library. For example, in his annual message to Congress on December 2, 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes observed: As this library is national in character and must from the nature of the case increase even more rapidly in the future, than in the past, it cannot be doubted that the people will sanction any wise expenditure to preserve it and to enlarge its usefulness. In a similar manner, on December 12, 1882, Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas B. Reed informed Congress: "This nation has become great enough to meet the expectations of this people. Among these expectations is the establishment of a library large enough for the needs of the whole of this great nation." 10 To Spofford must also go primary credit for establishing the Library's tradition of broad public service. In 1865 he extended the hours of service, so that the Library was open every weekday all year. In 1869 he began advocating eve An August 1974 view of the James Madison Memorial Building as seen from the roof of the Annex. Authorized in 1965, the Madison Building is expected to be ready for occupancy in 1978. It is connected by tunnels to the Main Building and Annex of the Library and to the Cannon House Office Building. Photograph courtesy the Office of the Architect of the Capitol. ning hours of opening, but this innovation was not approved by Congress until 1898. Finally, in 1870 Spofford reinstated the earlier policy of lending books directly to the public if an appropriate sum was left on deposit, a procedure that remained in effect until 1894, when preparations were started for the move into the new Library building. In 1896, just before the actual move, the Joint Library Committee held hearings about "the condition" of the Library and its possible reorganization. The hearings provided an occasion for a detailed examination of the Library's history and 127 present functions, furnished by Librarian Spofford, as well as for a review of what new functions the Library might perform once it occupied the spacious new building. The American Library Association sent six witnesses, including future Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam from the Boston Public Library and Melvil Dewey from the New York State Library. Congressmen listened with great interest to the testimony of Putnam and Dewey, who argued that the national services of the Library should be greatly expanded. Dewey felt that the Library of Congress now had the opportunity to act as a true national library, which he defined as "a center to which the libraries of the whole country can turn for inspiration, guidance, and practical help, which can be rendered so economically and efficiently in no other possible way." 39 11 Testimony at the 1896 hearings greatly influenced the reorganization of the Library, which was incorporated into the Legislative Appropriations Act approved February 19, 1897, and became effective on July 1, 1897. In accordance with the recommendations of Spofford, Putnam, Dewey, and the other officials who testified, all phases of the Library's activities were expanded. The size of the staff was increased from 42 to 108, and separate administrative units for copyright, law, cataloging, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, music, and graphic arts were established. During his 32 years in office, and with the consent of the Joint Library Committee, Librarian Spofford had assumed full responsibility for directing the Library's affairs. This authority formally passed to the office of Librarian of Congress in the 1897 reorganization, for the Librarian explicitly was assigned sole responsibility for making the "rules and regulations for the government" of the Library. The same reorganization act stipulated that the President's appointment of a Librarian of Congress thereafter was to be approved by the Senate.12 President McKinley appointed a new Librarian of Congress to supervise the move from the Capitol and implement the new reorganization. He was John Russell Young, who held office Construction workers on the top floor of the Madison Building, August 1974. The Library of Congress Main Building is directly across Independence Avenue and the dome of the US. Capitol can be seen at the far left. Photograph by Christopher Wright. 128 from July 1, 1897, until his death on January 17, 1899. A journalist and former diplomat, Young was a skilled administrator who worked hard to strengthen both the comprehensiveness of the collections and the scope of the services provided to Congress. In February 1898, for example, he sent a letter to U.S. diplomatic and consular representatives throughout the world, asking them to send "to the national library" newspapers, serials, pamphlets, manuscripts, broadsides, "documents illustrative of the history of those various nationalities now coming to our shores to blend into our national life," and many other categories of research materials, broadly summarized as "whatever, in a word, would add to the sum of human knowledge." By the end of 1898, books and documents had arrived from 11 legations and seven consulates. In his annual report for the same year, Young casually mentioned two developments that, in fact, were of great significance: the start of the reclassification of the Library's collections and the compilation of bibliographies specifically for the use of Congress. He pointed out that the new series of bibliographic bulletins was intended to "anticipate the wants of Congress upon the subjects of legislation and hold the resources of the Library ever at the command of those for whom it was founded." The principal bibliographies were separate lists of books relating to the Philippines, Cuba, Nicaragua, Hawaii, and Alaska.1 Young also inaugurated what today is one of the Library's best known national activities, library service for the blind. In November of 1897 the Library began a program of daily readings for the blind in a special "pavilion for the blind" complete with its own library. In 1913 Congress directed the American Printing House for the Blind to begin depositing embossed books in the Library, and in 1931 a separate appropriation was authorized for providing “books for the use of adult blind residents of the United States." Young's successor, Herbert Putnam, served as Librarian of Congress for 40 years, from 1899 to 1939. The first experienced professional librarian to hold the post, Putnam was able to establish a working partnership between the Library of Congress and the American library movement. In fact, three years after Putnam had taken office, the Library of Congress was the leader among American libraries. This turn of events was in accord with Putnam's view of the proper role of a national library, a view expressed at the 1896 hearings concerning the Library of Congress. Rather than serving primarily as a great national accumulation of books, a national library should, he felt, actively serve other libraries. Building upon the tradition created by Spofford, Putnam established