Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-06-02

by the Department of
Agriculture n re e
years ago. This report is one of the gov
eminent publications which a private pub
! fishing concern would have been glad to
issue. The edition Of 10000 copies ordered
by Secretary Rusk Is almost exhausted, and
the demand for the book is SO great that
Congress is considering the ACCESSIBILITY
of issuing another edition three times as
great at public expense. Any of the big
publishing houses would be glad to take
the government plates and issue an edi-
ton for general use. 1t was proposed some
years ago that the stereotype plates of
some of the government publications then
out Of print should be turned over to a
private publisher under certain restric-
tions so that the demand for the books
could be met; but there were objections to
this in Congress, and so the plan was never
carried out. Book collectors who wish to
obtain any of the older public documents
therefore must go to the secondhand book
stores for them. 1t happens very fire.
quently that these books become of great
commercial value. In fact, DR.. John G..
Ames, the superintendent OF documents for
the Interior Department says that he heard
of one octave volume of less than 20 pages
which sold for $40.
A Corner" Broker.
The volumes of the tenth census reports
got into the hands OF the secondhand book
dealers some years ago and were virtually
''cornered," although there was a large part
of the edition still in the hands of the Sec
rotary of the Interior. The book sellers
were demanding IS volume for the re-
ports. At Dr. Ames' request a law was
passed by Congress putting in the document
room of the Interior Department to be sold
at cost all of the volumes which were not
wanted by the Secretary of the Interior.
This brought the price of the costliest vol
ume down to 81. and the prices of others
to S1.75, SLIGO, $3.50 and even 80 cents The
corner in census reports WAS broken, and
some OF the book dealers lost money. They
will not make much on the reports of the
eleventh census. Four of these reports
have been issued up to date. They are Part
1 OF the Compendium. which sells for 81 .15;
Mineral Industries which sells for $l.50;
Public Debt" $40. and Alaska" s1.15.
Any one can obtain these books by writing
to the Interior Department for them. 1t
will probably be cheaper in the end and
more satisfactory to buy these books from
the department than to ask your Congress
man for them. The allowance to each
member is only sixteen copies, and to each
Senator thirty-four. OF these, eleven and
sixteen copies, respectively. are to go in
series to one address That is. the member
cannot divide the series, sending one vol
ume to one of his constituents and q second
volume to another. The object OF this pro-
vision of the law is to keep the sets of re-
ports together, II possible in libraries. Each
| member is expected to supply the libraries
in his district with copies of the reports.
The Public Depositories.
There is another law which Is intended to
preserve complete sets of public documents
for general reference in every congressional
district. Under this law some years ago
each Senator and each Representative was
| authorized to name a public depository"
which was to continue q public depository
perpstualy unless some good reason appear
| ed for taking away the privilege. new
| Congressman cannot have the designation
| of a depository. II each incoming member
had that privilege the repositories would
| change as frequently as the oftice-holders,
and the object of the law-the preservation
| of unbroken sets of public documents in all
| the congressional districts-would be de-
led. There are now about 400 of these
repositories. They include the Libraries of
| all the states and territories-with the ex-
Ception of Alaska, which has no library
and most of the public Libraries in the cities
| of the United States. A number of con-
gressional districts of the south are not rep
resented in the list-some of them because
| they have no libraries and some because the
Congressman who represented tn SIN were in
different and did not nan.c repositories
when they had the privilege.
Before the establishment Of these deposit
| tories the public documents were dstrib-
| uted in a helter-ske!ter fashion and many
| of the libraries received two or three copies
| of one publication and no copy of another.
A few years ago DR.. Ames undertook the
work of making exchanges between these
| libraries His Office became a clearing
house for duplicate books, and as many as
10000 volumes were turned in to him in one
| year for redistribution. Usually those Ii
braries which contributed the most volumes
received but small number in exchange.
| For example, in one period the Johns Hop
| kins University of Baltimore sent 1877 vol
umes to Dr. Arnes and received only 25o.
| But undoubtedly the 259 volumes of new
books were worth more to the library
| than the LOTT volumes of which duplicates
remained on the library shelves. The whole
number Of volumes received for exchange
now amounts to nearly 100000.
Duplication of Documents.
The duplication of public documents Is a
| serious question. In an investigation made
| by a congressional committee some years
| ago 1t was found that people sometimes OBJ
| tainad thirty or forty copies of one work
| by writing to a long list of people for them.
When the tenth census reports were issued
an effort was made to prevent Implications
| so far as possible. An index of people to
whom the reports were sent was kept In
! DR.. Ames' office and 1t was found that If
these documents had been distributed in the
| ordinary way there would have been $4,000
| Implications. The object of the government
! in issuing these puDlcatlonS Is 10 olSSemlil-
| ate knowledge. The Implications of vol
ume usually serves one of two purposes-to
| destroy the usefulness of one of them or to
give the recipient an opportunity for specu-
| lation There Is reason to believe that
| there Is a systematic trade in public docu-
| ments by people who write to Senators and
| Representatives for volumes ostensibly for
library use. but really for the shelves OF
| book stores. There is a limited trade In
| them. too, among the clerks of careless
| Congressmen, who sell them to Washington