Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-10-09
UNCLE SANS BOOKS.
Many Thousands of Rare and
Valuable Volumes.
MILLIONS OF THEM IN OLD STABLES
A Mammoth Library which will Contain
Every Publication Issued by the
Public Printer.

For the first time in history Uncle
Sans publications are on the market.
They are advertised for sale at speci-
fed prices, and anybody who wants
them can buy them. The new Bureau
of Documents will issue a catalogue
every month giving list Of whatever
has been printed by the Government
during the previous thirty days.
The most important work now being
done by the new Bureau is the creation
of library which will contain event.
ually copy of every obtainable book
or other document published by the
Government since its beginning. For
this purpose space was set aside origin
ally for $1,000 volumes. Already it is
crowded, and it will have to be ex-
panded. Until now Uncle Sans pub
locations have been a maze-a literary
labyrinth through which person bent
ON research was obliged to grope with
out clue.
To make the catalogue is in itself a
great labor, inasumch as most Of the
publications have no titles. Titles
have to be made for them. and to do
this requires that they shall be read.
Ben Perley Poore made catalogue OF
Government publications, but it was a
colossal failure, mainly because it was
chronological and not alphabetical.
The Chief of the Bureau of Docu-
ments is F. A. Crandall. Of his four
assistants, three of them, women, are
graduates of the Albany Library
School. Library work is a profession
nowadays, and students are regularly
trained for it, receiving diplomas as
in law or medicine. Mr.. Crandall's
chief assistant is the antithesis of the
typical librarian, being young wo-
man with beautiful blue eyes and a
complexion of peaches and cream. Her
name is Adelaide R. Hasse. and she
comes from Los Angeles, CAL, which
as one of the best equipped small Ii
braries in the country.
The Public Printer has orders to
send to this library one copy of every
document issued IN the future. Like
wise every executive department is re-
quired to furnish to the library copy
of everything it publishes. The &C.
foundations of Government publica-
lions now held by the departments are
to be turned over to the Bureau of
Documents These Accommodations are
enormous. The Interior Department
alone had half million volumes, and
of these Mr.. Crandall has already taken
10000 The accommodations at the
Capitol will remain where they are for
the present. There millions of volumes
have been rotting for decades riddled
by bookworms, gnawed by rats and a
prey to an odd sort of fungus disease
to which books are subject.
Many of these volumes, being rare,
are worth from $40 to $25 each. The
accumulations are largely from the
overflow of the Library of Congress.
and from books furnished to commit
tees and dispensed with.
Improvements are now being made
in the storage of these documents.
Many of them are being transferred
to the Maltby Building. which is a
Senate annex. The Senate also has
hired disused Car stable, in which
l 1850, 900 volumes have been stacked.
The House has another car stable full
of its own books.
Certain libraries are legally desig-
mated as repositories for public docu-
ments. Each Senator and Representa-
tive has the right to name one such Ii
brary. The libraries thus selected re-
ceive the publications of the Govern
ment regularly. The latter are sent
also to every one of the State and Ter
ritorial libraries, to the Libraries Of the
executive departments and to the mill
tary and naval academies at West
Point and Annapolis.
Many libraries complain that they
have been obliged to go without books
which private persons obtained through
their congressman. The new law re-
quires that 500 copies of every new
publication issued by the Government
Printing Office shall be sent to the Bu-
reau of Documents for distribution to
the libraries.
Mr.. Spofford, Librarian of Congress,
in recent article in the Forum, says
that Uncle Sans printing and pub
fishing cost $4,000, 900 per annum.
The Government Printing Office en-
ploys more than 5000 persons. at
wages of about $2,90O.00O annually.
In 1894 there were printed 40,S8S, 598
copies Of public documents. A single
report of the Secretary of Agriculture
required more than 100000 pounds
of paper. The reports of the Secretary
of Agriculture are the most widely
documents in the world.
The most costly publication ever is
sued by this Government was the re-
port of the Wilkes expedition to the
South Seas and around the world,
which was accompanied by famous nat
uralists. The publication was limited
to an edition Of 100 copies, which was
never finished. 1t cost $242, AGO, ex-
elusive of the expenses of the expedi-