third is from the 18th to the 21st Congress, 1823-31. The fourth is from the 22d to the 25th Congress, 1831-39. These indexes have colored margins, the first being yellow, blue, and white; the second, red; the third, green; and the fourth, white. These colors give to the volume a unique and fantastic appearance. One wishes it had been more usable. It is stated plainly on the half-title-page that "the indices in this volume were made at different periods, and upon different plans." Soon after the publication of the last of these 4 indexes the set was harshly criticized, and apparently with justice, by Thomas F. Gordon, the lawyer and historian, who characterized the indexes as "grievously deficient in indicating the nature and contents of the documents" to which they referred. He mentions also their "great complexity." Between the lines one reads Gordon's argument for his own pet scheme, which was to prepare and publish three sets of indexes "one to the executive documents and reports of committees of both Houses; one to the Journals of the House; and another to the Journals of the Senate." This proposition, which had been agitated from the latter part of the 25th Congress, received the approval of the Joint Committee on the Library; but there is no evidence of further action on the subject and Gordon's plan never had a trial. For expositions of his plan, the searcher is referred to the following documents: 27th Congress, 3d session, House document 41, serial no. 420; 28th Congress, 2d session, House document 46, serial no. 464; 29th Congress, 1st session, Senate document 184, serial no. 473. The last-mentioned document is merely a repetition of the document of the previous session, but it contains in addition the report of approval by the Joint Committee on the Library. Although Gordon's plans were never adopted, many of his suggestions were incorporated in later indexes. The next general indexes to Congressional documents and reports actually published were two volumes prepared under the direction of Edward McPherson, clerk of the House of Representatives. One was printed in 1870 and was entitled “Consolidated index of executive documents of the House of Representatives, 26th-40th Congress." The other, printed in 1869, covered the same period for reports of committees, and had a similar title-page. These appeared as unnumbered documents included in the Congressional set as serial numbers 1386 and 1387. It will be noted that these indexes began where the multicolored indexes above described left off. On June 12, 1874, Dr. Ainsworth Rand Spofford, then Librarian of Congress, presented to the Senate a "Memorandum concerning a complete index to the documents and debates of Congress." This was printed as 43d Congress, 1st session, Senate miscellaneous document 125, serial no. 1584. Dr. Spofford's plans were very comprehensive. He contemplated a "topical index," which should index in one alphabet not only the Congressional documents, 1789-1873, but also the Proceedings of Congress-the Annals of Congress, the Register of debates, and the Congressional globe(X.); American state papers (zero numbers); Wait's state papers (Z3.2:); Statutes at large (S7.9:); Journals of Continental Congress (Z2.5:-Z2.7:); Force's American archives (Z1.1:); Sparks's Diplomatic correspondence of American Revolution (Z2.2:); Madison's Report of debates in Federal Convention, known as Madison papers (Z2.1: E152-5, E153, E15+); and Elliot's Debates in State constitutional conventions (Z2.1:); aggregating about 1600 volumes in all. No such index as Dr. Spofford planned ever materialized. His efforts, like Gordon's in earlier times, were quite fruitless. INDEXES TO MCKEE'S COMPILATION OF COMMITTEE REPORTS Thomas Hudson McKee's compilation is familiar to many people who have had occasion to consult Congressional committee reports from the 14th to the 49th Congress, 1815-87. The compilation was provided for by Congress, as noted in the body of this Checklist under the classification number Y4.Ac2:M19, where will be found further historical and bibliographical information concerning this useful collection of 515 volumes. The set was furnished with 94 indexes, 36 to Senate reports and 58 to House reports, making a distinct index for each standing committee and a combined index in each House for the select and special committees for which individual volumes had not been issued. Each index was bound with the volume or volumes which it indexed. POORE'S CATALOGUE * * * com Ben: Perley Poore's "Descriptive catalogue of Government publications of United States, Sept. 5, 1774-Mar. 4, 1881," published in 1885, has proved a boon to all users of public documents. The Senate, on Mar. 24, 1881, passed a resolution calling on the heads of each of the Executive Departments "to report to the Senate plete lists of any and all books, reports, documents, and pamphlets issued, printed, or published by their respective departments, and by each and every bureau and officer thereof, from Mar. 4, 1789, to Mar. 4, 1881." In reply to this resolution, lists were submitted by the Interior, Justice, Navy, and War Departments. These lists were all sadly deficient and the titles often so abbreviated as to conceal the identity of the book. The Treasury Department replied to the effect that "The records of this Department fail to give the information called for, as it is within a short time only that steps have been taken to preserve in consecutiv. order the various reports, documents, pamphlets, circulars, &c., issued therefrom." The Post-Office and State Departments, so far as known, made no reply at all. These lists formed the basis for Poore's catalogue, the publication of which was provided for by act of July 27, 1882. The book is arranged chronologically, and has a very full index, without which the "Descriptive catalogue" would be useless. It was a huge undertaking and for the period