The government documents round table was called together at 8:15 p. m., June 26th, by George S. Godard, state librarian of Connecticut, chairman of the committee on public documents. Mr. F. W. Schenk, law librarian of the University of Chicago, was asked to serve as secretary.

The chairman, after brief introductory remarks relating to the progress which had been made in the matter of printing, binding, labeling and distributing public documents, both national and state, introduced Miss Mary A. Hartwell, assistant chief cataloger in the office of the superintendent of documents, Washington, who read a paper prepared by Superintendent of Documents Frank C. Wallace, stating his position upon the many questions and resolutions suggested at previous conferences of the American Library Association relative to the distribution, indexing, assignment of volume numbers, and publication of daily bulletins by the document office.

Mr. Wallace's paper follows:

PAPER BY THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS

I regret the necessity of being compelled to adopt this means of addressing your Association, as I feel a better understanding could be had of what we are trying to do for the libraries if it were possible for this office to be represented at your conference. I have read with much interest the proceedings of your last conference, and a part of my paper will endeavor to explain some of the questions which were discussed and made the subject of resolutions.

Distribution of Bills and Other Publications Now Withheld From Distribution to the Libraries.

There is no doubt but that some libraries, even under the present liberal distribution of government publications, fail to receive everything they should, and I am thoroughly in accord with the opinion expressed during your discussion that means should be provided to enable the libraries to receive those publications of a public character that are now withheld from distribution. It is gratifying to note that in Senator Smoot's printing bill, which has been reintroduced in the present Congress, there are provisions intended to supply remedies for certain existing conditions.

Section 65, paragraph 1, to which I refer, provides that a sufficient number of copies of those publications of Congress which do not bear a congressional number, including the committee publications now withheld from distribution to depositories and those printed elsewhere than at the government printing office, shall be supplied to the libraries. It is also worded so as to prevent the departments from withholding some of their publications from the depositories.

The printing committee no doubt had in mind when this provision was framed that, under the provisions of the existing law, too much discretion is given the departments, with the result that, contrary to the spirit of the printing law, libraries are being deprived of certain classes of publications that are really of a public character.

The question as to the best method to be employed in the distribution of bills is not so easy of solution. It would not be practicable for this office to attempt to carry even a limited supply, as the work involved in storing them in an accessible manner would involve an expenditure that I do not believe could be justified by the results.

During the 62d Congress there were introduced 28,870 House bills and 8,589 Senate bills, and you can readily see that to handle an adequate stock of all those bills would be considerable of an undertaking. At the present time the only distributing agencies for copies of bills are the House and Senate document rooms at the capitol, but, although they sometimes furnish bills on request, the copies they receive are not intended for general public distribution. It seems to me that the solution supplied in your suggestion, that the text of all public bills upon which committee reports are made should be printed with the reports, is the most logical one that has ever been presented, but it would not be practicable to include also the testimony taken at hearings held by the committees, for in many cases the testimony would fill several large volumes. Besides, section 65, already referred to, provides that the libraries shall receive such hearings. Of course this section is not yet law, but we are permitted to hope that it may become so.

This is desirable from more than one point of view. It is often the case that committee reports refer to sections of the bill under consideration by number without quoting the language. In such cases the report may be unintelligible to any reader who has not a copy of the bill before him. In fact, nearly all committee reports not accompanied by the bills to which they relate may properly be classed as incomplete and imperfect publications.

The question of cost involved in printing the text of bills as appendixes to the committee reports upon them is not serious. While the number of bills introduced in Congress and receiving a first print is prodigious, and the cost of printing them in 14-point type with as many white lines as type lines is tremendous, it must be remembered that only a very small percentage of the bills introduced ever get so far as a committee report, and of these a considerable number are already printed with the reports by order of the committees, and the cost of printing the remainder in solid 8-point is so very much less than the cost of printing them in the extended bill form that it is almost negligible.

I do not think it is too late for the Association to submit to the joint committee on printing an amendment providing for the printing of the text of bills and resolutions as appendixes to the committee reports upon them. The pending bill may not pass, or may be extensively amended before passage, or may not be acted upon at the present special session, but I consider it probable that a general printing law of some kind will be enacted at a comparatively early day, and that the American Library Association may, by proper effort, secure the incorporation in it of the desired provision for the printing of the text of bills with the committee reports.

