College and Research Libraries


Problems of Document Bibliography 
and Distribution: A Symposium 

The following three papers were presented at the meeting of the A L A Public Documents 
Committee, in Los Angeles, June 23, 1953. The committee is constantly involved in the study 
of problems of this nature and the intent of the meeting was to provide both facts and new 
ideas to librarians concerned with public documents, national, state, and international.—Carl 
H. Melinat, Chairman, ALA Public Documents Committee. 

By R O Y B. E A S T I N 

Central Indexing and Distribution of 
U . S. Government Documents 

Air. Eastin, formerly Superintendent of 
Documents, is now executive assistant to the 
Public Printer, U. S. Government Printing 
Office. 

IMAGINE, IF YOU C A N , a neat stack of en-velopes about 20 times as high as the 
Washington Monument. The letters received 
last year by the Division of Public Documents 
of the Government Printing Office in Wash-
ington, would, if stacked, reach such a height. 
These orders for publications and requests for 
information about publications are received at 
the rate of 27 a minute. The volume is so 
great than an average of only 13 working 
minutes can be devoted to each letter received. 
In addition to conducting its sales program, 
the Division of Public Documents last year 
mailed more than 80 million publications for 
other government agencies and for members 
of Congress. In all, it places an average of 
more than 560,000 publications in the mail 
each day. 

The cataloging and indexing of new govern-
ment publications is also no small job. During 
the last fiscal year, 36,000 government docu-
ments were processed by the Library of the 
Division of Public Documents. These totaled 
more than 1,600,000 pages and, if piled up, 
would form a stack one and one-half times as 
high as the height of the center span of the 
Golden Gate Bridge above the waters of San 
Francisco Bay. In processing this number of 
documents, the library completely classified, 
cataloged, and indexed one document every 
three and one-half minutes of each working 

day in the year. 
The greatest demand for government pub-

lications comes from librarians, who have no 
small task in attempting to keep ahead of the 
vast publishing program of the government. 
Just to keep informed is a real job. The 
Monthly Catalog of U. S. Government Pub-
lications is the most complete listing, so a 
librarian could check the 19,000 to 24,000 
entries that appear in the catalogs each year; 
or, to keep in touch on a subject basis, he 
could check the more than 50,000 index entries 
appearing annually. A library which is a 
designated depository for government publica-
tions would receive more than 16,000 indi-
vidual pieces from the Government Printing 
Office, if it elected to receive everything avail-
able. These could be placed on one shelf, 
provided the shelf were as long as one and 
one-half railroad cars. 

Whether a library obtains documents as the 
result of diligent effort or on an automatic 
depository basis, the products of government 
publishing, by their very multitude, present a 
challenge. 

Government publications ". . . have long 
been the terror of librarians and the despair 
of almost everyone who has attempted to 
make use of them. . . ." This statement was 
made 17 years ago by Alton P. Tisdel, former 
Superintendent of Documents, who spent his 
entire working life dealing with the problems 
surrounding publications of the federal gov-
ernment.1 Tisdel went on to say: 

1 Schmeckebier, L a u r e n c e F . , Government Publications 
and Their Use, Washington, Brookings Institution, 1 9 3 6 . 
F o r e w o r d by Alton P . T i s d e l , p. vii. 

JANUARY, 1954 33 



P u b l i c D o c u m e n t s are no l o n g e r m e r e d r y 
statistical r e c o r d s . T h e i r p r o v i n c e is the e n -
tire field o f h u m a n k n o w l e d g e and they touch 
h u m a n l i v i n g on e v e r y h a n d ; their i m p o r t a n c e 
to the g e n e r a l p u b l i c and to the business i n -
terests o f the c o u n t r y c a n n o t be f u l l y estimated, 
and the l i b r a r i e s are a c t i v e a g e n c i e s in e d u c a t -
i n g the p u b l i c c o n c e r n i n g not o n l y the b r o a d 
scope o f such d o c u m e n t s , but their v a s t t r e a s -
ures o f scientific, industrial, a n d e c o n o m i c i n -
f o r m a t i o n . T h e y are t h e r e f o r e i n v a l u a b l e as 
s o u r c e m a t e r i a l , and the question as to their 
f u t u r e u s e f u l n e s s is l a r g e l y in the h a n d s of 
the live, u p - t o - d a t e , and p r o g r e s s i v e l i b r a r i a n . 2 