a systematic program of widespread service, the full dimensions of which were outlined in a July 1901 speech at the annual meeting of the American Library Association-an organization which had played a major role in his appointment as Librarian. In the speech, he summarized his opinion of the proper functions of the Library of Congress: If there is any way in which our National Library may "reach out" from Washington it should reach out. Its first duty is, no doubt, as a legislative library, to Congress. Its next is as a federal library to aid the execu tive and judicial department of the government and the scientific undertakings under government auspices. Its next is to that general research which may be carried on at Washington by resident and visiting students and scholars. . . . But this should not be the limit. There should be possible also a service to the country at large: a service to be extended through the libraries which are the local centers of research involv ing the use of books." In the quarter century before Putnam took office, a new structure of scientific and scholarly activity had evolved in the United States. Professional schools and new universities offering graduate work were established; numerous professional associations and societies came into existence; and the federal government became an active supporter of education, research, and scientific activity. By 1900, as Arthur Bestor has pointed out, the age of the great library had arrived in America; its characteristics included huge bookstacks, scientific cataloging and classification, and full-time professional staffs.15 By 1901 the Library of Congress, the first American library to reach one million volumes, was itself part of the new pattern of American intellectual activity. Putnam's actions in 1901 were imaginative and decisive and were approved by both the Joint Library Committee and the professional library community. In that year the first volume of a completely new classification scheme, based on the Library's own collections, was published; access to the Library was extended to "scientific 129 investigators and duly qualified individuals" throughout the United States; an interlibrary loan service was inaugurated; the sale and distribution of Library of Congress printed catalog cards began; the equivalent of a national union catalog was started; and finally, appended to the 1901 annual report was a 200-page manual describing the organization, facilities, collections, and operations of the Library a description that set high standards for all other libraries. Already respected as a library expert, Putnam further enhanced his congressional support through appeals to national pride and idealism. Moreover, like Spofford, he also enlisted the aid of Presidents. In his first annual message to Congress, on December 3, 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt called the Library of Congress "the one national library of the United States." He then continued: Already the largest single collection of books on the Western Hemisphere, and certain to increase more rapidly than any other through purchase, exchange, and the operation of the copyright law, this library has a unique opportunity to render to the libraries of this Country to American scholarship service of the highest importance." President Roosevelt supported Putnam by deed as well. On March 9, 1903, for example, he approved an executive order that directed the transfer of the records and papers of the Continental Congress and the personal papers of Washington, Madison, Monroe, Hamilton, and Franklin from the State Department to the Library of Congress. The progressive era was the age of efficiency experts and the scientific use of knowledge, and the establishment of a separate legislative reference service at the Library of Congress was a direct result of the progressive movement. Specialized library units for legislative research came into existence in various states, notably Wisconsin, during the early 1900's. By the second decade of the century, the legislative reference movement had reached the national legislature. Before 1911, Putnam maintained that since the Library's principal purpose was service to Congress, a separate administrative unit was unnecessary. On April 6, 1911, however, in a special report on the establishment of legislative reference bureaus, Putnam changed his position and in typical fashion took the initiative. After outlining the specific services that a truly scientific and nonpartisan legislative reference unit could provide, he noted that the Library of Congress unfortunately could not undertake such an effort without "an enlargement of its present Divisions of Law, Documents, and Bibliography, and in addition the creation of a new division under the title of a Legislative or Congressional Reference Division." 1 In February 1912, the House Committee on the Library held hearings to consider various bills before Congress proposing the establishment of a legislative reference bureau. A year later, when the Senate held similar hearings, there was general agreement that such a unit would be estab lished within the Library of Congress. Putnam explained that: What we do not do, and what a legislative reference division in the Library would do, is to select out of this great collection now 2,000,000 books and pamphletsthe material that may bear upon one or another of the topics under consideration by Congress or that are likely to be under consideration, or that come up under particular discussions: extracting, digesting, and concentrating material that will bear upon those questions to be set aside, available to Congress or to the individual Member of Congress or a committee of Congress. It requires duplication of material; it requires an approach to the material from a different direction from that which we now approach it The establishment of a separate Legislative Reference Service within the Library of Congress was authorized with a small appropriation in 1914. In 1915 the functions of the new service were broadened in accordance with new language in the appropriations act: "to gather, classify, and make available in translations, indexes, digests, compilations, and bulletins, and otherwise, data for or bearing upon legislation, and to render such data available to Congress and committees and Members thereof." That year Librarian Putnam reported that the new unit was anticipating questions from Congress concerning the following subjects: "the conservation bills, so-called," the merchant marine, the government of the Philippines, immigration, convict-made goods, railroad securities, federal aid in roadmaking, publicity in campaign contributions, and a national budget system. 19 The establishment of a separate appropriation and administrative unit for legislative reference could be viewed as an indirect acknowledgment of the broad range of national services offered by the Library, insofar that the Congress was forced to create a new organizational unit to respond to |