Under 44 U.S.C. 1901 et seq. (2000), Congress authorizes certain libraries in each state to become federal depository libraries. This means that the federal government sends selected governmental documents to the each library at no charge. In return, the library staff agrees to maintain those materials in an appropriate way and to make them available for public use.Pierce Law Library is a selective depository library. We take only a small amount, about 10-11%, of all of the available government documents, basically the law library portion of the available documents. We began participating in the federal depository program in 1973. For materials prior to that time, and for materials outside of the law library collection, we depend on the N.H. State Library (one of the oldest federal depository libraries) located a few blocks away from the school. And, for any items the State Library is unable to supply, we depend on our regional full depository, which is housed at the University of Maine at Orono and receives all federal government documents.
What kinds of materials do you receive through the depository program and where are they in the collection?
Some of the materials we receive through the depository collection are integrated in the collection, and the rest of the print materials are in a special area in the main collection on the ground floor of the library. Many of our primary, official, federal authorities, such as U.S. Reports, U.S. Code, U.S. Statutes at Large, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements, are government documents which are integrated in the main collection. Government documents which are periodicals are integrated with our commercial periodicals in the compact shelving area on the ground floor. The rest of the print documents we receive are together in compact shelving on the ground floor. Probably the most used materials from this collection are Congressional materials relevant to federal legislative histories...Congressional hearings or reports and committee prints, text of bills, and text of Congressional debates. The next most used government documents are the administrative decisions, such as the Decisions and Orders from the National Labor Relations Board, Decisions and Orders of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Attorney General Opinions, etc., from the federal agencies. However, there are many other types of authorities in the documents collection, including reports and studies from agencies, handbooks or manuals, rulings, pamphlets for consumers, etc.
How is this material organized?
The government has its own organizing and numbering system, based on the agency which produced the material. This numbering system is called the Superintendent of Documents, or SuDoc system, which is surprisingly intuitive. For example, documents from the Department of Agriculture are under “A,” documents from the Patent and Trademark Office are in the Commerce Department and under “C,” documents from the Environmental Protection Agency are under “EP," documents from the Labor Department are under “L,” documents from the Copyright Office are within the Library of Congress and under “LC,” documents from the Internal Revenue Service and within the Treasury are under “T,” Less intuitive are Congressional documents, which are under “X” and “Y.”
The microfiche we receive through this program (see discussion below) is organized according to the same SuDoc numbering system. This is a different numbering system than that used for our treatise collection. (Treatises are organized by the Library of Congress numbering system which groups materials by subject.)
Materials in the government documents collection are accessible through the library’s online card catalog, MELCAT, which is available through QUICKCLICKS, www.piercelaw.edu/library/quickclicks.cfm. The record you retrieve from that system will provide the SuDoc number for that title so you can locate it in our library.
One of the library staff’s long term goals is converting SuDoc items to Library of Congress numbers and integrating both collections into one. The advantage of this is that all of the materials on a subject would be in one place, regardless of whether we receive it from the government or a commercial source. This is a huge project and will take years to complete. However, a few larger sets of SuDoc material has already been reclassified and put into the treatise collection. Again, the card catalog will tell you the location of the item you are checking.
So what’s this about microfiche? You hate it and really don’t like using print either? What about online materials?
Sometimes there is not much choice with this material! For many years, the materials available in the depository program existed only in print format. However, around 1980, in an effort to save library space and tax dollars, the government began sending us microfiche version of some materials, usually in place of the print version. Around 1990, we started receiving CD versions of some of the materials, and now many of the materials are web based. Which format you use will depend a great deal on the date of the material you need to locate.
The government documents in fiche format are all located in cabinets near the Online Training Room and study rooms on the ground floor. Government produced fiche are all housed in cabinets numbered beginning with "2." (Cabinets labeled beginning with "1" hold commercially produced fiche). The fiche we receive from the government are organized according to the same SuDoc system discussed above. Users of fiche who wish to print may do so for free at nearby fiche reader/printers. (This is your reward for being brave by using this format!)
The government has been a leader in developing online access for government materials and encouraging depository libraries to embrace online government information. As a result, many of the more recent federal documents are now available on the web directly and through the depository library program. GPO Access, http://www.access.gpo/su_docs/admin.html, available through the library QUICKCLICKS page, is the main web site linking the public to government information. This free site links you to many other government web sites, including Thomas, an excellent legislative web site sponsored by the Library of Congress and providing access to the U.S. Code, text of recent bills, text of Congressional hearings and reports, Congressional voting information and a wealth of other information relevant to the legislative process. It also links you to a web site for the Federal Register, one for the Code of Federal Regulations, one giving you the content of the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, and to various federal administrative agency or court web pages, which in turn, link you to a variety of information and authorities from that agency or court. This information is generally available from the past 10 to 15 years. The online availability of this government information has vastly improved citizen’s access to recent government information.
How to know if there is a federal document you might need to use?
If you want to do a search to see if there is a government document on a particular subject or if you want to check a particular title about which you may have heard, you might want to check in the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (frequently known as the Monthly Catalog). This is the index the government has published for many years to help users know what government publications were available. We have the print version of this index in the compact shelving index area of the ground floor, behind the copier room. This index provides a card catalog record for the government publications, along with the SuDoc number to help you locate the document in your library. Since 1994, the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications information is available online at the GPO Access site mentioned above. It is also available on WESTLAW, under GPO-CTLG since July, 1976. This tool helps you know what documents exist now or previously, even if they are not part of Pierce Law Library’s collection. If you locate a title of interest, we could acquire it for you through our interlibrary loan program.
© 2007 by the Franklin Pierce Law Center Library
Contact Paula Jewell if you have any questions concerning information on this site.
Last revised, 08/03/2007
