Federal Government Documents Tutorial
1909 Checklist
The 1909 Checklist, or the Checklist of United States
Public Documents, 1789-1909, is a wonderful example of early 20th century
bibliographic scholarship. It's exhaustive in detail. Its
introduction describes its purpose to
"record the first systematic effort to include within
the limits of one publication an approximately complete checklist of
all public documents issued by the United States Government during
the first century and a quarter of its history. It claims to
be only a checklist, not a catalogue; but it aims to be as complete
and accurate a checklist as human energy and enthusiasm could evolve
for publication within the narrow confines of a single reference
work, which must be in a form both usable and
concise."
Entries from 1909 Checklist
Volume 1 of the 1909 Checklist, "Lists of Congressional and
Departmental Publications," contains references to all the publications known
to GPO through 1909. The first portion of the volume records
Congressional publications, and the latter nine-tenths of the bibliography
lists departmental publications in SuDoc order.
There is evidence that a Volume 2 was planned; indeed, it is so
stated: "An index will be issued as volume 2 of the Checklist."
Unfortunately, the government never did complete an index to this monumental
work. But the 1909 Checklist stands alone as a work of
scholarship, and it has recently provided the private sector with a business
opportunity.
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