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A Peep Into the O.S.S. Library Files

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

In the widely-spaced interests of the massive Pamphlet Collection that I purchased of the Library of Congress years ago were a number of items that had once been in the library of the Office of Strategic Services (the O.S.S.), which was the predecessor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency.  Most of the pamphlets were stamped “Library/OSS” as were the foreign language pamphlets, which for my experience were housed in manila folders with internal routing slips.  The example below happens to not have that O.S.S. stamp, though I am sure that it is one among the others–this one though is from 1939, and the O.S.S. wasn’t formed until 1942.

I’m sharing it here as an example of a small insight into the organizational capacity of the O.S.S. library–it is simply an interesting and thorough classification of ephemeral information. 

WWII gas attack _a_358

And inside:

WWII gas attack _b_359

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