In his study for the Public Library Inquiry, 
McCamy came to a similar conclusion. He 
stated in the summary to his first chapter: 

It takes a r e a d e r e s p e c i a l l y interested in a 
specific s u b j e c t to d i g out the i n f o r m a t i o n 
u p o n it to be f o u n d in g o v e r n m e n t d o c u m e n t s . 
A n d it takes a r e f e r e n c e l i b r a r i a n w i t h special 
skills to be o f m u c h assistance.3 

Now why should government publications 
present such difficulties for both the reader 
and the librarian? M r . McCamy found that 
librarians have difficulty in using them because 
of the system of distribution and because of 
the libraries' own internal problems of space 
and personnel. 

Schmeckebier, in his excellent book entitled 
Government Publications, makes this state-
ment : 

A l t h o u g h i n c r e a s i n g use is b e i n g m a d e o f 
G o v e r n m e n t p u b l i c a t i o n s it is u n f o r t u n a t e that 
not o n l y the g e n e r a l p u b l i c , but m a n y m a t u r e 
i n v e s t i g a t o r s as w e l l , h a v e no c o m p r e h e n s i o n 
o f the m a t e r i a l a v a i l a b l e and o f m e t h o d s o f 
finding p u b l i c a t i o n s on the p a r t i c u l a r t o p i c s 
in w h i c h they are interested. W h i l e the a r -
r a n g e m e n t and classification o f g o v e r n m e n t 
p u b l i c a t i o n s is at times e x t r e m e l y c o n f u s i n g , 
there are v a r i o u s g u i d e s w h i c h assist the stu-
dent in finding his w a y . 4 

In the introduction to the book entitled 
United States Government Publications, by 
Boyd and Rips, is this comment: 

It is not too s t r o n g a statement to say that 
no m o d e r n l i b r a r y c a n g i v e a d e q u a t e r e f e r e n c e 
s e r v i c e w i t h o u t access to the p u b l i c a t i o n s o f 
the U n i t e d States G o v e r n m e n t . T h e y are r e -
liable, u p - t o - d a t e , i n e x p e n s i v e s o u r c e s o f i n -
f o r m a t i o n on p r a c t i c a l l y e v e r y s u b j e c t o f 

2 Ibid. 
3 McCamy, J a m e s L . , Government Publications for the 

Citizen, New York, Columbia University Press, 1950, 
p. 26. 

4 Schmeckebier, op. cit., p. 1 . 

timely i n t e r e s t ; they c o n t a i n the i n d i s p e n s a b l e 
d a t a f o r the r e s e a r c h w o r k e r and the t e c h n i c a l 
specialist in m a n y fields; they p r o v i d e i n s t r u c -
tion and g u i d a n c e in all sorts o f p r a c t i c a l 
pursuits f r o m b r i n g i n g up c h i l d r e n to o p e r a t -
i n g a retail store o r r e p a i r i n g a D i e s e l e n g i n e . 

T h e r e is, h o w e v e r , no c l a s s o f r e f e r e n c e 
m a t e r i a l w h o s e v a l u e to the l i b r a r y is so d e -
p e n d e n t u p o n k n o w l e d g e o f its c h a r a c t e r and 
content b y m e m b e r s o f the staff. T h e e n o r -
m o u s q u a n t i t y o f U n i t e d States g o v e r n m e n t 
p u b l i c a t i o n s , the m u l t i t u d e o f s u b j e c t s and 
p r o b l e m s w h i c h they treat, the v a r i a t i o n in 
their v a l u e , the inconsistencies in f o r m , the 
h a p h a z a r d , c o n f u s i n g m e t h o d s o f their p r o d u c -
tion and d i s t r i b u t i o n m a k e the attainment o f 
this k n o w l e d g e a s o m e w h a t difficult task.6 

Most of the problems of cataloging, dis-
tributing, and using government publications 
can be traced to the great numbers of publica-
tions issued. It takes a well-staffed library 
with an overdose of courage to attempt to 
treat public documents in the same manner 
as privately published works. And as soon as 
government publications are segregated and 
handled apart from the regular collection, spe-
cial problems appear. 

