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Tag Archives: anniversary
Nebraska’s Traveling Library Service: “A task so magnificent in its possibilities…”
Friday, March 27, 2026 was the Nebraska Library Commission’s 125th anniversary. The agency was established by the Nebraska Legislature on March 27, 1901 as the Nebraska Public Library Commission. One of its first directives was the creation of traveling libraries: portable library collections that communities could apply to borrow for 3 months at a time. According to the Commission’s Second Biennial Report, each library contained “40 volumes, one-fourth of which are fiction for adults, another fourth stories for children, and the balance are history, travel, useful arts, etc., equally divided between children and adults.” The first traveling library was delivered to a barber shop in Loup City, and recorded 279 check-outs during its three month stay.
“We believe that there is no surer way to inspire people with a desire for good books at home, at school, and in the library than to give the people an opportunity to see and read the best books that the book trade affords. This, then, is the first task set for the traveling library-a task so magnificent in its possibilities that the accomplishment of but a small portion of it would justify the expenditure of all state funds so far devoted to the Commission, as well as affording ample satisfaction to those who have had the work in charge.”
— Edna D. Bullock, Nebraska Public Library Commission Second Biennial Report, 1904
You can read all about the traveling library program here: https://nlc.nebraska.gov/history/traveling/index.aspx; the Library Commission’s archive includes digitized letters from the first Commission Executive Secretary, Edna Bullock, to potential borrowing communities, as well as photos, pamphlets, forms, book lists and more. If that’s not enough Library Commission history for you, take some time to click through our centennial materials, “Libraries for the Centuries” to see what we’ve been up to each decade since our founding. While originally created for our 100th anniversary in 2001, this site has been updated to include facts and events through present day.
If you are in the downtown Lincoln area during the month of April, stop by during business hours too see our traveling library exhibit, including an original traveling library crate and volumes from an early traveling collection. You can also peruse Library Commission documents and photos collected over the past 125 years, detailing our various projects and services. They will be on display all month to celebrate the Nebraska Library Commission’s quasquicentennial and National Library Week (April 19-25, 2026).
Posted in General, What's Up Doc / Govdocs
Tagged anniversary, Archives, library history, quasquicentennial, traveling library
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Happy Birthday Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse!
*This post is an update to one originally published for the Clearinghouse’s 51st birthday in 2023, written by Mary Sauers.
July 2025 marks the 53rd anniversary of Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse operations!
Prior to 1972 there was no comprehensive program in the state for collecting and preserving Nebraska government publications. In 1971 the Nebraska Library Commission began surveying other states and Nebraska libraries to find out how such a program should work and drafting proposed legislation to give the program legal authority. In January 1972 LB 1284 was introduced in the Nebraska Legislature, passed, and signed by Governor Exon in March, establishing the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The program was launched in July of that year.
State Depository Program
“There is hereby created, as a division of the Nebraska Library Commission, a Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse shall establish and operate a publications collection and depository system for the use of Nebraska citizens.” The original legislation has been amended several times to exclude Junior Colleges and reduce the number of mandatory copies that agencies must send, but the basic operation of the program remains the same.
Federal Depository Program
The legislation also directed the Library Commission to provide access to federal publications. “The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse shall provide access to local, state, federal and other governmental publications to state agencies and legislators and through interlibrary loan service to citizens of the state.” The Commission began participating in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) in 1972. It served as Nebraska’s Regional Federal Depository until 1984, when Love Library at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln became the Regional. The Commission is now a selective depository and has reduced its selections to about 2% of the publications offered through the program.
How Publications are Collected
Agencies are currently defined as “every state office, officer, department, division, bureau, board, commission, and agency of the state and, when applicable, all subdivisions of each, including state institutions of higher education defined as all state-supported colleges and universities”
The first challenge facing the new Clearinghouse service was creating a comprehensive list of these agencies. The next challenge was getting them to send their publications. Unlike some other states, Nebraska does not use a central printing agency that could make extra copies for the documents program. A network of contact persons is used instead.
“Every state agency head or his or her appointed records officer shall notify the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse of his or her identity.” Every few years the Library Commission sends agency directors letters with a form for designating an agency contact person. The contacts are sent a packet of information about the Clearinghouse service.
