Finding
Government Documents
These suggestions will help locate
U.S. government publications at the Duluth Public Library, or
verify documents not owned by this library and request these through
Interlibrary Loan. Some Federal publications have been cataloged
and added to the Reference, Nonfiction or Periodicals collections,
but many more are shelved in a separate collection and are not
included in the online library catalog.
In the Documents Collection, each
item is assigned a SuDocs (Superintendent of Documents)
number and shelved in that order. SuDocs numbers begin with one
or more letters which are usually taken from the issuing agency
name (A for Agriculture, C for Commerce, D for Defense, etc.).
Use catalogs,
indexes and online search engines to find accurate bibliographic
citations
Finding government publications can start with a Google search
or by finding or verifying (checking the accuracy of) the title,
SuDoc number, date, and other information for the document by
using one of the following sources for the appropriate publication
date. Note that
Google has a special category under "Advanced Search"
for U.S. Government.
Documents
published before 1976
- WorldCat.
Many records for older documents have been added to this comprehensive
catalog of library holdings from the U.S. and around the world,
but it is not a complete listing of all documents. Some Depository
libraries have entered all their documents into their catalogs
and those records may be found. While the Duluth Public Library's
document holdings are not included in WorldCat at this time,
it is a valuable source for finding and completing accurate citations.
The full records will show SuDocs numbers, author and issuing
agency names and dates. Entering GPO as the publisher
and limiting the search by date can help narrow the search scope.
Another useful search strategy is to select gpb (government
publication) as the "Material Type"Document records
became machine readable in 1976, so those published earlier can
only be found if a library has added retrospective entries.
- Monthly Catalog. Locate entries by using the indexes
for page numbers and entry numbers. If you are unsure of the
document's title, you may want to use the Cumulative Subject
Index which covers 1900-71 and/or cumulative Monthly Catalog
subject indexes. For the oldest publications, try the Checklist
of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909.
1976 to the
present
- WorldCat
online - includes most publications and all formats.
- Catalog
of U.S. Government Publications, GPO Access (1994 to present) online. This is the Monthly Catalog online.
It has a "locate libraries" button which allows you
to find libraries by state or telephone area codes.
Check Duluth
Public Library holdings
- All documents owned by the Duluth
Public Library should be listed in the Government Documents shelflist.
Holdings received since 1987 will be found in the online Documents Catalog. This
catalog can be searched by keyword, SuDoc number or date. Most
documents shelved in areas other than the Documents stacks will
be listed in the general online library
catalog.
For publications prior to 1987, please ask library staff for
help.
Interlibrary
Loan Requests
Most documents not owned by the Duluth Public Library can be borrowed
through Interlibrary Loan. Please
include the information found while verifying the title on the
request form.
6/15/10
Duluth Public Library, 520 W. Superior St., Duluth, MN 55802
