Hesburgh Library
148 Hesburgh Library
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(574) 631-8901
librarianmark@nd.edu
The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) of the United States Government is the largest publisher in the world. It distributes materials in a variety of formats, including electronic, CD, microfiche, and paper. AS part of its publishing program, the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), through the FDLP, distributes certain classes of Government documents free of charge to designated libraries throughout the United States and its territories. These libraries are known as Federal Depository libraries. For an annotated list of the core U.S. Government resources made available at all Federal depository libraries, see the FDLP Basic Collection Guide on the FDLP website; for an additional list including historic cornerstone documents, see govinfo’s Other Resources, also known as Core Documents of Our Democracy.
Notre Dame's Hesburgh Libraries have been a selective depository for U.S. government publications since 1883. The present Documents Center collection in the lower level of the Hesburgh Library has over 800,000 publications received since January 1, 1968. These materials are arranged by Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) classification covering a broad spectrum of subjects. Access to governmental information at the local, state, federal, and international levels are freely available online, in paper and fiche to the Notre Dame community. Moreover, any resident of Congressional District IN-2 has access to federal publications. The Kresge Law Library has been a selective depository for U.S. government publications since 1985 and collects in the area of Law, including patents.
Government documents are publications of federal and local governments, including hearings, reports, statutes, treaties, periodicals (example: Monthly Labor Review), and statistics (e.g., U.S. Census). Documents of international governmental agencies (IGOs), such as the United Nations, and non-governmental agencies (NGOs), such as the World Trade Organization, are also generally considered government documents. In libraries, government documents are usually shelved in a separate section by their own classification scheme. For United States federal documents, this is the SuDoc number. Government documents are published in a variety of formats: paper, microfiche, diskette, CD-ROM, and online.
Unlike traditional Library of Congress call numbers, SuDoc numbers are whole numbers, rather than decimal numbers. Examples of proper order are as follows:
Unlike traditional Library of Congress call numbers, SuDoc numbers are whole numbers, rather than decimal numbers. If the call number stem (the numbers before the colon) has numbers after the base number, the base number comes first, followed by the slashed numbers in order. If the call number is the same to a certain point, then varies, the order is: YEARS > LETTERS > NUMBERS. Until the year 2000, the first number was dropped from years, so these years will have only 3 digits. Beginning with the year 2000, years are indicated with 4 digits. What makes the superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification system user friendly is that the precise letter(s) of the SuDoc number represent the Department or Agency that created the document. Examples of proper order would be:
If the call number is the same to a certain point, then varies, the order is: YEARS > LETTERS > NUMBERS. Until the year 2000, the first number was dropped from years, so these years will have only 3 digits. Beginning with the year 2000, years are indicated with 4 digits. Examples of proper order would be:
If the call number is the same to a certain point, then varies, the order is: YEARS > LETTERS > NUMBERS. Until the year 2000, the first number was dropped from years, so these years will have only 3 digits. Beginning with the year 2000, years are indicated with 4 digits. Examples of proper order would be:
The SuDoc call numbers are organized by the following letters.