The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-09-16
Legislative Reference
In Congressional Library
By CHARLES w. COLLINS
In Charge of Legislative Reference

I ment with the state legislatures meas
ures began to be advocated in Congress
for a federal legislative reference bureau.
The library of Congress stands lust
across from the legislative chambers of
| Congress. 1t is exceeded in the number
OF books and in documentary sources of
| legislative information only by the Brit
ish museum. Under the administration
of DR.. Herbert Putnam it has become
in all other respects the most complete
and the most up-to-date library In the
world. Congress, therefore, naturally
turned to It's own library when it took
up the question of a legislative reference
service The problem was to create
within the library Itself an organization
which would at the same time be an in
tegral part of the library and also make
the legislative data in the library more
Immediately available to members of
Congress.
The present service was established on
that basis in 1914 1t consists of the
research feature of the legislative refer
ence idea, the bill drafting feature hav-
Ing not yet been created by Congress- 1t
Is organized as separate division of
the library and is composed of number
OF experts who are competent to inves-
tigate any legislative subject in any Ian
guage. These work under the SUPER
gator-one who has the point of view of
the inquiring member of Congress and
VINO himself is able to criticize and pass
upon the validity Of the Investigations.
The range of work naturally falls with
In the fields of history, economics pub
TIC finance, comparative foreign law,
state law, constitutional law and inter-
national law. In this work the entire
field of legislative interest is covered.
During the last two sessions of Congress
more than 1000 questions were investi-
gated and answered Some of these by
reason Of information already collected
were disposed of almost Immediately,
While others presented new problems and
necessitated serious research into for
eign sources or into domestic laws
Some Of the more important investi-
cations Of the service are printed as
congressional documents, while others
find their way from time to time into
the Congressional Record. Typewriter
copies of all manuscripts prepared are
kept on file. thus necessitating the
maintaining of a corps or stenographers
and typists.
The work follows closely the sub jects
of debate before Congress. In order to
collect in advance discussions and sta
tistics on public questions, a clipping
bureau is maintained. Practically all of
the American and British weekly and
quarterly publications are taken and
clipped. These clippings are classified
according to a scientific scheme and are
labeled and filed in upright cases. This
file case is thus the starting point for
large portion of the research and many
inquiries are answered from it entirely.
Questions come from members of Con-
gress and from committees by telephone
by letter and by personal visit. In most
cases an answer Is wanted within "a
hours so that the work must be promptly
and efficiently done. Many investiga-
lions are undertaken by the service In
anticipation of inquiries from Congress.
In this way serious and extended re-
search is undertaken into foreign sources.
For example, on q question Of pension
legislation and administration there may
be four experts working at the same
time in the French, the italian, the Ger
man and the English language, respec-
lively. This work is done in the rough
and later boiled down into one compar-
alive statement. The legislative refer