The need for the prompt issue of the catalogs is thoroughly appreciated, as we understand they are the only means of information the general public have for knowing what the United States government is publishing.
The Monthly Catalog is required to show what documents have been published during a month. Evidently, therefore, its compilation cannot be completed until after the close of the month. The compilation, however, is always completed within three or four days after the month closes. Sometimes the printing does not follow as quickly as one would like. This may seem strange to libraries, to whom the Monthly Catalog is perhaps the most important of all the public documents. If, however, they were in Washington they would soon realize that there are several other government concerns, some of them larger and more exacting than the public documents office. There is one known as the Congress of the United States, which calls for thousands of pages of printing where the documents office calls for one, and which, when it calls for the right of way in the government printing office (or anywhere else), is able to get it. The printing of the document office receives every consideration in the government printing office which it is possible to give, but it cannot command the right of way over Congress, the White House, or the cabinet.
It has been a long time since the Monthly Catalog has failed to be mailed during the month following its date, often by the middle of the month. It is to be noted, also, that its information is quite different from that of "press notices." It enters only documents that have been actually received, and its descriptions are minute and accurate. In its preliminary pages it gives such advance information of forthcoming documents as can be officially secured and vouched for. There is a habit in some government offices of giving the newspaper reporters information of proposed publications before the copy is ready for the printer, and sometimes before pen has been put to paper. Plans thus prematurely announced are subject to change and the advance notice may thus mislead the reader. Readers of the Monthly Catalog are not thus misled.
The superintendent of documents is confident that those librarians who keep well informed recognize his purpose to do everything for the great library interests of the country that the limitations of the law and the executive pressure upon his and other administrative offices for economy make possible.
The main cause for delay in the preparation of the copy for the document catalogs and indexes is that publications are ordered printed as documents that do not materialize until long after the close of the Congress to which they have been assigned, thus making it necessary to delay publication of the catalog and indexes until sufficient information can be obtained for making the entry.
It is hardly necessary to explain why the document catalog is being issued in one volume to cover the entire Congress instead of at the close of each regular session, as provided by law, because a very complete and detailed explanation has been given in several of the annual reports. It is evident our explanation has been considered satisfactory by the printing committee, as the new printing bill provides for the document catalog to cover a whole Congress.
I will also refrain from a long discourse as to why the work on the catalogs has been behind, as I know the librarians are only interested as to the promptness in the printing of these bibliographical aids in the future. The copy for the 61st Congress catalog will be ready for the printer sometime during the coming summer and that for the 62d Congress before the adjournment of the 63d Congress, which will be as near as it will be possible to issue this catalog after the period covered.
This leaves it to the Monthly Catalog and the Document Index to bridge the gap and supply the current information from one Document Catalog to another, which, although not as complete and as comprehensive as the Document Catalog, serve as excellent substitutes during the interim.