(Monday, July 1, 8:15 p. m.)
After an informal interchange of ideas among a small group of people who gathered in the private dining room, the business session, continued from the afternoon, was called to order by Vice-President Brigham. In view of the small attendance and in order to allow greater publicity the meeting was adjourned to Tuesday, July 2, 9:30 a. m.
FIFTH (SECOND JOINT) SESSION
(Tuesday, July 2, 9:30 a. m.)
The second joint session was attended by the National Association of State Libraries, the American Association of Law Libraries and the Special Libraries Association delegates, and was presided over by Mr. Brigham, vice-president of the Special Libraries Association. The meeting was held in the ball room of the Chateau Laurier.
Mr. Charles J. Babbitt of the Massachusetts state library read the first paper, entitled "Snags, stumbling blocks and pitfalls among the session laws." During the course of his paper Mr. Babbitt touched upon some very interesting phases of these questions. In the absence of Mr. James MKirdy, Mr. Thomas Montgomery, state librarian of Pennsylvania, presented his paper, entitled "Bill drafting." Following this, in the absence of Dr. John H. Arnold, librarian of the Harvard Law School, Mr. George S. Godard read his paper, entitled "The history of the growth and development of the Harvard university law library." Great regret was expressed at the absence of Dr. Arnold, who may now be looked upon as the father of law libraries.
Following this Mr. Lapp discussed the question of co-operation between legislative reference departments. This address also covered a report upon the same subject as well as a report on legislative reference service. Mr. Godard followed with general remarks, in which he called attention to the great changes in our present social life, brought about by improvements in our methods of transportation, so that now our view point is so much broader that in the drawing of bills we can no longer overlook what other states are doing, hence the great necessity for co-operation and wider knowledge in this field. He reviewed briefly the work of the Law Reporting Company and tried to point out how service such as they had rendered might be made practical. He appealed for a national legislative information bureau, and he questioned whether this could ever be brought about by co-operation, but rather insisted that it must be a definitely established service run for profit or subsidized by government support. The chairman called attention to the library law abstracts which are probably present in every state library in one form or another. In these abstracts minute subjects are touched upon which are difficult to get at. The material usually exists only in carbon form. As a result of an interview with a commercial concern, the chairman found that with the use of the multigraph this firm would agree to furnish three hundred copies for $1.00 a folio with $5.00 for composition and general work. This would mean on a thirty folio, a total of $35.00 for an issue of three hundred copies. He suggested that such material be sent to a central agency and believed that such a scheme could be worked out successfully. Mr. Babbitt called attention to several interesting instances where the assistance of such a scheme would have been invaluable in furthering greater publicity for material which was only found through co-operation among the state libraries. Dr. Clement W. Andrews believed that this sort of work should be done at the American Library Association headquarters and thought with competent operators this was the most practical way to have it done. He also called attention to the fact that the Illinois State Bankers Association had asked the John Crerar library to undertake an analysis of the State Banking Association publications. He offered to send circulars covering that work to any state or law libraries that might find them of usefulness.
Mr. D. N. Handy of the Insurance Library Association of Boston spoke in regard to the recently organized legislative bureau of the National Board of Fire Underwriters. One of the chief functions of this bureau will be to bring together an abstract card index of the laws in the various states in the country bearing on fire insurance. Recently the Association of Life Insurance Presidents has completed a card index abstract of the laws bearing on life insurance, comprising something like four thousand cards. Mr. Godard offered further discussion which he finally followed with a motion to the effect "that our committee on resolutions prepare suitable resolution directed to Congress, endorsing the bill now before Congress looking toward the permanent establishment of a legislative bureau at Washington and expressing our hope that it may be established in the very near future, and at the same time expressing our willingness to co-operate in any way that we can." Mr. Montgomery, as chairman of the Committee on resolutions then offered several resolutions.[18]
[18] These resolutions will be found in full in the proceedings of the National Association of State Libraries, which will be printed by that association.
Mr. Johnson Brigham of Iowa then opened up the discussion of the relation between state libraries and legislative reference bureaus, to which Mr. Montgomery replied. General discussion followed in which several told of the actual working relations between these two jurisdictions in their several states. The meeting adjourned at 12:24 p. m.