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these efforts. Appropriate staffing of the Museum Support Center will begin in FY 1983 and will continue incrementally through the planning period. Particular attention will be paid to providing the necessary technical staff, including conservation specialists at the Center and the Mall Museum, to maintain properly the collections and associated records.

The construction of the Museum Support Center will allow over a period of years the return of collection space to public use, primarily for exhibits. Over FY 1981-82, the Museum will be establishing temporary exhibition space for such outstanding traveling shows as the Gold of Eldorado, as well as in-house produced exhibitions. The current Bicentennial hall is being reworked into a special area designated to such temporary exhibitions. As part of the long-range exhibition plan, in October 1980, the new coral reef exhibit was opened in the whale hall. This exhibit, a major undertaking, displays a living coral reef in a 2,500-gallon tank. In 1981, the Museum will also open in the whale hall an exhibit which will treat the exciting discoveries of new life forms that have been made at great depths along the Galapagos rift.

Research results continue to be published through the Institution's series publications, books, articles, and monographs. The popularity of the Handbook of North American Indians has far exceeded expectations, with the first two volumes on Indians of [[underlined]] California [[/underlined]] and the [[underlined]] Northeast [[/underlined]] selling out within a few months of their release dates. Both have had second and third printings, for a total now of 25,000 of each book in print. The first of two volumes on [[underlined]] Southwest [[/underlined]] Indians was published in spring 1980, and the Subarctic volume has been recently submitted to the printer. The volume on [[underlined]] Indians in Contemporary Society [[/underlined]] will be published in FY 1981. Some additional resources to cover increased production costs may be necessary later in the planning period before the entire twenty volumes can be completed (estimates place this need at approximately $100,000), but further study is necessary before a request is made.

Under its new director, the Museum of Natural History is exploring the prospects for more program-oriented research work in the future. The rapid degradation of the natural environments of the tropics as they undergo accelerated development is a major concern, and this is being seriously considered by the Museum as one area for potential added research attention. An effort to establish a program in tropical and desert studies may take place in FY 1983, along with some added emphasis in FY 1982 and future years on the Anthropology program as it relates to the study of man and his environment.

The Museum of Man now exists in a conceptual fashion only and within the facilities and administrative framework of the Museum of Natural History. As a museum, it has no resources, building, or activities of its own independent of the Museum of Natural History, except as reflected in the operations of the Center for the Study of Man. In future years, the Institution plans to organize several of its Man-related disciplines and endeavors into a more meaningful operation, and reasons for highlighting the concept of a separate Museum of Man are important to attaining certain institutional goals. For several years the Institution's administration has felt the need to create an entity which would coalesce and promote interdisciplinary research and