WISCONSIN. (Laws 1903, ch. 238, p. 384.) AN ACT To amend chapter 168 of the laws of 1901 relating to the cataloguing and distribution of public documents and the maintenance of a legislative reference room and small working library by the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, and increasing the appropriation therefor. * * * * * SEC. 373f. TO MAINTAIN LIBRARY IN CAPITOL: The said commission is also authorized and directed to maintain in the State capitol, for the use and information of the legislature, the several State departments, and such other citizens as may desire to consult the same, a legislative reference room, and a small working library, as complete as may be, of the several public documents of this and other States, and to purchase for said library standard works of use and reference. The said commission is also hereby authorized and directed to cooperate, during sessions of the legislature, with the secretary and superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, as trustee of the State, with a view to a joint arrangement by which the needs of the legislature in the matter of general books of reference may be met to the fullest possible extent; and said commission shall give such space within its rooms to books brought to the capitol by said society for such purpose as may be jointly agreed upon between them. The librarian of the State library and the officers of State departments are hereby authorized to give or loan to the free library commission for the use of the legislative reference room such books and documents as will be useful in that room. The said free library commission is also authorized to give or loan to the State historical society or to the State departments any books and documents except those in current use in the legislative reference room. SEC. 3731. LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE ROOM-APPROPRIATION: 1. For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act, there shall be and is hereby annually appropriated to the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, from any money in the general fund not otherwise appropriated, the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, and any balance not expended in any one year may be added to the expenditure for the next ensuing year. * * * DRAUGHTSMEN: 2. Out of the above appropriation the sum of six thousand dollars shall be set aside for the period of each legislative session and the period of two months just preceding each legislative session for the purpose of employing draughtsman and extra help in the draughting of bills. INDEXING: 3. The remainder of the appropriation shall be used for the carrying out of the provisions of this act and for indexing session laws, indexing the statutes, indexing of private and special laws, indexing bills, and also for indexing documents and journals from the beginning of the history of the State. In California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia the State library carries on legislative reference work without specific legislation on the subject. IOWA. A joint resolution, approved April 15, 1909, fixing the number and compensation of employees of State departments, provides for the State librarian's office the following: 1 legislative and general reference assistant (who shall be under the direction of assistant to librarian)..... $1,000 KANSAS. (Auditor's Seventeenth Biennial Report, 1910, pp. xvi and 147.) The legislature of 1909 made appropriations as follows: Stenographer and clerk.. 1 expert cataloguer who shall work under the State librarian, especially in the legislative reference department.. Postage and office incidentals.. Total........ 2,100 2,100 The estimate of the appropriations required for the fiscal years 1912 and 1913 is as follows: Since 1892 the following provision is found in the annual appropriation acts: "For preparing an index to current events and such other matters contained in the newspapers of the day as may be deemed important by the trustees and librarian, a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars." In the appropriation act 1910 the contingent fund of $6,000 is made available for a "Card index of comparative legislation.' NEBRASKA. The act of 1907 appropriating $15,000 for the purposes of the State Historical Society, specifies among the objects for which the money may be expended: "For labor and supplies in legislative reference department." ILLINOIS. [Governor's recommendations, 1911-Gov. Deneen's message, Jan 4, 1911, Senate Journal, p. 27.] A legislative reference bureau. I would urge upon your attention also the desirability of establishing a legislative reference bureau, whose work would be to collect and systematize information concerning legislation and administration in this and other States and countries. This work should be done with special reference to the administrative methods and legislation of interest to the people of Illinois and the results should be available for use of the State legislature and the executive and other officers of the State. Such a legislative reference bureau in connection with the State University