Reference Question of the Week

How many volumes were in the U.S. Code in 1960? How many volumes (including annual supplements) are there in the 2000 Code? (Is that the current version?) Also, how many linear feet did C.F.R. occupy in 1960? How many today?

Answer: The 1958 edition of the U.S. Code has ten volumes. The spines are from 1-1/2" to 2" each. We do not have the supplement volumes for that set, but based on the publication pattern for that set there would be at most one additional volume, the 1959 Supplement, by 1960. The current U.S. Code is the 2000 edition. It has 34 volumes. The spines are 2" to 3" (or larger). We have one 2001 supplement and three 2002 supplements. I don't think the other supplements have been printed yet. The next new edition of the code will be the 2006 edition, but it won't be in print for a couple of years.

I was not able to easily find out how many linear feet the 1960 C.F.R. occupied. I asked the patron if he wanted me to measure our current set and try to find old numbers for 1960, or could I instead give another volume comparison. (Old CFRs are on microfiche so it is hard to measure them but easy to find a volume count.) The patron replied, a volume comparison will do fine. (He also asked, "Have they too grown in spine size?")

It took a little longer than I thought to get an accurate volume count from the 1960 microfiche. It seems that every title begins a new fiche even if it appears in a volume with another title. Also every pocket part seems to be a separate fiche. What I ended up doing was counting the volumes in the List of Revised Volumes in the 1960 Revised Index (48), then noting all the titles not listed there (4, 5, 17, 18, 20, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34, and 48). For these I looked at the fiche themselves and learned several useful facts. Titles 17, 18, 20, and 33 were all still in their original single volumes, never having been revised beyond their pocket parts. Titles 34 and 48 were reserved and didn't have any volumes at all. Two titles were published together in one volume for titles 4-5 and 28-29. And finally Title 27 was published in the last part of Title 26, which was already counted. So the total number of CFR volumes in 1960 was 54. The CFR in 2005 was 230 volumes, which I was easily able to determine by counting the volumes in the Checklist of CFR Volumes appearing in the January 1, 2005 LSA pamphlet. It is harder to do a size comparison of volumes, since some of the current volumes are also very slim. But there are a lot more larger volumes now then there were then.

Does anyone reading this blog has linear shelf feet comparisons from 1960 today?

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