Reasons Why Catalogs and Indexes Cannot Be Issued More Promptly

The need for the prompt issue of the catalogs is thoroughly appreciated, as we understand they are the only means of information the general public have for knowing what the United States government is publishing.

The Monthly Catalog is required to show what documents have been published during a month. Evidently, therefore, its compilation cannot be completed until after the close of the month. The compilation, however, is always completed within three or four days after the month closes. Sometimes the printing does not follow as quickly as one would like. This may seem strange to libraries, to whom the Monthly Catalog is perhaps the most important of all the public documents. If, however, they were in Washington they would soon realize that there are several other government concerns, some of them larger and more exacting than the public documents office. There is one known as the Congress of the United States, which calls for thousands of pages of printing where the documents office calls for one, and which, when it calls for the right of way in the government printing office (or anywhere else), is able to get it. The printing of the document office receives every consideration in the government printing office which it is possible to give, but it cannot command the right of way over Congress, the White House, or the cabinet.

It has been a long time since the Monthly Catalog has failed to be mailed during the month following its date, often by the middle of the month. It is to be noted, also, that its information is quite different from that of "press notices." It enters only documents that have been actually received, and its descriptions are minute and accurate. In its preliminary pages it gives such advance information of forthcoming documents as can be officially secured and vouched for. There is a habit in some government offices of giving the newspaper reporters information of proposed publications before the copy is ready for the printer, and sometimes before pen has been put to paper. Plans thus prematurely announced are subject to change and the advance notice may thus mislead the reader. Readers of the Monthly Catalog are not thus misled.

The superintendent of documents is confident that those librarians who keep well informed recognize his purpose to do everything for the great library interests of the country that the limitations of the law and the executive pressure upon his and other administrative offices for economy make possible.

The main cause for delay in the preparation of the copy for the document catalogs and indexes is that publications are ordered printed as documents that do not materialize until long after the close of the Congress to which they have been assigned, thus making it necessary to delay publication of the catalog and indexes until sufficient information can be obtained for making the entry.

It is hardly necessary to explain why the document catalog is being issued in one volume to cover the entire Congress instead of at the close of each regular session, as provided by law, because a very complete and detailed explanation has been given in several of the annual reports. It is evident our explanation has been considered satisfactory by the printing committee, as the new printing bill provides for the document catalog to cover a whole Congress.

I will also refrain from a long discourse as to why the work on the catalogs has been behind, as I know the librarians are only interested as to the promptness in the printing of these bibliographical aids in the future. The copy for the 61st Congress catalog will be ready for the printer sometime during the coming summer and that for the 62d Congress before the adjournment of the 63d Congress, which will be as near as it will be possible to issue this catalog after the period covered.

This leaves it to the Monthly Catalog and the Document Index to bridge the gap and supply the current information from one Document Catalog to another, which, although not as complete and as comprehensive as the Document Catalog, serve as excellent substitutes during the interim.

Assignment of Volume Numbers to the Congressional Series

There is probably no question concerning public documents to which this office has given more consideration than the devising of a plan by which it would be possible to assign the volume numbers to the congressional series as soon as the documents are printed.

There are two very material advantages to be gained, were it possible to solve this question; one that of eliminating the necessity for the public printer to supply storage room for these documents and reports prior to the preparation of the schedule; and the other that the work of the librarians in cataloging these documents and reports would be greatly facilitated by having all of the necessary information at the time the publication was cataloged. The greatest handicap to a solution of this problem is the lack of information concerning the publications which have not been printed and to which document numbers have been assigned. Even now, after the session is closed, we are compelled to hold up the schedule for weeks and sometimes months to learn the title, paging, and other necessary information regarding certain publications to which numbers have been assigned, but which are not printed.

At the present time in preparing the schedule, we endeavor to maintain a numerical arrangement in binding the Senate and House Reports after having classified them as public or private in accordance with the provisions of the printing law. The Senate documents are brought together first by subject and then by number, but, with the House documents, on account of the introduction in this series of all the annual and serial publications, an effort is made to preserve, as far as possible, a departmental and subject arrangement.

