities. Because this is so, it should be declared now and unequivocally that my colleagues and I repudiate every movement toward reckless aggrandize ment, and that we disclaim any ambition to absorb any and all national and inter national functions elsewhere satisfactorily and consistently performed in the public interest. As for the American library system, it is our fixed purpose to supple ment rather than supplant the' local re source. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.