A Visit to the Mass Room

If you have ever searched our online catalog, you might have come across the shelving location “Mass Room.”

Image of catalog record for the Committee Report of the Massachusetts
Committee on Certification of Lawyer Specialization

Image of inside the Mass Room from
the State Library's Flickr account

The “Mass Room” is the section of our closed stacks that contains published Massachusetts government documents. “Mass Room” is a bit of a misnomer, as the “room” spans multiple floors within the stacks. If you get the chance to visit the library, you can catch a glimpse of the room behind the Reference Desk. A common question we get asked at the Reference Desk is whether that area is open to the public. Sadly, the answer is: no. Only library employees and interns are allowed to access the stacks (unless the State Librarian has given a visitor her expressed permission). Fortunately, for those of you with unquenchable curiosity, the librarians of years-past created an online exhibit that reveals a bit more of what it looks like back there. The photos from the exhibit are available on the Library’s Flickr account and can be accessed here.

“But what exactly are the ‘government documents’ you keep back there, and what is it like to browse the collection?” you might ask. According to M.G.L. ch.6 §39, the materials the Library collects are:

[A]ny document, study, rule, regulation, report, directory, pamphlet, brochure, periodical, newsletter, bibliography, microphotographic form, tape or disc recording, annual, biennial or special report, statistical compendium, or other printed material regardless of its format or manner of duplication, issued in the name of or at the request of any agency of the commonwealth or produced and issued as part of a contract entered into by any agency of the commonwealth regardless of the source of funding, provided they constitute ''public records'' as defined in clause Twenty-sixth of section seven of chapter four, excepting correspondence, blank forms, and university press publications.

The collection is massive and continues to grow. Inside the Mass room, the shelves are jam-packed with the reports, supplements, notices, plans, updates, proceedings, and projects of the various commissions, committees, task-forces, and other agencies that have been created, merged, renamed, or dissolved over the course of the Commonwealth's history.

The documents in the Mass Room are print materials, however, these can exist in a variety of formats, e.g., hardbound or soft bound volumes, binders of looseleaf pages, or even one-page leaflets which we store in envelopes. Everything is organized by its government agency and uses a unique call number system invented by the State Library (sorry, Dewey and LC fans!).

While a lot of our material is digitized and available in our online repository – many documents in the Mass Room remain in paper format only. Visitors are welcome to request to examine these items in our Reading Room at any time during our open hours 9:00am - 5:00pm (you don’t need an appointment, but advanced notice is ideal – you can email us).

Although it can be daunting, the size and complexity of this collection presents our reference librarians with an exciting challenge. Each reference request is an opportunity (for us and our patrons) to learn more about our collections. Often we don’t know we have a specific item or what format it’s in until a patron requests it!

Below are examples of some items you could find while wandering the floors of the Mass Room:

Report of the Commission to Investigate the Subject of the Cold Storage of Food and of Food Products Kept in Cold Storage (January, 1912) 

Initially, I grabbed this report thinking the title said, “Report on Cod Storage,” however, flipping through the report showed that the Commonwealth was concerned about time limits for storing food. I never knew that ammonia was the chemical of choice for refrigerating food.

Gas and Electric Light Commissioners Report (1885-91)

1900s technology made me curious about other groundbreaking technology, so I went further back in time and pulled this Gas Commissioner’s Report from 1890, which is part of a larger bound volume of the agency’s reports. In 1890 the electric lighting business was booming – although there was some skepticism as to whether it was as good as gas lighting. If you’re interested, you can read a full corporate history of gas and electric utilities here (it was compiled last year by the Dept. of Utilities).

Maryellen Larken

Government Documents & Reference Librarian