It might be well to explain at this point that, although the only volumes distributed to the libraries now as numbered congressional publications are those of which Congress is the author, and of these there are consequently no other editions, the schedules and index must of necessity, on account of the wording of the law at the present time, be made to cover a complete numbered set still provided for the exclusive use of Congress.

There is about only one way to accomplish the numbering of the volumes as soon as printed under the present law, and that is by disregarding entirely any sort of an arrangement and assigning the next open volume number as the documents and reports appear. Of course, the index would furnish the key to these miscellaneous volumes. Such a plan is now being considered by us, and it is hoped that before July 1 some plan can be devised which will permit of a more prompt shipment of the documents and reports to the libraries.

Publication of a Daily Bulletin

The resolution of the Association passed at Pasadena, May, 1911, favoring the publication of a daily or weekly bulletin of the document issues by the superintendent of documents, has not been forgotten or overlooked, but up to the present time the project appears no more feasible than it did at the beginning.

The documents office has not the authority of initiative except to a very limited extent. Its activities are all prescribed and defined by law. It is from the law that the superintendent of documents derives his authority to compile and publish the Monthly Catalog, the Document Index, the Document Catalog, and the series of price lists. It would hardly be proper or prudent for him to begin the issue of another periodical without first asking the permissive or directory action of Congress. Asking does not always mean getting. Legislation concerning the document service has been found heretofore somewhat slow and difficult in the securing. I do not feel that I could predict with any confidence that legislation authorizing a daily or weekly bulletin could be secured at all.

If it could, an appropriation to make it operative would be needed, because it is not practicable for the members of the present cataloging force to undertake any new work. They are working under high pressure to bring the Document Catalog up to date and to keep the Document Index and the Monthly Catalog there.

The embarrassment caused librarians by calls for documents which have been noticed in the newspapers but not yet announced in the Monthly Catalog is not so much due to delay of the Monthly Catalog as to premature announcement in the newspapers. It is the practice of various government bureaus to pass along to the newspaper men information of new publications as soon as they are sent to press or even sooner. Of course readers of the newspapers assume that the documents noticed are already available for sale or distribution, whereas the fact is that various causes may tie up the documents in press for months or even years. The most prolific cause of such delays is changes—changes in "copy," changes in "proof," changes even to the substitution of entirely new matter after a first draft has been put in type. The number and extent of such changes in printing the public documents are almost unbelievable, and they are of course highly embarrassing to the libraries and to the public when premature announcement of the forthcoming issue of the delayed document has been made.

If the publishing bureaus could be induced to withhold information of new documents until such documents had been actually printed, bound, and delivered, the embarrassment experienced by librarians would be obviated. It is hardly practicable, however, for the superintendent of documents to make any suggestion in the matter to the publishing offices. Some of them at least would be likely to resent such a suggestion from him as being meddlesome and out of his sphere. As to whether such suggestion from the American Library Association would be welcomed or heeded, I do not venture to express an opinion.

Premature announcements are not always accurate. The announced publications are often changed in the making, and sometimes are not published at all.

Of course, the Monthly Catalog, being an official document and an accurate one, cannot take any chances on premature announcements. All of its entries stand for documents actually received, carefully examined, and their origin fully inquired into. This is not work to be hastily done. Sometimes a surprising amount of time and trouble are expended in finding out whether a document belongs in some series, whether it is the beginning or ending of that series; if the latter, then whether the same subject or subjects are to be pursued in some other series, and the variety of similar details which libraries and collectors should have, and for which they look to the documents office, because in too many cases such particulars cannot be ascertained by examination of the document itself.

A month is the shortest time in which such matters can be sifted out and brought into orderly catalog form. Lists issued at any shorter intervals must necessarily be memoranda rather than catalogs, and the work done on them must be performed again in a more orderly manner for the official monthly, annual, and biennial catalogs.

