On Thursday, 28 March 1963, during the annual conference of the Texas Library Association (TLA), twenty-three Texas librarians and two visitors interested in reference services in Texas met at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Dallas to establish a Round Table of the Texas Library Association which also would serve as a chapter of the American Library Association's Reference Services Division (RSD). Richard Hooker "Dick" Perrine, Reference Librarian at the Fondren Library of Rice University in Houston, arranged and conducted the meeting. Also present was Donald E. Wright, Executive Secretary of the Reference Services Division. Bylaws for the proposed Round Table were adopted and two petitions - one to submit to the Texas Library Association for establishment of the Reference Round Table and one to submit to the Reference Services Division for designation as a chapter - were circulated for signatures. Neither petition had enough signatories for immediate submission and further signatures were to be sought from persons unable to attend the meeting. The first officers of the Round Table were elected: Anne Bailey, Southern Methodist University, Chair; Helen T. Smith, University of Texas, Vice-chair/Chair-elect; and Richard Perrine, Secretary. With this initial organizational meeting the process to establish the Reference Round Table was begun.

At the second TLA Council meeting in the Grand Ballroom of the Statler-Hilton Hotel the afternoon of the same day, Richard Perrine presented a petition with twenty-five signatures for formation of a Reference Round Table. Upon Sam Whitten's motion for Council approval and Phyllis Burson's second, the petition was accepted.

During the next year, the TLA Constitution Committee reviewed the petition and proposed bylaws. The bylaws were approved but additional signatures were needed for the petition. More signatures were acquired and finally, at the second TLA Council meeting on 11 April 1964 in the ballroom of the Windsor Hotel in Abilene, David M. Hennington, Chair of the TLA Constitution Committee, reported that the Reference Round Table had resubmitted its petition and fulfilled all requirements. His motion for acceptance passed and the Reference Round Table (RRT) of the Texas Library Association was officially established.

The acceptance of the Reference Round Table as a chapter of the Reference Services Division of the American Library Association (ALA) took a bit longer to achieve. The petition distributed at the 1963 organizational meeting had an insufficient number of signatories who were also members of the Reference Services Division. Throughout the remainder of 1963 and 1964 attempts were made to acquire the necessary signatures to secure acceptance by the Reference Services Division. Correspondence between RSD and the RRT officers indicates that signature verification of joint membership in the two organizations was holding up the process. Questions of RSD accuracy in checking signatures were raised. The RRT officers acquired two separate lists of RSD members from Texas to be used to solicit relevant signatures on the petitions - which had to be mailed to various locations in the state, slowing the process even more - and still the RSD office was claiming discrepancies. Despite continued wrangling over verification, at the second meeting of the RSD Board of Directors on 6 July 1965 during the ALA Annual Conference in Detroit, Michigan, Walter C. Allen, chair of the RSD Chapters Committee, recommended that RRT be accepted as a chapter. Upon the motion of Frederick L. Arnold, Jr., seconded by Wayne Hartwell, the RSD Board of Directors accepted the recommendation and the Reference Round Table became the tenth RSD chapter. The RRT Chair, Lola Rivers Thompson, received official notice of chapter status from RSD President Wayne M. Hartwell on 25 October 1965. The two-year process initiated by Richard Perrine to establish the Reference Round Table as a unit of the Texas Library Association and as a chapter of the Reference Services Division of ALA was - finally - successfully concluded.