Most libraries simply cannot afford to enter 
government documents individually in their 
card catalogs. The result is that many use 
the Superintendent of Documents Classifica-
tion System and depend upon the Monthly 
Catalog and the lists of publications issued by 
some governmental agencies. 

The Monthly Catalog is a publication in 
which everyone in the Division of Public Doc-
uments takes great pride. It is a real feat to 
get every publication classified and cataloged 
and the entire catalog ready to go to the printer 
at the end of each month. As each issue goes 
to press, we wonder if we can make the dead-
line on the next one. Some catalogs merely 
cut off when the end of the month arrives and 
include remaining entries in the next issue. 
Others devote their December issue exclu-
sively to an annual index and save all entries 
for the January number. If we attempted 
either of these practices with the Monthly 
Catalog, we would receive so many complaints 
that apologizing for our past sins would pre-
vent our issuing the next catalog. The 
Monthly Catalog is certainly the best central 
medium for the location of publications of 
the United States government. Each issue 

5 Boyd, Ann Morris and Rips, Rae Elizabeth, United 
States Government Publications, New York, H. W . 
Wilson Co., 1949, p. x x i . 

34 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



contains about 2,000 entries and has an indi-
vidual monthly index with an annual index 
provided in the December issue each year. 
Subscriptions at $3 per year are now at an 
all-time high point of 11,600. 

W e are constantly trying to improve the 
Monthly Catalog and to make it of maximum 
interest to most users. Many librarians ex-
pressed a need for a cumulative or consoli-
dated index to the Monthly Catalog, and the 
task of issuing such an index for the period 
1941 to 1950 has been assumed by the Office 
of the Superintendent of Documents, with the 
prospective purchasers having subscribed in 
advance the sum necessary to cover the print-
ing cost. Although this project has taken 
considerably longer than estimated, the Cum-
ulative Index is very near completion and 
should certainly be in the hands of all sub-
scribers by early autumn. 

A fear that is sometimes expressed by those 
who use the Monthly Catalog is that much 
material issued by the various government 
agencies is too fugitive, despite our best efforts 
to include in the Monthly Catalog all United 
States government publications. The act 
which created the Office of the Superintendent 
of Documents provided that all government 
departments, agencies, and bureaus furnish the 
Superintendent of Documents with one copy 
of every publication which they issue. This 
directive was further amplified by the Con-
gressional Joint Committee on Printing in 
1937, to specifically include all processed ma-
terial, as well as printed, providing the docu-
ments were not confidential or merely admin-
istrative in character. For the most part, the 
major installations that comprise the national 
government today comply with these direc-
tives, and the publications of more than 250 
departments, bureaus, and agencies of the 
government are regularly listed in the 
Monthly Catalog. Many departments and 
agencies, however, have within them divisions 
or offices which are separate publishers. Some 
of these activities are created by an adminis-
trative order of a government department. 
The people working in such offices have usu-
ally never heard of the Superintendent of 
Documents, much less of the requirement for 
furnishing him with a copy of all publications 
issued. This situation is most likely to pre-
vail where small bureaus or offices are set 
up in the field, in areas far removed from 
Washington. The Library of the Division of 
Public Documents received for cataloging dur-

ing the fiscal year 1952 over 16,000 processed 
publications. Unquestionably there were some 
that we did not receive; it is impossible to 
estimate how many. W e do have a continuing 
program of requesting distribution of publica-
tions in accordance with the law, not only 
from newly created government agencies but 
from others which, because of changes in 
organization or personnel, may have lost sight 
of this requirement. Printed publications are 
less likely to be in the fugitive category than 
the much greater volume of mimeographed, 
multigraphed, and other "near print" publica-
tions. 

Someone has suggested that the Superin-
tendent of Documents stimulate the prepara-
tion of departmental lists similar to the new 
catalog and index which the Department of 
Commerce has prepared for its publications 
Such lists and indexes are unquestionably 01 
great value; however, their preparation is 
time consuming and costly. An official of one 
department estimated that it would take four 
people working full time about 2 years to 
produce such a work and that if he were able 
to get the four people, there were many more 
pressing things for them to do. Another de-
partment started to revise its list of publica-
tions in 1949, with the idea of publishing an 
up-to-date edition. So far the list still has not 
appeared in printed form. 