would have important advantages in the active assistance of the university's resources, both in its laboratory equipment and in its staff of professional experts in law, political science, economists, sociology, engineering, and agriculture. The work of such a bureau would be to collect material, including statutes, judicial decisions, official reports, and other public documents; to index and catalogue these and other materials so as to make them available for the officers of the State government and the legislature; and to conduct investigations into problems of public administration, such as are often undertaken by special commissions for the use of the legislative committees and others. During the session of the legislature the services of this bureau should be primarily at its disposal, and such part of its material as might be needed should be transferred to the State capitol, where it would be at the immediate service of the members of the State government. WISCONSIN. [Gov. McGovern's message, Jan. 12, 1911, pp. 29-30.] Legislative reference department. The legislative reference department of the Free Library Commission is a Wisconsin idea of great value. It has been copied by over 20 other States and as many cities. Foreign countries and municipalities have also adopted it. Its purpose is to bring to the legislature expert help in gathering the results of experience elsewhere, without which legislators would be more or less helpless because of the complexity of modern problems. It also furnishes the legislature with expert draftsmen, skilled in the art of embodying in satisfactory form ideas which the members of the legislature, untrained as many of them are in this work, may desire to have enacted into law. At present this department is not supported as liberally as its importance demands. In carrying on its work it has been hampered for want of necessary funds. I believe an additional appropriation of at least $7,000 a year for this department is necessary in order to place it upon a proper basis and to equip it so as to facilitate the work of the legislature. This will make a total appropriation for this department of but $22,000. Other States devote much larger sums to this purpose for services much less efficient than those this State has been accustomed to receive. In the end, such additional appropriation, I am satisfied, will prove the means of a much greater saving in money, to say nothing of improvement in the form of the statute law enacted at each legislative session. I commend this matter to your careful consideration. EXHIBIT 6.-LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BULLETINS PUBLISHED IN VARIOUS STATES. CALIFORNIA.-State library.-Legislative reference bulletins: No. 1. Hints on drawing legislative bills. 1908. No. 2. River improvement laws in other States and countries. 1908. No. 2. Index to governors' messages 1816-1851. 1908. No. 4. Hints on bill drafting. 1910. MICHIGAN.-State library.-Legislative reference department bulletins: No. 1. Constitution of the State of Michigan, 1850; annotated for the use of the constitutional convention. 1907. No. 2. First State constitution-1835. Proposed constitution of 1867. Proposed constitution of 1873. 1907. No. 3. Local, special, and private legislation, municipal charters, gubernatorial veto, initiative and referendum, as provided for and regulated by the constitutions of the several States. 1907. Laws of the various States relating to vagrancy. 1910. NEW YORK.-State Library.-Bulletins. Legislation: Nos. 1-7, 9-11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 24, 28, 32, 36, 38. Comparative summary and index of legislation, 1890-1908. Nos. 16, 19, 22, 25, 29, 33, 39. Review of legislation, 1901-1908. Nos. 17, 20, 23, 27, 31, 35, 37. Digest of governor's messages, 1902–1908. No. 8. State finance statistics, 1890 and 1895. No. 12. Trend of legislation in the United States, 1900. No. 14. Taxation of corporations in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, 1901. No. 26. Index of New York governors' messages, 1777-1901. No. 30. Legislative reference lists, 1906. NEW YORK.-State Library-Bulletins. Legislation.-Continued. No. 34. A summary of the compulsory attendance and child-labor laws of the (Beginning with No. 20, the three or more bulletins of each year are also issued Review of legislation, 1907-8: Contents: Labor, by L. W. Hatch. Crimes and offenses, by D.C. Brown. Corrections, by G. McLaughlin. Public charities, by W. B. Buck. The insane, by T. E. McGarr. The feeble-minded and epileptic, by J. C. Carson. The family, by A. M. Eaton. Public health and safety, by C. E. A. Winslow. Food adulteration, by W. D. Bigelow. Agriculture, by J. I. Schulte. Experiment stations and inspection, by W. H. Beal. Horticulture: Diseases and pests, by E. P. Felt. Public control of waters, by R. P. Teele. Land drainage, by J. T. Stewart. Forestry, by P. P. Wells. Fish and fisheries, by M. C. Marsh. Game protection, by T. S. Palmer. Education, by E. C. Elliott. Vocational education, by A. D. Dean. Library legislation, by W. R. Eastman. Public printing and records, by P. Nelson. Publications, by T. L. Cole. Courts and the practice of law, by I. Loeb. Corporations, by R. C. Harrison. Property, by E. Freund. Contracts and obligations, by J. B. Sanborn. Public utilities, by R. H. Whitten. Municipal government, by J. A. Fairlie. State finance, by E. W. Kemmerer. Local finance, by F. R. Clow. Taxation, by E. W. Kemmerer. Insurance, by S. Huebner. Banking, by W. A. Scott. Commerce and industry, by S. Litman. Transportation and communication, by A. A. Young. Roads: 1907, by M. O. Eldridge; 1908, by L. E. Boykin. Motor vehicles, by C. T. Terry. Index. Each chapter also issued separately. NORTH DAKOTA.