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:

"No reason is known to this office why the annual reports of the executive departments and independent offices should be excepted from the operation of the salutary provision that departmental publications shall not be printed a second time with changes to indicate (erroneously) that they are documents emanating from Congress.

"The reasons which have induced the prohibition of second and varying prints of department publications generally, apply with at least equal force to the annual reports, which are the most distinctively and obviously departmental of all departmental issues. They are so distinctive that it is safe to say they are always known and called for by their departmental designations, never by their congressional numbers. Everybody knows at once what is meant by War Department Report, 1912, but nobody knows offhand what is meant by House Document 929, 62d Congress, 3d session. There is nothing whatever to indicate that these two designations mean the same publication, which is really not a House document at all, but a publication of the executive and not of the legislative branch of the government. And, of course, the same is true of the annual reports of all the executive officials.

"The addition of congressional document numbers to executive reports adds nothing to their value or to their accessibility. The second set of designations is merely confusing and troublesome. To spend money on such a second print is to spend it only to buy harm instead of good.

"The numerous and conclusive considerations which have been sufficient to place in the bill the prohibition of the second and superfluous editions of other departmental publications apply with at least equal if not even greater force to annual reports, and to except them from the general prohibition seems therefore illogical and contradictory and a long step toward defeating the proposed reform and the economies which it is intended to promote.

"If it is not desirable to protect the annual reports from the waste and confusion of double editions, then it is hard to see why any publications should be so protected. The annual reports, so numerous, so important, so certain to be continuously issued for all time to come, are 'the very head and front of the offending' in the double printing abuse, and with them the reform should begin.

"To except the annual reports seems to amount to discrediting if not to virtually abandoning the whole reform—the most vital of all reforms in connection with the public printing, that of permitting but one edition for each publication, by which it may always be known and identified and kept free from confusion with others."

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]