In all discussions of this type we have to 
keep in mind the functions and responsibilities 
of the Office of Superintendent of Documents. 
W e are charged with four main functions: 
1. the distribution of publications to deposi-
tory libraries; 2. the sale of United States 
government publications; 3. the publishing of 
the Monthly Catalog; and 4. mailing services 
for the various government agencies. It is not 
our place to persuade the departments and 
agencies to issue lists and indexes of their pub-
lications. That is a job for persons and 
organizations which need such lists. The li-
brary profession should make known to the 
various government establishments the needs 
of librarians and of library patrons. 

It is interesting to examine the efforts of 
the executive departments in this field. 

Agriculture Department: In 1941 it issued 
a Numerical List of Current Publications for 
all series, giving titles, authors, and date of 
issue. It also published a complete index to 
publications issued from 1901 to 1925, with 
supplementary indexes up to 1940. All of 
these are now out of print. Perhaps librari-

JANUARY, 1954 35 



ans could persuade this department to pick 
up its fine work where it left off at the outset 
of the war. Through the years it has fre-
quently revised its current list of available 
publications, designated as Miscellaneous Pub-
lication No. 60; the latest revision was made 
in July 1951. This is very helpful for current 
material but, of course, is not a complete list. 

Commerce Department: As previously men-
tioned, this department has recently issued a 
catalog and index covering its publications up 
to October 1950. Some individual bureaus of 
the Department of Commerce have also issued 
useful lists of their publications. The Census 
Bureau, for example, publishes quarterly and 
annual cumulations in its Catalog and Subject 
Guide, and the National Bureau of Standards 
has a printed list covering the period from 
1901 to June, 1927, with a supplement to 
June, 1952. 

Defense Department: There is no over-all 
list covering the entire Armed Forces, and at 
the present time any lists which are prepared 
by the three services are not available to the 
public. This is understandable, in view of the 
nature of their work. Perhaps librarians 
could interest the department in issuing a 
list or index to all unclassified material. 

Health, Education, and Welfare: As the 
Federal Security Agency, this department did 
not have an over-all list of its publications. 
Possibly this is the ideal time to bring the 
need for such a list to the attention of the new 
department. 

Interior Department: No complete depart-
ment list. However, the Mines Bureau has 
compiled an excellent list of its publications 
from 1910 to 1949, with subject and author 
indexes. Yearly supplements are also issued. 
The Geological Survey also prepares a fine 
list which is revised periodically. The latest 
was issued in 1948, and four supplements have 
been released since. Unfortunately, none are 
currently issued to cover the rest of Interior 
Department's activities and here may be an-
other field for missionary wrork by librarians. 

Justice Department: Except for the publi-
cations of Immigration and Naturalization 
Service, the remaining agencies of this depart-
ment do little publishing, with the exception 
of limited quantities of briefs, petitions, etc., 
used officially in court cases and not available 
to the public, and the opinions of the Attorney 
General. Whether this department would 
feel that the type of its activities warranted 
a list of its publications is doubtful. 

Labor Department: Has issued lists 
through the years, the latest being up to Jan-
uary, 1948. Supplements to some parts of the 
list have been issued since in processed form. 

Post Office Department: Here again the 
limited scope of publishing activities makes 
issuance of a list of publications of question-
able value. 

State Department: The department fre-
quently issues lists of all publications, cumu-
lating the list for periods of a year or two. 
The latest list covers the period January 1951 
to July 1952. 

Treasury Department: Another very lim-
ited producer of publications, and another 
whose activities might not justify the issuance 
of a departmental list. 

These 10 executive departments, with their 
subordinate bureaus, accounted for approxi-
mately 66 per cent of all publications received 
by the Division of Public Documents Library 
in the fiscal year 1952. Congress, through its 
documents, reports, and proceedings, ac-
counted for nearly 13 per cent of this total. 
The remaining 21 per cent are the publications 
of all other boards, commissions, committees, 
and independent agencies. 

The job of persuading the government de-
partments and agencies that more depart-
mental lists should be issued is one which li-
brarians, as the chief users of such tools, can 
do better than anyone else. However, we 
must keep in mind the important consideration 
of cost in connection with an expanded pro-
gram of this kind. 