covered it has been of immense service, in spite of the fact that it is unwieldy, incomplete, difficult to consult, and sometimes inaccurate. A very large proportion of its entries are for Congressional documents only. It is deplorably weak in departmental publications, so much so that the title of the work is a misnomer. AMES'S COMPREHENSIVE INDEXES In 1894, under a concurrent resolution of Mar. 3, 1893, there was printed a volume which had been prepared by Dr. John G. Ames, then in charge of the Document Division of the Interior Department. This volume was entitled "Comprehensive index of publications of United States Government, 1889-93." It covered a period of 4 years, but there was left a gap of 8 years, not covered by any general index. In order to fill in this gap between Poore's catalogue and the Document catalogues issued by the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, which began with Mar. 4, 1893, Congress by joint resolution approved Mar. 3, 1897, authorized Dr. Ames to prepare another edition of his Comprehensive index, to include all that the first edition included and to begin with 1881, where Poore's catalogue left off. This new edition of Ames's index, which was issued in 1905, comprised 2 volumes of about 1600 pages in all, with title, "Comprehensive index to publications of United States Government, 1881-93." Experience has taught that this 2-volumed edition of the "Comprehensive index" is not so "comprehensive" as it ought by rights to be. It does not by any means include all the public documents which were issued during the twelve years from 1881 to 1893, the period of the 47th to the 52d Congresses, inclusive. Like its predecessor, Poore's catalogue, it lacks entries for a very large number of departmental publications. HICKCOX'S MONTHLY CATALOGUE It is fitting that mention be made here of another catalogue, in 10 volumes, which though a private venture and not published under the auspices of the Government, was nevertheless the precursor of the Monthly catalogue of the Office of the Superintendent of Documents and was discontinued when that publication began. The set referred to bears the title "United States Government publications, a monthly catalogue," and its editor was John H. Hickcox of Washington, D. C. Volume 1 was issued for 1885 and yearly volumes followed up to and including v. 10, for 1894. It was issued irregularly in monthly numbers. The first few volumes were published by the editor himself, and although he afterwards sold all rights to W. H. Lowdermilk & Co., Washington, D. C., Mr. Hickcox continued to edit the catalogue. The publisher's announcement stated that "the importance of this catalogue as a systematic and accurate record of the vast, varied, and important number of books and documents issued annually by Congress and the Departments must be apparent to every person who has occasion to consult such publications." It purports to contain “a catalogue of all the latest publications of the United States Government." The facts are, however, that many publications issued during the decade from 1885 to 1894 escaped the notice of Mr. Hickcox; still, it frequently happens that Hickcox's catalogue contains entries for publications not listed elsewhere. This catalogue may be relied on for general excellence. 1ST EDITION OF THE CHECKLIST In 1892 the Interior Department published a valuable work prepared by John G. Ames, under the title "List of Congressional documents, 15th-51st Congress, and of Government publications containing debates and proceedings of Congress, 1st-51st Congress, with miscellaneous lists of public documents, historical and bibliographical notes." Eighty-three of its 120 pages contain a list of Congressional documents, arranged by Congress, session, series, and volume, while the remaining pages list the proceedings of Congress and the more important annual reports and a few miscellaneous departmental publications. Dr. Ames performed a lasting service by giving to the public this first edition of the Checklist. The supply was soon exhausted and the continued demand from librarians made a new edition a necessity. 2D EDITION OF THE CHECKLIST Soon after the Office of the Superintendent of Documents was established under the general printing act of Jan. 12, 1895, Dr. Ames generously turned over to the newly created office the printer's copy which he had prepared for a 2d edition of the Checklist. For this new edition Dr. Ames had devised a numerical scheme of "serial numbers" for Congressional documents, beginning with the 15th Congress. Dr. Ames's copy, after considerable revision and with many additions, was issued as the "Checklist of public documents, containing debates and proceedings of Congress, 1st-53d Congress, with miscellaneous lists of documents, and historical and bibliographical notes, 2d edition revised and enlarged, issued by F. A. Crandall, Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, 1895." This edition had 222 pages. Besides many additional lists, there were included also a prefatory note on the first 14 Congresses, compiled by John H. Hickcox, and 3 appendixes compiled by Miss Adelaide R. Hasse, app. 1 containing a list of Explorations and surveys, app. 2, Government catalogues, app. 3, Index. This 2d edition, though hastily prepared, proved to be a very popular and useful reference work. There were 3000 copies printed, but these were not sufficient to meet the demand. No reprint was made for the reason that a very much more complete Checklist was contemplated. This work, completed to the end of the calendar year 1909, is now in your hands; but before a description of the 3d edition is entered upon, it is essential to make mention of an intermediary volume issued by the Superintendent of Documents. TABLES AND INDEX This volume, with its awkward title, "Tables of and annotated index to the Congressional series of United States public documents," but popularly referred to by its short back title "Tables and index," was issued in 1902. The Congressional tables at the beginning, arranged by serial numbers from the 15th to the 52d Congress, both inclusive, contain a revision of similar matter from the 2d edition of the Checklist. To these are added an index of 640 pages containing author and subject entries for the documents and reports of the Congresses covered (except those of a private or unimportant character), also several appendixes of historical interest. The work ended with the 52d Congress, because the Document catalogues began with the 53d. In the Tables and index a place was assigned for the folio edition of the American state papers, arranged by zero serial numbers at the head of the Congressional documents. 