College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
Government Publications: Documentation and Distribution 

Public Documents and. World War II, 

Papers Presented Before the Committee 

on Public Documents, American Li-

brary Association, Milwaukee, Wiscon-

sin, June 23 and 25, 194.2. Jerome K . 

W i l c o x , ed. A m e r i c a n L i b r a r y Associ-

ation, 1942. n 8 p . $2. 

IN ADDITION to the normal common de-nominators of time, place, and subject 
to be expected in a symposium, the papers 

in this collection have another and far 

more important similarity which brings 

them into close sympathy w i t h each other 

and which poses the most important prob-

lem yet to be solved by librarians and 

archivists: H o w can prompt and compre-

hensive bibliography, coupled w i t h rapid 

and efficient distribution, be achieved? 

A r t i c l e s by Scudder and W i l c o x pre-

sent in discouraging detail the increasing 

acquisition difficulties brought about by 

Office of W a r Information attempts to 

"clear channels for w a r information," by 

the mushrooming of new agencies and 

publishing offices, and by the again in-

creased use of processing equipment. A 

turn to the discussion of British docu-

ments by W . C . D a l g o u t t e of the British 

Information Services reveals an almost 

identical situation in G r e a t Britain, which 

differs only in that it is further confounded 

by a serious paper shortage. M r s . Cabeen, 

w r i t i n g on the publications of European 

governments in exile, provides compre-

hensive bibliographies of those publications 

but finds it necessary to add, "no brief is 

held for their completeness in v i e w of 

the uncertainty of communication and the 

lack of official bibliography." A n d W i l -

cox, w r i t i n g this time on the " O f f i c i a l 

W a r Publications of C a n a d a , " is called 

upon to qualify his compilation w i t h the 

"hope that this list is comprehensive." 

T h r o u g h o u t the volume is revealed con-

tinual struggle of librarians to list and 

acquire the important publications being 

issued—a struggle frequently ending in 

frustration before increasing numbers of 

documents listed nowhere at all or listed 

too late to make acquisition possible. 

T h e most fundamental problem is that 

of bibliography, or, preferably, documenta-

tion, for the term " b i b l i o g r a p h y " bears 

overtones of selectivity, the prevalence of 

which in present document listing is the 

cause of much of our difficulty. T h e 

Weekly List is admittedly selective, the 

Monthly Catalog is only relatively more 

complete, and the Document Catalog, 

despite its greater size and more careful 

cataloging, adds comparatively f e w titles 

to those appearing in the Monthly Catalog. 

In Britain the Consolidated List of Gov-

ernment Publications is limited to those 

comparatively f e w items available for sale, 

and C a n a d a apparently makes no attempt 

at official bibliography at all. 

T h e reasons for this rather indiscrimi-

nate attention to government documenta-

tion are not difficult to find in our o w n 

federal government and in the state gov-

ernments as w e l l ; the situation in C a n a d a 

and Britain is not far different. E v e n 

though Congress and a f e w states, notably 

MARCH', 1943 163 



C a l i f o r n i a , have tried to centralize all 

printing in one government office, so great 

is the centrifugal force engendered in the 

spreading of the printed (or mimeo-

graphed) w o r d that no l a w of Congress 

nor any budgetary limitation, however spe-

cifically it is phrased, can prevent the 

printing or duplication of some material 

apart from the centrally established print-

ing office. In an organization as large as 

the federal government w e might as w e l l 

give up trying, and that is precisely w h a t 

has, in effect, been done. B u t that should 

not mean that the 1895 objective of a 

comprehensive listing of all government 

publications should be given up as w e l l 

but means rather that efforts at complete 

documentation must be doubled and re-

doubled, just because actual publication is 

so widespread. 

T h e job is not an impossible one. In 

J939 approximately thirty-six thousand 

items were listed in the Monthly Catalog, 

of which about t w o thirds w e r e single 

issues of a much smaller number of peri-

odical publications. In the same year the 

Superintendent of Documents received an-

other fourteen thousand items which were 

not listed in the Monthly Catalog. E v e n 

if w e doubled this figure of f i f t y thousand 

items a year by including all processed 

material published in W a s h i n g t o n and all 

material, printed and processed, published 

in the field, as w e l l as maps, charts, re-

stricted and confidential material not now 

listed, the estimated one hundred thousand 

items a year do not represent an impossible 

bibliographical project. T h e job can be 

done if the library and archival profes-

sions can somehow convince the proper 

authorities that it needs to be done if the 

vast publishing program of the federal 

government is to achieve its maximum ef-

fectiveness, both in terms of the immediate 

usefulness of the material being published 

and in terms of g i v i n g scholars and his-

torians access to the published records of 

the largest civil government in history. 