If librarians can convince the 10 executive 
departments that it is desirable to revise their 
lists, say every 5 years, and can induce those 
departments which are not now issuing such 
compilations to do so, we in the Division of 
Public Documents may be able to secure 
authorization to compile 5 year cumulation 
lists of the publications of all other boards, 
commissions, committees, and independent 
agencies. This would not include the docu-
ments and reports of Congress, lists of which 
are already published by the Division of Pub-
lic Documents for each session of Congress. 
Such a compilation would probably have to be 
done on a subscription basis, but the saving to 
libraries would far offset the cost. 

In the Division of Public Documents, we 
attempt at all times to provide the fullest 
service possible to libraries and to the public 
within the means at our disposal and to im-
prove our operations from the standpoint of 

36 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



better service as well as reduced cost. 
Libraries which serve as designated deposi-

tories for government publications know of the 
improvements that have taken place in the 
depository distribution program. The is-
suance of the Classified List in individual card 
form, the daily depository shipping list, and 
the survey of- the depositories for the selec-
tion of new series of publications are among 
the changes to which we have had a most 
favorable reaction. 

There is strong evidence that librarians, 
too, think about government costs. Although 
they are experts in knowing where and how 
to acquire publications without charge, they 
are also surprisingly prominent among the 
regular purchasers of government publications 
from the Superintendent of Documents. Li-
brarians are also active in assisting patrons in 
placing orders for the purchase of government 
publications. The fine work which some li-
braries are doing in the display of our price 
lists and sales announcements is producing an 
ever-widening circle of users of official publi-
cations and an increasing number of libraries 
is experimenting with the actual sale of gov-
ernment publications to provide a new and 
valuable service to their communities. 

Since 1939, the number of publications sold 
has increased more than 300 per cent, and the 
trend is still upward. Last year more orders 
for publications were received than ever 

before in the history of the Division of Public 
Documents. There can be no question that a 
large part of this increase in interest in gov-
ernment publications, when reading is sup-
posed to be slipping into the lost arts in favor 
of radio, movies, and television, can be attrib-
uted directly to the efforts of librarians. 

In these troublesome days, it is a healthful 
sign for our entire way of life that more and 
more people are reading more and more re-
ports on the policies and activities of their 
government. Now, as never before, it is vital 
for citizens to be informed, and the job of 
obtaining information should be made as easy 
as possible. Great progress has been made in 
making the content of government publications 
more understandable and the format more at-
tractive and readable. But at best, govern-
ment reports will not attract spontaneous 
readership. The librarian will continue to 
be a potent force in making government pub-
lications available to the serious reader. He 
must accept the challenge of broadening recog-
nition of the value of a class of material 
which, although difficult to handle, presents 
the results of the extensive research and study 
by government experts in practically every 
field of human endeavor. Dissemination of 
this information is also a challenge to us in 
the Division of Public Documents, and we 
pledge cooperation with the library profession 
in the task of meeting the challenge. 

By M O R R I S B. U L L M A N 

T h e Indexing and Distribution of Census Publications 

Mr. JJllman is chief, Statistical Reports 
Section, U.S. Bureau of the Census. 

A s MOST OF Y O U K N O W , the Bureau of the 
J L x . Census exists for the sole purpose of 
gathering and reporting information needed 
by government, by business, by research work-
ers, and by the general public. Acting under 
Congressional mandate, we issue a continu-
ous stream of statistical reports on such topics 
as business, industry, foreign trade, govern-
ments, agriculture, housing and, of course, 
population. From time to time we present 
the results of our research on techniques or 
special applications in such reports as the 

recent Indexes of Production1 published 
jointly by the Bureau of the Census and the 
Federal Reserve Board. All in all, our an-
nual publications output fluctuates from a 
minimum of 12,000 pages to a maximum of 
60,000 or more when reports for a major 
census are issued. 

With a flow of material of this variety and 
magnitude, it is obvious why we, ourselves, 
need library aids to record our output. Gen-
eral users of our material, such as the li-

1 Census of Manufactures: 1947, Indexes of Produc-
tion, J o i n t publication of U . S . B u r e a u of the C e n s u s 
and B o a r d of G o v e r n o r s of the F e d e r a l R e s e r v e S y s t e m , 
U . S . G o v e r n m e n t P r i n t i n g Office, W a s h i n g t o n 2 5 , D . C . 
$i.7S. 

JANUARY, 1954 37