The Theobald Legislative Library is named in honor of Dr. H. Rupert Theobald, who retired in 1994 after serving as chief of the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) for 30 years.
The library primarily serves legislators, legislative staff, and legislative service agencies. Other library users include Wisconsin state and local government agencies, court personnel, Wisconsin residents, students, interest groups, law firms, and other state and federal government agencies.
The library collects public policy research on a wide variety of topics relevant to issues addressed by the Wisconsin legislature, and historical information about Wisconsin government and politics. The library contains over 85,000 items, including extensive collections pertaining to federal, state, and local governments, and subjects covered in the lawmaking process.
There are four distinct collections in the library: Wisconsin documents, circulating collection, clippings, and reference collection. Materials are available in a variety of formats: paper, newsprint, video and audio cassettes, CD-ROMs, microfiche, and electronic.
The Wisconsin documents collection is a collection of state mandated reports and materials distributed through the documents depository program. The circulating collection includes Wisconsin documents and materials from federal and state government agencies, trade publications, and various institutions and organizations. The clippings collection is comprised mostly of newspaper clippings, classified by subject, and arranged chronologically; some date back to 1900. The reference collection includes bills, session laws, drafting records, and typical reference materials such as almanacs, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. Reference, clippings, and Wisconsin documents collections do not circulate.
LRBCAT contains catalog records for approximately 40,000 records at this time. LRBCAT is accessible through the Internet and, whenever possible, Internet links to publications available in full-text on the Web are added to catalog records. Catalog records for older materials continue to be added to LRBCAT and we suggest contacting library staff for a comprehensive search of the library collections. The text of bills, acts, drafting records, legislative committee hearing records, and clippings are not available through LRBCAT.