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and related functions. The Office will continue to manage the affairs of the Smithsonian's Council of Registrars and will collect and disseminate collections management information through this group.

In FY 1980, the Office developed an Institution-wide statement on collections policies; it will maintain in the future a complete file of individual bureau collections management policies along with summaries of procedures on specific topics such as acquisitions, deaccessioning and loans, so that all relevant information on these activities may be readily accessible.

An important activity of the Office of the Registrar has been to work with a variety of organizations for the development of standards for national and international museum data exchange. This work will continue and will be accelerated in future years. The Office also plans to establish a specialized transportation function that will assist and advise museums and other bureaus with the movement of collection objects among museums and the Museum Support Center.

[[underlined]] Smithsonian Libraries. [[/underlined]] The Smithsonian Institution Libraries is a major American academic research library system, serving Smithsonian and non-Smithsonian scholars through its collections and staff services. The Institution during the forthcoming planning period will try to address and solve some of the long-standing problems associated with the system. Foremost among these is inadequate space. The Institution will try to provide consolidated space to house safely the overflow of collections. Various solutions have been considered in the past, but were not approved or implemented because of higher priority space and facility needs. While the Institution's policy is to lease new space for programs only as a last resort, a request for this purpose may be necessary in future years. The Institution must also consider remaining renovation needs of the central library space located in the Museum of Natural History building, along with the need to create atmospherically sound stack areas in all of the branches of the system.

Plans call for a complete, on-line bibliographic data base management system (acquisitions, cataloguing, catalogue access, interlibrary loans, serial check-in, and circulation) for the entire network of Smithsonian Libraries and FY 1983 is the target date for implementation. Increased automation will provide greater access to Smithsonian library resources by the national research community and will reduce the long-range rise in the cost of doing business.

Conservation of needed research materials will be served by improved and upgraded storage stacks just noted, as well as by the Libraries' book conservation program. In 1981, conservation needs of the libraries will be investigated to determine priorities in preservation of unique and important materials. This study will guide the conservation program over the next five years. The book conservation laboratory, staffed by a professional team, continues to treat the most fragile and critical books and papers with advanced techniques and equipment.