Faculty Workshop on Information Literacy
Session 8:
Government Documents
Friday, January 24, 1997
Megan Mitchell, Reference Librarian
Paula Contreras, Reference Librarian
Types of Government Documents
- state and local
- federal and foreign
- intergovernmental organizations
What are Government Documents?
- sublime to the ridiculous
- primary sources
- something for everyone
Agencies from A to V
- Agriculture
- Commerce
- Congress
- Defense
- Education
- Energy
- Government Accounting
- Health & Human Services
- Housing & Urban Development
Formats
- paper (books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters)
- microfiche
- cd-rom (data, text)
- diskette
- video
- maps (paper, digital)
- other stuff: mobiles, kits & calendars
- Internet
GPO & NTIS
- print and/or reproduce
- distribute and/or disseminate
- produce catalogs & indexes
- provide bibliographic access
- sales programs
Federal Depository Library Program
- all government publications (with exceptions) should be available through the program
- government publications should be available for free use
- there should be depositories in each state/congressional district
What kinds of things aren't distributed to libraries?
- internal use only/administrative functions
- classified material/sensitive to national security
Fugitive Documents
- things that don't get distributed to libraries or cataloged by GPO
-
- decentralization/privatization
- technology
- desktop publishing
- electronic/web documents
Depository Libraries
- public's primary source for government information
- approximately 1400 around the country
- academic, public, federal/special
- Regional vs. Selective
What's the catch?
- The documents remain federal property
- We must get permission to discard
- must retain for at least 5 years
- We must provide free public access
- We must provide reference service
- We must maintain collections in good condition and keep track of them
Local Color
- Oberlin College Library has been a depository since 1858
- we select roughly 37%
- gov docs are everywhere!
- Dewey, Library of Congress, SuDocs
- vertical files, branches, storage
Access Issues
- What exists?
- Do we have it?
- Where is it?
Tools for Identifying Gov Docs
General
- GPO Cat/Pac (Marcive, Inc.)
- Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (MoCat)
Tools for Identifying Gov Docs
- PAIS International
- ERIC
- various bibliographies
- refer to separate handout
Tools for Identifying Gov Docs
Specialized
- CIS: Congressional Information Service Index & Abstracts
- American Statistics Index
SuDocs Classification System
A 13.2: F 53/2-2
- alpha-numeric system
- punctuation counts!
Do we have it?
- check OBIS for post-1992 monographs
- check the Government Publications shelflist for everything else
- ask for help at the Reference Desk
Location, Location, Location
- you'll probably have to ask the first time...
Our Collection Strengths
Legislation, Law, and Regulations
- Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register , U.S. Reports
- congressional materials
- Congressional Record, hearings, documents and reports, Serial Set
Our Collection Strengths
Statistics
- census reports
- decennial census of population and housing
- quinquennial censuses: agriculture, economic, government, manufactures, transportation
- other agencies
- Agriculture, Education, EPA, Labor, Justice, NOAA
Sample Statistical Sources
- Statistical Abstract
- Digest of Education Statistics
- Economic Report of the President
- Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
- Vital Statistics of the United States
- American Statistics Index
A few words about statistics...
- consider who is likely to collect information on a certain topic
- statistics are collected by agencies for budgetary purposes
- consider what information is going to be useful (as opposed to interesting)
- consider what is possible or feasible to collect
The Government on the Web
- the Feds invented the Internet (NSF backbone)
- no copyright issues
- Federal Web Locator
- GPO Access
- Fedworld (NTIS)
Web-sites Worth Visiting