In the early years of the program agencies supplied more copies to the Clearinghouse than they do now and both the statutorily designated recipients and the contract depositories received paper publications. Space restrictions at the depositories, cost limitations for the agencies, and a desire to preserve publications in a long-lasting format resulted in a reduction in the number of paper copies normally required from each agency.
The current statute reads “The records officer shall upon release of a state publication deposit four copies and a short summary, including author, title, and subject, of each of its state publications with the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse for record purposes…. Additional copies, including sale items, shall also be deposited in the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse in quantities certified to the agencies by the clearinghouse as required to meet the needs of the Nebraska publications depository system, with the exception that the University of Nebraska Press shall only be required to deposit four copies of its publications.”
One copy is kept at the Library Commission and copies are forwarded to the Nebraska State Historical Society and Library of Congress. Until the spring of 2005 microfiche copies were produced from the fourth copy and distributed to Nebraska depositories.
Processing and Cataloging
Once the list of agencies was compiled in 1972 a classification system based on agency names (NEDOCS) was created and the first Guide to State Agencies was published. The Guide lists agencies with their five digit alpha-numeric code and traces agency creation, mergers, discontinuance, and classification number changes. Originally a print publication reissued every few years, the Guide is now continuously updated online.
The Statute states that “The Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse shall publish and distribute regularly to contracting depository libraries, other libraries, state agencies and legislators, an official list of state publications with an annual cumulation. The official list shall provide a record of each agency’s publishing and show author, agency, title and subject approaches.”From 1972 until 1991 The Nebraska State Publications Checklist was produced. The Checklist included abstracts with a title, subject and agency index. It was issued on microfiche several times a year with an annual cumulation. In 1992 the Checklist was discontinued and publications began receiving full OCLC cataloging. Nebraska publications now are listed in the WorldCat, the OCLC database of catalog records contributed by its member libraries worldwide. The WorldCat can be searched without cost by any Nebraska citizen from NebraskAccess with a password obtained from their local library. Older records from the Checklist can also be searched using the Library Commission catalog. Publications received are listed in What’s Up Doc and compiled into an annual publication.
The Depository Program
Contrary to what the word “clearinghouse” might make one think, the Library Commission is not a warehouse distributing giveaway or sale copies of Nebraska publications. The Commission is in fact prohibited by law from doing that. At first copies were forwarded to the Nebraska State Historical Society, Library of Congress, and Center for Research Libraries. This was amended later to exclude the Center for Research Libraries.
The legislation also authorized the Library Commission to “enter into depository contracts with any municipal or county public library, state college or state university library, and out-of-state research libraries. The requirements for eligibility to contract as a depository library shall be established by the Nebraska Publications Clearinghouse. The standards shall include and take into consideration the type of library, ability to preserve such publications and to make them available for public use, and also such geographical locations as will make the publications conveniently accessible to residents in all areas of the state.”
By 1975 contracts had been signed with six institutions willing to serve as depositories. More depositories were added over the years, bringing the total since 1990 to 13 plus the Nebraska State Historical Society.
Depository Library Responsibilities
Making Government Information Accessible
Internet technology has created an opportunity to greatly improve public access to government information. Most state agencies now post key publications to their web sites, and much legislative information is available online. The Library Commission was already making extensive use of the Internet to direct users to Nebraska government information, and had created special websites such as Nebraska State Government Publications Online and Nebraska Legislators, Past and Present.
In 2005 breakdown of the microfiche camera at the state Records Management Division led to a decision to discontinue fiche production and redirect the program toward providing online access to the same high-priority documents that were formerly sent to depositories on microfiche. They are downloaded or scanned, archived on a Library Commission server, and searchable via Nebraska State Government Publications Online and the NLC catalog. Instead of microfiche, depositories receive regular alerts via What’s Up Doc blog postings which include stable URLs that can be used in library catalog records.
The Library Commission partners with the Official State of Nebraska Web Site to offer an “Ask a Librarian” link citizens can use to email or telephone our reference desk. Many government information links are provided from our NebraskAccess site.
Resources for Government Information
Formats and distribution methods may change, but the Publications Clearinghouse will continue to use new technology and strategies for making government information accessible to Nebraskans.