-Public library commission.-Legislative reference department bulletins: No. 1. Permanent State tax commissions, a comparative digest of State legislation. 1910. No. 2. Good roads; an outline of State road systems. 1910. RHODE ISLAND.-State library.-Legislative reference bulletins: No. 1. The veto power in the several States. 1907. No. 2. Automobile laws of the New England States, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 1908. No. 3. Summary of the general banking laws of the commercial States. 1908. VIRGINIA. -State library.-Legislative reference lists: 1910: Bank examiners. City charters. Municipal home rule. Fee system. Juvenile courts. Oyster industry. Primaries. Liquor question. Protection of birds. Taxation. Tuberculosis. WISCONSIN-Free library commission.-Legislative reference department bulletins: No. 1. Railway coemployment. 1905. No. 2. Lobbying. 1906. No. 3. Corrupt practices at elections. 1906. No. 4. Exemption of wages. 1906. No. 5. Municipal electric lighting. 1906. No. 6. Trust-company reserves. 1906. No. 7. Taxation of trust companies. 1906. No. 8. Municipal gas lighting. 1906. No. 9. Boycotting. 1906. No. 10. Blacklisting. 1906. No. 11. Initiative and referendum. 1907. No. 16. Telephones: Interchange of service. [1908.] No. 17. Mortgage taxation. 1908. No. 18. Municipal home-rule charters. 1908. No. 19. Tenement-house legislation, State and local. 1909. No. 20. Accident insurance for workingmen. 1909. No. 21. Initiative and referendum: State legislation. 1910. No. 22. Certified public accountants. 1910. EXHIBIT 7.-LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Select lists of references.-Political science and economics: Anglo-Saxon interests. 1903; 2d issue, 1906. Banks and banking. 1904; 1st & 2d banks of the United States. 1908. Selected lists of references.-Political science and economics-Continued. Child labor. 1906. Chinese immigration. 1904. Colonization, government of dependencies, protectorates, and related topics. 1900; 2d edition, 1900. Constitution of the United States. 1903. Corrupt practices in elections. 1908. Cost of living and prices. 1910. Currency and banking. 1908. Debates in Federal convention on election of Senators. 1902. Deep waterways from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. 1908. Eight-hour working day and limitation of working hours in general. 1908. Federal control of commerce and corporations. 1903; 2d issue, 1904. Fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, with special reference to negro suffrage. 1906. Government ownership of railroads. 1903. Immigration. 1904; 2d issue. 1905; 3d issue. 1907. Impeachment. 1905. Industrial arbitration. 1903. Insurance, United States and foreign countries. 1906; 2d ed. 1908. International arbitration. 1908. Iron and steel in commerce. 1907. Labor, particularly relating to strikes. 1903. Mercantile marine subsidies. 1900; 2d ed. 1903; 3d ed. 1906. Municipal affairs, with special reference to municipal ownership. 1906. Negro question. 1903; 2d issue. 1906. Old-age and civil-service pensions. 1903. Political parties in the United States. 1907. Popular election of Senators. 1904. Postal savings banks. 1908. Primary elections, particularly direct primaries. 1905. Proportional representation. 1904. Railroads in foreign countries. Governmental regulation. 1905. Railroads in their relation to the Government and the public. 1904; 2d issue. 1907. Reciprocity. 1902; 2d ed. 1910. Reciprocity with Canada. 1907. Recognition in international law and practice. 1904. Sugar, chiefly in its economic aspects. 1910. Supreme Court of the United States. 1909. Tariffs of foreign countries. 1906. Taxation of inheritances and of incomes. 1907. Trusts. 1900; 2d ed. 1902; 3d ed. 1907. Valuation and capitalization of railroads. 1909. Workingmen's insurance. 1908. INDEXES AND COMPILATIONS OF LAW. EXHIBIT 8.-PROPOSAL FOR INDEX TO COMPARATIVE LEGISLATION. ESTIMATES FOR 1904. Estimate. For the preparation of an index to comparative legislation, including subscription to and purchase of publications and other necessary material, and for traveling expenses, transportation, stationery, postage, and all services and incidental expenses connected with the compilation of such index, $28,000. [Extract from letter of transmittal accompanying estimates Oct. 6, 1902.] This proposes an entirely new undertaking for the Library. An index to comparative legislation brings together a descriptive statement of the laws that are being enacted by the various legislative bodies of the civilized world. If accompanied by |