[ Reprinted jrom The Library Journal, September , 1911] 
 
 SOME PHASES OF REFERENCE WORK* 
 
 By John Boynton Kaiser, Legislative Reference Librarian, Texas State Library, 
 
 Austin, Tex . 
 
 Discussing '‘Some phases of reference 
 work” it is my purpose to describe the refer¬ 
 ence facilities of the Texas State Library, to 
 explain what we are doing there, and to 
 show wherein our facilities are such that 
 they can be made of service to other libra¬ 
 ries throughout the state. Beyond this I 
 shall just touch upon some miscellaneous 
 phases of the general subject. 
 
 At Austin we have doubtless the finest 
 and most complete collection of books and 
 manuscripts relating to Texas that can be 
 found gathered together in any one place. 
 These resources, constantly in active use, 
 have been partially made known to the pub¬ 
 lic through the recent reports of the State 
 Library, the “Texas reference collection” 
 published in Texas Libraries last November, 
 and the paper by the librarian on “Some his¬ 
 torical activities of the Texas Library and 
 Historical Commission” in the April Quar¬ 
 terly of the Texas State Historical Associa¬ 
 tion, and shall receive no further mention 
 at this time. 
 
 With the literature of American history, 
 general, local and by periods, we are fairly 
 well supplied. Among the larger sets of 
 reference value might be mentioned the 
 American Nation Series (28 v.), Harper’s 
 Encyclopedia of United States History (10 
 v.), McMaster (7 v.), Woodrow Wilson (5 
 v.), Rhodes (7 v.), Adams History of the 
 United States, 1801-1817, in 9 volumes; 
 Parkman, Bancroft, Justin Winsor, the Con¬ 
 federate Military History (12 v.), the Gov¬ 
 ernment’s Rebellion records in about one 
 hundred and sixty volumes, and the set en¬ 
 titled “The South in the building of the 
 nation” (12 v.). 
 
 Our Canadian and Mexican resources far 
 surpass our historical material for the va¬ 
 rious European countries. From Mexico we 
 shall receive the documents issued by the 
 government commemorative of the recent 
 centennial celebration, six volumes of which 
 are now on their way to us. 
 
 * Read at the meeting of the Texas Library Asso¬ 
 ciation, Corsicana, Texas, May 4-5, 1911. 
 
 In biography the Dictionary of national 
 biography, Appleton’s Cyclopedia of Amer¬ 
 ican biography, and some other general 
 works are supplemented by a goodly number 
 of individual lives, including naturally those 
 of many illustrious Southerners. 
 
 The State Library is at present forced to 
 neglect the arts and sciences, and our gen¬ 
 eral literature collection falls very far short 
 of what it should be; religion and philosophy 
 are likewise inadequately represented. Un¬ 
 fortunate as it is that our library is lacking 
 in these particulars, yet we have in Austin 
 the University Library to tall back upon, 
 and our deficiencies are less serious than 
 would otherwise be true. 
 
 In sociology, economics, government and 
 statute law we have a substantial nucleus for 
 a well-rounded, useful and up-to-date library 
 as our purchases have of late been made 
 largely with the idea of building up this sec¬ 
 tion for legislative reference purposes, and 
 it is largely, though by no means entirely, in 
 this field that we find use for the material 
 contained in the national and state docu¬ 
 ments, of which we receive the former as a 
 depository library. Our set includes the 
 Patent Office publications. 
 
 To our collection of general encyclopedias, 
 almanacs and general reference books we 
 have just added the new eleventh edition of 
 the Britannica. 
 
 Our periodical file is small, few sets ante¬ 
 dating 1900, but since that date we have a 
 useful collection to which the “Readers 
 guide” furnishes a ready key. The current 
 list includes some seventy-five or more rep¬ 
 resentative journals, and we are well sup¬ 
 plied with Texas newspapers of the past and 
 present. Our bibliography and library econ¬ 
 omy resources are constantly growing. 
 
 The legislative reference section is simply 
 another practical application of the principle 
 --old when Rameses was born — that the 
 wise man will profit from the experience of 
 others and will build his stronghold on their 
 tried foundations. In this section we have 
 endeavored to provide for the legislator the 
 
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 published experience of others who have had 
 occasion to solve the same problems he is 
 facing, and to furnish him with an array of 
 facts to oppose any one who becomes as 
 a learned jurist once phrased it, “intoxicated 
 by the exuberance of his own verbosity,” 
 and forgets that facts, not eloquence, should 
 form the basis of legislation. To be fore¬ 
 armed by being forewarned is here the secret 
 of success. Laws passed and bills proposed 
 by recent legislatures, past messages of gov¬ 
 ernors, current campaign speeches, the de¬ 
 mands of labor and other organizations and 
 political parties, and replies to direct inquiry 
 give us a clue to some of the subjects an 
 approaching legislature may be expected to 
 consider, unless its deliberations are over¬ 
 shadowed by the too strenuous efforts of in¬ 
 dividual members to solve the personal equa¬ 
 tion of “Who’s who,” or the all-important 
 question of “When is a Prohibitionist?” 
 
 The material used is sought in statute and 
 legal treatise, the political science text and 
 popular discussion, whether pamphlet, mag¬ 
 azine or book, and in the report of Con¬ 
 gressional committee and government ex¬ 
 pert. The books we classify by the Dewey 
 Decimal system and shelve; the pamphlets 
 are in a vertical file classified by a system 
 of key numbers wherein each number sig¬ 
 nifies a phase of legislation. The system of 
 classification is that of the indispensable “In¬ 
 dex of legislation,” issued annually by the 
 New York State Library. This index dates 
 from 1890. 
 
