462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 cur- 

 rents flow in other directions. The power to scatter such docu- 

 ments 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 depart- 

 ments of science, law, education, etc. Senators and represent- 

 atives 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 hun- 

 dred 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 cov- 

 ers 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 bib- 

 liographers. 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 distribu- 

 tion, it would lead to economy of administration, to the econom- 

 ical and efficacious distribution of reports, the avoidance of dupli- 

 cation, and consequently the placing of material where it would 