3D EDITION OF THE CHECKLIST Ever since the 2d edition of the Checklist of public documents was issued in 1895, an effort has been made to gather material for a revised and enlarged edition on a much more comprehensive plan, a plan which contemplated, first, the bringing down to date of the Congressional tables, and, second, the inclusion of a classified arrangement of those publications which have emanated directly from the Executive Departments and independent Government publishing offices, indicating in the briefest possible way which were and which were not in the Congressional set. For such a compilation the Public Documents Library offers rare facilities, because it contains the most complete file of United States public documents. Other large libraries may have as many, perhaps even more, United States documents of a particular class or on a particular subject, but nowhere else than in this library will be found in one spot so nearly complete a collection of the output of all Government publishing offices, past and present. It should be borne in mind that this Checklist is based on the classification used in this office; that it is virtually a shelf list of the Public Documents Library; and that, with the comparatively few exceptions indicated by an asterisk (*), entries represent only those publications which are in our library. The Checklist therefore can not claim to list absolutely all of the publications of the Government; but in the case of many of the issuing offices our collection is thought to be complete, and the statement is undeniably true that this is by far the most extensive list of United States Congressional and departmental publications ever issued. It is in the province of this Checklist to give only such information as is deemed essential for the purposes of a checklist, and it omits much information which would of course be given in a full catalogue. One of the most noticeable of such omissions is that, whereas full titles and dates of issue are given in entries for publications which do not belong to a numbered or dated series, for serial publications, such as Bulletins, Circulars, etc., the Checklist gives only their numbers and tells how many editions of each were printed, omitting their titles and dates of publication. In all cases this Checklist omits the collation, i. e., number of pages, illustrations, plates, maps, etc., unless such information is required in order to identify the document listed. The 3d edition of the Checklist replaces the 2d edition and also that part of the "Tables and index" which gives the numerical lists of the American state papers and the Congressional tables. It does not, however, supplant the index to the "Tables and index." In this 3d edition the American state papers appear first of all, arranged by zero numbers from 01 to 038. These are followed by the series of Congressional documents and reports, 15th-60th Congress, arranged by serial numbers from 1 to 5561. Then come the departmental publications arranged by Government authors. Although under this scheme the Congressional series precedes the departmental publications, it seems desirable in this introduction to treat of the departmental publications first, because they form an overwhelmingly large proportion of the contents of the book. DEPARTMENTAL PUBLICATIONS The classification of departmental publications is naturally the first matter to be taken into consideration. When the Office of the Superintendent of Documents was organized, no scheme in existence was found adequate for the classification of a large library composed exclusively of United States Government publications. A special scheme suited to our needs was later evolved, as explained in the preface to "Department list 1, List of publications of Agriculture Department, 1862-1902," which was issued by the Superintendent of Documents in 1904. This classification, used with such success for the publications of the Department of Agriculture, has been applied to the publications of all Executive Departments and independent publishing offices, as shown in the present Checklist. The following explanation of the classification will, it is hoped, make the principles so clear that any library which desires to adopt this special scheme may experience no difficulties in its application. The classification of departmental publications is by Government authors: first, by Departments or independent publishing offices; second, by bureaus, offices, or divisions of such Departments or independent publishing offices; third, by series; fourth, by book numbers. Department symbol, first term in classification number The first letter of the distinctive word in the name of each of the nine Executive Departments is used to designate the Department. FC = Fish Commission. [Now under the Commerce and Labor Department.] GB = Geographic Board. GP Government Printing Office. GS = General Supply Committee. [Now under Secretary of Treasury.] La = Labor Department. [Now under the Commerce and Labor Department.] PS - Postal Savings System. [Established June 25, 1910.] SI Smithsonian Institution. = |