T h e details involved in organizing such 

a project need not be described here. 

A l m o s t any imaginative librarian or ar-

chivist could develop a practicable plan 

which w o u l d need only slight modifications 

in the course of being placed in operation. 

A brief outline of objectives w o u l d include 

the need for current listing of all publica-

tions w i t h i n t w o weeks of publication; the 

inclusion of all publications, printed and 

processed, restricted and confidential, those 

published in the field (including offices 

abroad) as w e l l as those issued in W a s h -

ington ; annual cumulation or at least 

annual cumulative i n d e x i n g ; and the con-

tinuation of present efforts toward cumu-

lative subject cataloging in the biennial 

Document Catalog. Considerable econ-

omy in current listing could be achieved 

by listing each periodical only once each 

year, w i t h such current additions as 

changes in title, format, or frequency make 

necessary. T h e codification of many pub-

lications into new or existing periodicals 

or series w o u l d also simplify economical 

listing as w e l l as facilitate efficient docu-

ment distribution. 

Second to the problems of documenta-

tion only because proper listing must 

chronologically precede effective distribu-

tion are the problems incident to placing 

sufficient copies of all government publi-

cations where they are needed and w a n t e d 

and where their authors, publishers, and 

distributors w a n t them to be. T h e second 

of these t w o categories hardly merits our 

attention here, for the much maligned body 

of information experts on federal payrolls 

164 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



is quite capable of the solution of that 

problem whenever it is given sufficient 

money and authority to put a specific pro-

gram across. T h e distribution of a much 

more limited number of publications to the 

people w h o w a n t and need them is appar-

ently a much more difficult problem, call-

ing for the best judgment and planning 

of which archivists, librarians, and scholars 

are capable. 

T h e A m e r i c a n L i b r a r y Association and 

its Committee on Public Documents have 

l o n g been at w o r k on the problem, not 

w i t h o u t some success in certain specific 

fields, but no m a j o r attack on the problem 

as a whole has in recent years been allowed 

a considered hearing in either congressional 

or bureaucratic halls. T h e most recent 

such attempt is reported elsewhere in this 

issue. Its probable success is not yet 

known, but even if all of its recommenda-

tions come to pass for the duration of the 

w a r and are allowed to stand during the 

peace that is to f o l l o w , the resultant plan 

of document distribution w i l l not yet be 

the best of all possible plans. 

T h e time for the development of such 

a plan is probably not yet. T h e chaotic 

maldistribution of government publications 

which now obtains in this country and 

others must probably become a good deal 

worse, a good deal more tangled and im-

possible to handle before the learned pro-

fessions assemble w i l l i n g hands and ample 

f u n d s to upset the w h o l e apple cart and 

begin anew. Such beginning anew must 

start w i t h a current and comprehensive 

bibliography broadly planned on a sound 

basis of adequate and permanent docu-

mentation of all items as they are pub-

lished, must f o l l o w through w i t h ample 

stocks of all publications to meet k n o w n 

and anticipated demand, must provide im-

MARCH', 1943 

mediate and complete distribution of all 

or selected documents to the libraries and 

archives k n o w n to be f u l l y equipped in 

space, administration, and personnel to 

care for them properly, and must make 

available immediately on publication or on 

application those documents which indi-

viduals, scholars, and farmers alike need 

and w a n t for the prosecution of the many 

activities government publications are de-

signed to assist. Such a distribution pro-

gram w o u l d somehow cut the gordian knot 

of sales versus free distribution, somehow 

resolve the apparently irrepressible con-

flict between printing and processing, and 

silence once and for all the vociferous 

critics of " w a s t e f u l distribution." T h e 

statement on " G o v e r n m e n t Publishing in 

W a r t i m e " is a step in the right direction; 

many more such steps and a f e w leaps and 

bounds are needed if the millennium in 

document production, documentation, and 

distribution is to be achieved in our time. 

—LeRoy Charles Merritt, State Teachers 

College Library, Farmville, Va. 

Subject Guide to Reference Books. H e r -

bert S. Hirshberg. A m e r i c a n L i b r a r y 

Association, 1942. xvi, 26op. $4. 

THE PRIMARY PURPOSE of t h i s b o o k can best be given in the author's o w n 
prefatory statement that it "attempts to 

provide an alphabetic subject guide to the 

books needed by libraries for the answering 

of questions frequently asked. It is de-

signed to be a ready reference tool for 

the librarian's desk and to point the w a y 

to or recall sources of information in books 

commonly held as w e l l as some less w e l l 

k n o w n . " T o this purpose it is admirably 

suited. 

I t is an alphabetic list of topics covered 

at lengths w h i c h vary f r o m the five titles 

165