State Documents
The individual states of the United States also publish valuable documents through their state boards and commissions with which it is well for the business man to be acquainted. Many of the individual states have similar boards and commissions which report annually or biennially, both in bulletins and regular reports, such as state engineer, state geologist, state mining department, state insurance department, state experiment station, bureau of labor and industrial statistics, state public utilities commissions and special commissions created to deal with any particular problems or industries, peculiar to the individual state. The best guide available to current state publications is the "Monthly List of State Publications" published by the Library of Congress, fifty cents per year. The chief drawback in the use of this list is that it is always several months behind in being published, as is also the "Monthly Catalog of United States Public Documents." The current trade periodicals often note the issue of any important state publications more promptly and are a great aid in keeping up to date on this information. Public Affairs Information Service, a cumulated index published by H. W. Wilson Company, New York City, and which is noted more fully in a subsequent chapter on Reference Books, lists a number of state publications of value.