Government
Documents
Links to federal and state government sites
The
United States Government Printing Office (G.P.O.) is the world's
largest publisher, publishing everything from the Economic Report
of the President to colorful posters put out by the National Park
Service. These publications are issued by Congress, government agencies,
and commissions; are available electronically in paper or microform.
These government documents are made available to the public through
the Federal Depository Library program. USI Library Services has
been a selective depository since 1969; it receives documents from
44% of the approximately 7000 categories available. Some documents
have been cataloged and may be found in the online catalog. Central
Library (downtown Evansville) is also a selective depository--its
holdings overlap but do not completely duplicate USI's.
Government
documents are shelved in more than one location. A portion of them
are considered reference materials and may not be checked out. For
help in locating documents, please ask at the Reference Desk.
Monthly
Catalog - GPO produces an index to government documents
that provides access via author, title, series/report, contract
number, or title/keyword--current indexes are available online at
www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/cgp/index.html and previous
years in Ref. Gov. Doc. GP3.8.
Congressional
Quarterly Weekly Report - This commercial publication
reports on activities in Congress and may be consulted to learn
the status and/or date of legislation--once you have this information
you can search for the document itself.
Superintendent
of Documents Numbers - Government documents are
arranged by the issuing agency and/or department. This explanation
of what these numbers mean will help you in finding appropriate
materials. A list of common author symbols are listed below.
AE
1.113:2/991
AE represents the Author Symbol (in this
example, the National Archives and Records Administration).
1.
Subordinate office or bureau within agency
and/or department. 1 is the parent organization and will always
be followed by a period.
113: Series
number (in this example, 113 is the general information leaflet
series). This is always followed by a colon and occasionally there
are numbers for new series closely related to existing series: these
are designated like this: 5/a: or 5/2.
2/ A Unique
book (item) number.
991 Date of
revision (in this example, 991 = 1991). In the case this would be
a serial, the number may represent a volume or issue number.
