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I might add here that prior to the enactment of the Printing Act of 1895, the Documents Division was under the Department of the Interior. With the enactment of the Printing Act of 1895, the functions were transferred to the Government Printing Office, where they remain to this day.
For some time now, only the reports of Congressional Committees have been included in the Congressional Serial Set. These reports deal with proposed legislation and contain findings on matters under investigation. Sometimes the reports do contain excerpts from testimony given before Congressional Committees, but normally this material is printed in separate form as "hearings." Under provisions of Title 44, Hearings can only be printed as Congressional Numbered Documents when specifically ordered by Congress. The documents include all other material ordered printed by both Houses of Congress. This material once included many reports of executive departments and agencies. Some of these reports were submitted in accordance with Federal law, while some resulted from resolutions requesting information from executive officers. Some were published in the series merely because at one time a specified number of each document printed was made available for distribution by Members of Congress. However, in an effort to reduce costs, and where there is no definite statutory authority to be complied with, this practice has been discontinued. Congressional printing has been drastically reduced.
At one time such departmental publications as the Labor Statistics Bureau Bulletins, the Geological Survey Bulletins, the Water Supply Papers, the Minerals Yearbook, the Agriculture Yearbook, the Statistical Abstract of the United States, the Pocket Data Book, Foreign Commerce and Navigation of the United States, American Ethnology Bureau Bulletins, Foreign Relations Papers, and annual reports of many of the Government agencies were all printed as numbered Congressional Documents and included in the Congressional Serial Set. Foreign Relations Papers were assigned a Document Number and bound as part of the Serial Set from 1861 through 1957.
The Senate and House Journals were also bound as part of the Set. This practice was discontinued at the beginning of the 83d Congress, since the statutes provided only for the binding of Senate and House Reports and Senate and House Documents in the reserve sets and the Journals did not fall within that category.
Volume of Foreign
Relations Papers
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