The Origins of Legislative Reference Services in the United States

Abstract

The legislative reference service in Congress, established in 1914, was based on the evolution of professional librarianship in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Librarians came to see themselves not merely as custodians of books but as providers of services to readers; they developed reference departments that found and digested information for the public rather than merely pointing the public toward sources of information. In the legislative arena, the Progressive Movement, the concern for passing intelligent legislation in response to complex social problems, and the example of state legislative reference services in New York and Wisconsin prepared the way for the establishment of the predecessor of the Congressional Research Service within the Library of Congress.