Page 178 - Training for librarianship; library work as a career

CHAPTER XV

State, Legislative Reference and
Municipal Reference Libraries

The importance of having at the seat of
government in each state a library for the
use of state officials and employees, as well as
for the executive, legislative and judicial de-
partments of government was early recog-
nized by ahnost all of the states. The same
reasons that have impelled the formation of
other types of libraries operated in the case
of the state Hbraries.
In the first place, the state library serves as
a repository for and a place of reference to
state documents. Each of the states pub-
lishes and preserves its own official records.
Such records include the journals of both
houses of the state legislature, bills or resolu-
tions introduced in or passed by either house,
reports by legislative committees or special
bodies authorized by the state, state laws and
legislative manuals, decisions of the supreme
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