Explanation of Section 8 of the Legislative Appropriation Act Centralizing the Distribution in the Office of the Superintendent of Documents

The long cherished hope for a central distributing office has been realized nominally, but the provisions of law creating it, I am sorry to say, correct only the evils that existed from a mechanical standpoint, in that they prevent the double hauling and wrapping that were necessary prior to the change. There remain as many distributing agencies as before, as the authority to distribute the publications consigned to this office continues with the issuing office. The libraries have been afforded no relief, because now, as before, if a dozen selected pamphlets are wanted, it may mean the writing to about as many different places. This is a rather difficult proceeding, as most persons are unfamiliar with the machinery of the government and are frequently in doubt whom to address to secure the desired publications. The departments have always been rather reluctant to relinquish control of the distribution of their documents, and the new printing bill, should it be enacted as it now reads, would give back to them even the mailing of the daily miscellaneous requests.

Instead of providing for such a step backward, it is the opinion of this office that a provision should be inserted that would discontinue entirely the free distribution by the departments (except to collaborators and sufficient copies for official use), and would permit the superintendent of documents to supply free copies to public libraries and sell copies to the public at a nominal cost.

At the present time the departments have only a limited supply, which results in a few applicants obtaining free what others have to pay for.

There is probably not a librarian who hasn't experienced the inconvenience of the present arrangement, as it is a daily occurrence for us to have to refer their requests to the issuing office or quote the prices.

Need for Co-Operation on the Part of the Librarians to Improve the Publication and Distribution Methods of Government Publications

The most striking example of the need for co-operation is that we are today fighting for certain reforms in the methods of publication that were asked for sixteen years ago.

The first superintendent of documents had hardly entered upon the duties of the office before he recognized the faulty methods of publication and distribution which he well knew served only to prevent the public document from occupying the position its general standard of efficiency warranted.

It is hard to understand why the untiring efforts of those interested in promoting the use of the public document have been practically ignored when you stop to think of the annual cost in compilation, printing, and distribution.

We all know that every conceivable subject is treated in the public documents, and when we think of their value to the historian, student, and public in general, it is hard to understand why any obstacles should be put in the way of making them readily accessible and encouraging the librarians to give them the proper place on their shelves.

Now, as to the faulty methods which obtain in the publication of the public documents, very little has been accomplished in the way of reform. That the present methods cause needless expense in mechanical production and needless difficulties in their use, there is no question. Chief of these faulty methods is that of reprinting the same book several times under different numbers and titles. I do not mention this as a new discovery, because every superintendent of documents has endeavored to have the law changed to eliminate from the congressional series those publications of which a departmental edition is printed.

One edition for one book is the only logical manner of issuing government publications, and the Smoot bill which has again been introduced goes a long way towards correcting the present evil.

Section 45 provides that all publications of which there is a department edition printed, except the annual reports of the executive departments, shall not be numbered in the congressional series, and section 65 provides that all copies additional to the original order of the department should be identical with those ordered by the department.

We are seriously opposed to the exception of the annual reports, and with the hopes of eliminating any exceptions we have just written the Senate committee on printing as follows:

There is no question that the librarians are in sympathy with what we are trying to do, so now is the time to join forces and make every effort to have this bill embody the necessary provisions to correct all existing evils.

The librarians must give the movement impetus, and we believe if sufficient organized effort is directed in the proper channels good results will be bound to follow.

Mr. Wallace's paper was received with enthusiasm because it showed his close and intimate knowledge of matters pertaining to the publication and distribution of documents. A spirited discussion followed the reading of the paper, all through which expressions of appreciation were made concerning the service which had been rendered by the document office in recent years towards prompt and efficient distribution of publications delivered to that office.

Miss Hartwell, informally representing the superintendent of documents, answered many questions relative to the serial numbers on government documents and urged if consistent with the policy of the American Library Association that action be taken suggesting to Congress that annual reports now listed in the congressional set of documents be omitted inasmuch as they are not now in the depository set and such omission would facilitate the publication of the Documentary Index.

The discussion also brought out the consensus of opinion that the libraries would be more satisfactorily served if all publications were sent out under the direction of the superintendent of documents.

Henry J. Carr, librarian of the Scranton public library; Miss Edith E. Clarke of Syracuse University, and Herbert O. Brigham, state librarian of Rhode Island, were appointed a special committee to prepare a suitable resolution of thanks to Mr. Wallace for his excellent paper and to draft suitable resolutions to be submitted to the Council for its approval, urging that the recommendations in Mr. Wallace's paper relative to publication and distribution of documents be approved by the American Library Association, this committee to report at an adjourned meeting of the session to be held at 12:15 p. m. on Friday.

