[Substance of an address before a meeting of librarians held under the auspices of the LibraryOrganizer of the Ohio Library Commission, Ohio State University, October 8, 1909.]
The problem of government publications in the small libraries hasbeen discussed at much length by librarians, but it is still far from adefinite solution. In fact, there can be no general settlement of manyphases of this question, for each and every library must decide what itsown policy and attitude shall be toward this class of publications.
It is generally admitted that some libraries ought to have all thepublications that are made for distribution, and therefore a system ofdepository libraries is maintained by the government. The librarieswhich are not favored with this privilege are compelled to make a selectionfrom the great number of documents and there is the essence ofthe problem for discussion here. The question of what to get involvesthe selection of certain publications which will be useful to presentpatrons of the library and the acquisition of those for which a demandcan be created. For instance, if the library is located in a rural section,there will be a big demand for publications relating to agriculture, anda larger proportion of such documents will be secured than for othersubjects. If the students of the high school are interested in debatingpresent day questions, the publications of the government relating tothe existing political and economic conditions will be in demand.In the final analysis, the librarian must feel the pulse of the community,as it were, and secure the classes of government material which correspondmost nearly to the demand. At the same time, by makinguse of bibliographies, of department lists of publications and of the referencesection in the Documents Office, the demand for this class of literaturecan be materially increased and documents secured which arenot already in the library.
The purpose of this discussion is to suggest a list of governmentpublications which will be of use in a small library. Before doing so,the various methods of securing documents must be mentioned, as theway will be indicated with each document serial in the following list.First of all, there is the system of depository distribution which is basedon the act of January 12, 1895. The idea is to place in all sections ofthe country complete collections of all public documents which areprinted and made for distribution. This privilege is granted by lawor through the request of senators and representatives. The secondway in which large numbers of documents are distributed is throughthe congressional quota. This practice is a very old one, being usedfor the first time in 1791. Each member of Congress is given a quotaof all documents published by that body, the number varying witheach document. These are distributed by the order of the congressmenand are sent out under their franks. As a rule, the libraries will receivevery prompt and courteous attention from their representative in Congressto any request made for p