 To increase the value of this vertical file 
 the periodicals, library lists and bibliogra¬ 
 phies are closely watched, and items desired 
 are checked and requested from the issuing 
 source. Publications specially to be watched 
 are the Survey, Special Libraries, the library 
 journals, State Publications, and the month¬ 
 ly catalog of the Superintendent of Docu¬ 
 ments. The advance sheets of Congressional 
 documents add many a valuable report to 
 this file. 
 
 Another feature of the work of this sec¬ 
 tion is to index and bind the bills and reso¬ 
 lutions introduced by each house of the state 
 legislature. Those for the last session are 
 now indexed and in the bindery. The means 
 at hand, we should also index the bills, gov¬ 
 ernors’ messages and state documents of for¬ 
 
 mer years. This will come as a future de¬ 
 velopment of our work. 
 
 Our clientele includes high school and uni¬ 
 versity students, especially the debaters, leg¬ 
 islators, state officials and the public at large. 
 In Austin we try to make up for the lack of 
 a public library and to supplement the facil¬ 
 ities of the library of the State University. 
 If we can aid the other libraries of the state 
 with information or material we are glad to 
 do so. 
 
 The principles, methods and materials of 
 reference work are enough alike in all libra¬ 
 ries that each can gain valuable suggestions 
 from the experience of others. The vertical 
 file can be used in the public library and is 
 one solution — partial solution — of the pam¬ 
 phlet problem. Municipal reference work re¬ 
 sembles legislative and employs much the 
 same material in books, journals, etc.; city 
 councils and officials can utilize the experi¬ 
 ence of others as well as can the law-makers 
 of the state, and the literature of civic im¬ 
 provement is assuming voluminous propor¬ 
 tions. Other libraries in the state might find 
 the “Finding-list of books on political sci¬ 
 ence, law and allied topics,” recently issued 
 by the legislative reference section of the 
 State Library, of use in book selection, as it 
 is annotated, and in many instances we were 
 obliged to select carefully before purchasing 
 the books there listed. It will be supplied 
 on request. 
 
 Before concluding let us recall a few mis¬ 
 cellaneous points in reference work tha§ 
 others have found worth remembering. Let 
 us not forget that if our library cannot fur¬ 
 nish the desired answer there are within tel¬ 
 ephone call citizens who can; that in the city 
 hall, newspaper offices, banks, business 
 houses, state departments and university are 
 men whose time is devoted to special study 
 of special subjects; that telephone directories 
 are excellent and cheap substitutes for the 
 bulky and expensive city directories, and 
 that the latter when a year old are still of 
 use, and may often be had for the asking 
 from business firms, and that duplicates 
 thereof can be exchanged with neighboring 
 and important cities elsewhere for their own. 
 
 Let me emphasize the value of bibliogra¬ 
 phies prepared by others but checked to indi¬ 
 cate your own resources, and, further, the 
 
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 great value of library catalogs, publishers’ 
 lists, etc. The Pittsburgh Library catalogs 
 and the “Trade-list annual” are cases in 
 point. Bibliographies at the ends of ency¬ 
 clopedia articles should not be overlooked, 
 and remember that atlases contain other in¬ 
 formation than maps. “Who wrote it?” will 
 often be answered in the encyclopedia, and 
 the “Synopses of noted books” volume of 
 the Warner Library, in the “United States 
 catalog” and printed library catalogs you 
 have on your shelves. The Decimal clas¬ 
 sification is a reference book of no mean 
 value when it comes to the dates of 
 rulers and authors, lists of authors’ works, 
 and the troublesome questions asking the 
 names of a group of contemporary foreign 
 writers of a particular branch of literature 
 during a particular period of history. The 
 “World’s almanac” will give you a list of an¬ 
 niversaries for which to be prepared. 
 
 For difficult questions or questions often 
 asked apply the motto “When found, make 
 a note of” — the file becomes of inestimable 
 value. 
 
 The reference room is more closely in 
 touch with currenet events than the public 
 suspects, and the reference librarian who 
 does not keep up with the news is lost. The 
 earthquake in Burma or the sudden demise 
 of a noted statesman, the appearance of a 
 comet or the occasion of a celebration draws 
 out the resources of the library and the re¬ 
 sourcefulness of the librarian to meet the 
 public’s demand for literature descriptive of 
 
 the place, the man, the phenomenon, or the 
 occasion. 
 
 The emotions, too, are not allowed to lie 
 dormant, and humor and pathos appear at 
 not infrequent intervals. It is as pathetic a 
 thing to be called upon to help a poor man 
 momentarily expecting a paralytic stroke or 
 a recurrence of arterial sclerosis to under¬ 
 stand the nature of his malady, the serious¬ 
 ness of which the doctor is endeavoring to 
 keep from him, as it is humorous to be sud¬ 
 denly called upon to produce “Three-legged 
 Willie’s wooden, leg” before one has been in 
 Texas long enough to have learned the pop¬ 
 ular names of her heroes and the museum 
 features of a historical library. 
 
 At times by the overwhelming amount of 
 work and our necessarily limited resources 
 we may be made to feel that we are not 
 keeping up with the procession, but le* us 
 be of good cheer, and recall the predicament 
 and comment of three English brethren of 
 the cloth who had walked long and wearily 
 with no town in sight. Repeated inquiries 
 from countrymen along the roadside had 
 elicited the ready reply several times that 
 Newtontown was only “up the road apiece, 
 three or four miles.” When at intervals of 
 half an hour on three successive occasions 
 the same reply — “three or four miles” — 
 had greeted the travellers, one of them felt 
 constrained to remark, “Well, brethren, let 
 us thank the Lord the darn thing’s not gain¬ 
 ing on us.” If we can keep our work from 
 gaining on us we are accomplishing much.