The second paper of the evening, prepared by Mr. FRANCIS A. CRANDALL of Washington, D. C., on certain phases of the public document question, in his absence was read by Charles F. D. Belden, state librarian of Massachusetts.

Mr. Crandall's paper (in part) here follows:

PROPOSING AN EXECUTIVE GAZETTE

The committee on department methods, known to the public as the Keep commission, was the agency through which, about seven years ago, President Roosevelt hoped to reorganize and energize the government service in Washington.

The Keep commission organized for helpers twelve so-called assistant committees, their total membership being about seventy, all supposed to be experts in the several branches of inquiry assigned to them.

On one of these assistant committees, the one on "The organization of editorial work and an official gazette," the writer had the honor to serve.

We held more than one hundred meetings, and examined as witnesses almost if not quite every man and woman who had any official relation with the work of preparing manuscripts for printing. We learned after a while that the President wanted an official gazette, and expected us to devise the means of creating it. I think that nearly all the members from the start deemed the scheme impracticable and chimerical. It became clear that it would be a costly enterprise, and we could not find any department that had the money for it.

Soon after this Mr. Keep left Washington, and the Keep commission, though nominally still living, dwindled rapidly, and brought forth little if any more fruit.

The members of the assistant committees were left stranded, with desks full of unprinted manuscripts as the only results of their prolonged labors. From one of these desks I have withdrawn the report of a subcommittee of the assistant committee on the organization of editorial work and an official gazette. Though it was written half a dozen years ago, it seems that an element of interest yet remains in its proposal for the publication, as an alternative to the impracticable official gazette, of an executive gazette. This proposal has not had any exploitation whatever.

In the hope that it may in this way be brought to the general notice of persons interested in the methods of publication and preservation of the historical records of the government it is now offered for the consideration of the American Library Association.

The London Gazette, which is the model most generally thought of when the term official gazette is used, was begun in 1665, and may be looked upon as a survival of the pre-newspaper age, for though there were newspapers before the Gazette, they bore little resemblance to what we now know by that name, and the daily press—the significant part of the press of our day—was not born till a generation later. We may assume that when the Gazette was begun its semi-weekly issues were sufficient to carry all the official information that the government of that day wished to offer to its subjects. But this long since ceased to be true. The English government now has a host of publications which do not appear in either of the three Gazettes—London, Edinburgh, and Dublin—of the United Kingdom, nor in any of the multitude of gazettes which are issued in the various British dependencies, from Canada and Australia to Borneo and the Andaman Islands. The country has outgrown the London Gazette, and by its growth has been forced into that specialization and subdivision of its official publications which we see even more notably in our own country. No doubt for the Andaman Islands a monthly gazette covers the whole ground, everything being printed in it and no occasion being found for any other official publication whatever. This may be true of many small countries, but it is not conceivable for a great and growing country like ours.

The specialization of official publications seems to be an inevitable result of the growth of public interests and the public service. By recent methods documents are printed relating to special branches of the public service and sent only to those employed in such branches. Economy of both time and labor as well as economy in printing are thus promoted. This subdivision is carried out with much minuteness. The Daily Bulletin of the Railway Mail Service, relating solely to the affairs which its title indicates, is printed in Washington in an edition of 1,500 copies and supplied to all offices in the department and sent out to the different division superintendents throughout the country. These superintendents extract from it the matters which affect their divisions and redistribute these parts to their subordinates in general orders. Thus everybody in the postal service gets that information and those orders which he needs and he does not get and consequently does not waste any time upon that information and those orders which he does not need. The hydrographic office's weekly, Notice to Mariners, containing only the latest information as to aids and hindrances to navigation, would seem to be a sufficiently specialized publication to be supplied to sailors without further ado. Part of the edition is issued in the complete form, but economy and efficiency are further promoted by additional subdivision. The weekly publication, not a large one to begin with, is split into many parts, often a dozen or a score, and one of these leaflets is supplied to the mariner who needs information as to those waters only into which his own voyage will carry him. The Yearbook of Agriculture, the Annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum, the American Historical Association, the Chief of Engineers, the Chief of Ordnance, the Bureau of Education, and other publications which are made up of distinct papers or chapters that permit of separate publication, are split up and each chapter or paper printed in a pamphlet by itself, so that the authors and others who ask for copies of special papers may have these alone and the cost of supplying them with whole volumes thus be saved. Even pamphlets of moderate size, like the bulletins of the Department of Agriculture which report the proceedings of the conventions of official agricultural chemists, economic entomologists, and other bodies of government specialists, are split into fascicules with which the popular demand for information on special parts of the work of these scientific bodies may be met at least cost.

