In these volumes, known under various names, the laws passed at the annual sessions of the legislature are recorded, repealed laws are deleted, and the current laws grouped systematically by topic. Most have annotations which provide additional information on the law in question. This information may include legislative histories, references to secondary sources, notes to decisions of the Utah appellate courts, and other explanatory material. Copies of both the state and federal constitutions are also recorded in the Revised Statutes of 1898 and in The Utah Code Annotated. Other federal laws as they pertain to Utah territory are also frequently included at the beginning of volumes issued prior to 1898.

The history of the Compiled Laws of Utah starts on February 27, 1851 when Willard Richards published a compilation entitled Laws and Ordinances of the State of Deseret. Thereafter, the governor and legislative assembly periodically would appoint a Code Commission, in 1941 known as theCompilation Commission, to help compile and recodify the laws.

A report by the Code Commission to the State Legislature entitled Proposed Revisions of the Statutes of Utah led to the 1898 publication of the Revised Statutes. The compiled laws were revised again in 1933. To keep up with changes in the law made at each legislative session, periodic updates to the compiled laws were issued. The first of these was published in 1939 to bring the laws contained in the 1933 Revised Statutes up to date as of January 1, 1939.

On January 26, 1943, Senate bill 18 passed approving, adopting, and legalizing a six volume set of compiled laws known as the Utah Code Annotated. This set was in use from 1943 until 1953 when, due to the growth of state government, it became necessary to replace the six volume set of the code with a larger set. Therefore, on March 12, 1953, the Legislature passed Senate bill 125 which approved the Utah Code Annotated 1953 in ten volumes by the Allen Smith Company.Supplements and replacements were published by the Allen Smith Company until 1986 when the publication rights were passed to the Michie Company.

Along with the volumes of the Utah Code Annotated for 1943 and 1953 are pocket supplements to update the volumes when there were changes in the law. The supplements themselves were often supplemented. There were interim supplements published and used until the new pocket supplements arrived. Special supplements were published after special legislative sessions or when material arrived too late to be incorporated in an earlier pocket supplement. When the supplements for a volume became too large or too numerous, a complete second volume would be published as a replacement volume. Some volumes were broken into A, B, and C sections if the original became too large. Others, like the Uniform Probate Code and the Criminal Code, originally appearing as titles in volume 8, became separate volumes.

This series contains originals, supplements, andreplacements. However, an office would normally keep the original and supplements until a replacement volume was issued. Then the original and supplements would be discarded, and the replacement and its subsequent supplements retained until a second replacement volume was issued, and so forth. Thus you would always have a correct copy of the current law; you would not have a complete record of the interim changes.

From the territorial period until statehood, the Secretary of the Territory was in charge of seeing that the compiled laws and codes were printed and distributed. After statehood, the duty of overseeing the printing and distribution of the laws was held by various agencies at various times, including the State Board of Examiners, Legislative Printing, the Finance Department's Division of Documents, and the State Archivist.