set of current Government reports; and yet it is plain enough that all public libraries in the United States, no matter how small, should be entitled to receive such publications of the Government as bear on science, education, etc., provided they ask for them and indicate a willingness to provide shelf room.
It is also said that documents are distributed as political favors, and thus, during a change of administration, these currents flow in other directions. The power to scatter such documents should be entirely out of the hands of politicians, and a central bureau should be organized whose duty it should be to keep lists of all persons making researches in the various departments of science, law, education, etc. Senators and representatives might be empowered to furnish these names, accompanied by evidence, however, that such persons had a right to them by virtue of their studies or occupations.
I know as a fact that many who receive these reports and documents are actually burdened with them, and often throw them into the waste-paper basket unopened, and there are hundred of others who would like them, and would make good use of them, and yet never get them. All this might be corrected by some systematic way of distribution from a common center.
If I were permitted to offer suggestions upon a matter with which I can claim but little knowledge, I would ask first that for convenience of reference there should be published each year a volume containing a list of all Government publications, with at least a table of contents of each report, and if possible a brief synopsis of the more important papers. Students would then have an opportunity of finding out the material they were in quest of. In the same volume should also be given a classified list of the recipients of Government reports, and this list should be kept standing for additions and subtractions. This annual report could be printed in the most condensed form, the matter solid, the covers paper, etc. Such a report should find its way into every school, college, and public library in the United States and to every one applying for it. It should be as common as an almanac. A list of publications of this nature might possibly show what appears to many the disjointed character of some of the series and lead to simplification. The Government goes on forever, yet with every new chief of department or change of administration comes a new series of parts or volumes, to the misery and despair of bibliographers. The hungry ambition of species describers might be curbed by checking the issue of separata of one or two pages.
If it were possible to establish a separate bureau of distribution, it would lead to economy of administration, to the economical and efficacious distribution of reports, the avoidance of duplication, and consequently the placing of material where it would