Any publication, by whatever name or in whatever form, which undertook to include all of these and the other and almost innumerable specialized publications of the government, and to have itself supplied to all who now receive the existing publications, would of necessity be of enormous bulk and be printed in an enormous edition, and it seems to your committee that it must break down of its own weight. We think it absolutely essential to the success of an official gazette that all of these specialized class publications should be most rigorously excluded from its pages. Specialization seems to be a natural and proper development of the public printing, and it would hardly be practicable, or wise if practicable, to arrest it.

For these reasons, your committee, in casting about for material which might properly and usefully be carried in an official gazette, should one be issued, has endeavored to choose that only which is of interest to all classes and not alone to any one class, whether in or out of the public service. The list which represents the judgment of the committee in this respect is still very long. We have not suggested the discontinuance of any publication on account of its inclusion in a gazette, because in all the letters we have received from public officials, and all the questions we have asked them, we have not yet found one who is of opinion that any publication now existing can be superseded by publication in a gazette without injury to the public service.

Opinion among officials as to a gazette is radically divided, the number for and against appearing to be about equal, though the adverse argument appears to be the stronger. Opinion in the committee is also widely divided, and we are unable to make a unanimous recommendation on the desirability or feasibility of issuing a gazette on the model of the London Gazette or of any other official gazette known to us.

Your committee, however, thinks it a duty to submit for consideration an alternative plan, based on a suggestion offered in one of the official letters received in reply to its inquiries. This alternative is an executive gazette, to contain all of the official papers and messages of the President and such other occasional matters of special and immediate importance as the President may think it advisable to have officially published. Such matter might perhaps at times be drawn from the diplomatic correspondence with other governments or from reports made by American ambassadors, ministers, or consuls, or from the findings or rulings of commissions or other official bodies or other sources for which no special method of official publication is now provided.

The weight of this suggestion lies in the fact that every word officially put forth by the chief executive is of universal interest and of historical import, and no official vehicle for its complete and authentic publication is now provided. It is printed in the Congressional Record, in the newspapers, on separate sheets, in the collected volumes of statutes, and sometimes not at all. These publications are so scattered and each different kind so incomplete that the most industrious librarian or other collector can never be sure that he has all. When the congressional compilation of the messages and papers of the Presidents from Washington to McKinley was made the originals were gathered from all sorts of public documents and old newspaper files and miscellaneous sources. When it chanced that some of the old papers were preserved in public offices the compilers—especially at first—did not know where to look for them. That compilation as finally made is commendable, but nobody can say that it is complete. It served, however, to demonstrate—what indeed all students knew before—that there is no place where all the official utterances of the head of the government may certainly be found. If they were all to be printed in one publication—if the faith of all Presidents were pledged that all official papers should be given publicity in one known publication, and if that publication were so published by volume and number that any historical student or collector might know to a certainty when he had secured all of these publications, then it seems to your committee that something of real moment would have been accomplished.

It is true that the publication of presidential messages in an executive gazette would contradict the unanimous opinion of the committee that any sort of an official gazette should be wholly colorless from a partisan point of view. Still, it seems of high state importance that all of the official utterances of the chief executive, without exception, should be collected and published in some known and accessible place. Whether this consideration is of more or less importance than that of keeping a gazette free from partisanship the committee does not undertake to decide. It submits the suggestion without expression of opinion on its own part.

The adjourned session of the government documents round table was called to order by Chairman Godard at 12:15 p. m. on Friday, June 27th. Mr. Carr, reporting for the special committee, reported certain resolutions, which were unanimously adopted and referred to the Council with the request that they be officially adopted by the Association and copies of the same be transmitted in official form to the joint committee on printing, the public printer, and the superintendent of documents.[12]