U.S. Government Publications

The Cornell University Library has a rich array of resources among its six million volumes, nearly seven million microforms, thousands of CD-ROMs, and countless electronic resources. Cutting across all these formats are government documents--from the United States government, state governments, and foreign governments, as well as from intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the European Community. All of these types of materials--federal, state, foreign, intergovernmental--are unique additions to our collections with their own systems of organization. I would like to take you on a brief tour of just one section of those materials, our collection of U.S. government documents.

There are at least 1,400 federal "depository" libraries in the United States and its territories, with at least one located in each Congressional district. As a depository library, Cornell receives an enormous amount of material "free" from the federal government--Congressional hearings, Public Laws, USGS maps, census data, to name but a few categories. While we may pay nothing to acquire these materials, providing access to them is not without cost. They must be processed by technical services staff and shelved and reshelved by access services staff. In addition, reference staff are often needed to assist users in locating these materials in our complex collections. Providing "access" to the materials is, in fact, a part of our obligations as a depository library.

The vast majority of research libraries with U.S. government documents collections house those collections separately from other books and serials, where they are typically arranged according to a classification scheme called "SuDoc" classification, devised by the Superintendent of Documents. In a similar fashion, reference service for these materials is typically provided by librarians within a separate "government documents" department. While many scholars with years of experience find this specialization and segregation convenient, such arrangements often make these materials seem obscure and impenetrable, if not completely hidden, to a novice user.

Here at Cornell we have long attempted to integrate documents into the regular collections--the majority of federal publications are fully cataloged and easily located through the online catalog (or card catalog for materials acquired before 1973). And the reference staff in Olin·Kroch·Uris are trained to offer the same type of assistance in the identification and location of government documents that one would normally expect to find from documents staff.

While we have indeed made it easier to delve into documents as a resource for both the beginning student and the scholar, a number of finding tools remain invaluable. The Congressional Information Service, a private publisher, has for almost thirty years been the major source of high quality indexing for U.S. Congressional publications, and Olin houses their indexes to materials from 1789 to the present (in print as the CIS Index and on CD-ROM as Congressional Masterfile). The Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, published by the Government Printing Office, is available in print, on CD-ROM, and now as a file in the online catalog.

Government publications may be found in a number of formats. Despite the infamous Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, most documents still arrive in the library in paper. Some are issued only in microfiche from GPO. In addition, Cornell subscribes to a nearly complete set of U.S. documents from Readex, a private publisher, which has been (re)issuing government publications since the mid-1950's. Until 1981, this set is available in microcard; in 1981, Readex began producing these materials in microfiche, and is still publishing today. In just the last few years we have begun to see better and wider access to government publications electronically. The Library of Congress supports an electronic system available over the Internet for tracking legislation in the House and Senate called Thomas, which includes the full text of all bills introduced and all laws passed since the 103rd Congress. The Government Printing Office now offers through its depository program another electronic system on the Internet called GPO Access, which is described in a related article in this issue.

Where should you begin if your research requires the use of government documents, or if you are just interested in exploring these resources? As with much of your work at Cornell, more than one library has documents. Three libraries on campus are actually depositories--Olin, Law, and Mann are each "selective depositories," so each selects what it wants to receive under the depository program. A good rule of thumb is as follows: If you need material from the federal government, particularly publications from Congress and the Executive, start in Olin. If you need legal materials from the states, including state statutes, and any judicial material other than the official decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, start in Law. (Mann has documents that are similar in subject coverage to the rest of its collection.)

Despite the array of excellent index tools and the integration of most documents into the general collections, these materials can be difficult to master. So when you find yourself trying to do a legislative history of a law passed thirty years ago, or trying to locate a bill introduced last week in the Senate, please stop at the O·K·U reference desk for assistance. And if you are teaching a class which involves your students' use of government documents, I'm available to gear an instruction session to their needs.

Suzy Szasz Palmer, Reference Librarian
sms5@cornell.edu

Web Corner: GPO Access
Full Text Access to Federal Documents

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has begun the monumental task of providing online access to the documents of the Federal government via the Internet. As of April, 1997, you can search the full text of the Federal Register; the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR); the U.S. Budget; the Congressional Record; Congressional bills, documents, and reports; Public Laws; the United States Code (USC) and dozens of other full text files. Most of these files are available from 1994 forward.

GPO provides a Web searching interface that is powerful, easy to use, and consistent across all the files. Proceed to the GPO database selection page and highlight the file you wish to search from the list. (Holding down the shift key allows you to highlight multiple contiguous files for simultaneous searching.) Then enter the search terms in the searching box. The search engine provides phrase and Boolean searching. Phrases must be in quotation marks (""). The operators ADJ (adjacent), AND, OR and NOT can be used, but must be capital letters. For example: "environmental protection agency" AND superfund. Word roots can be searched using an asterisk ( * ) following the word stem. For example: legislat* will retrieve both legislation and legislative.

Oddly, GPO Access will always return at least two hits for any search you perform. One is a query report that tells you how long the search took; the other is a database description. So you must receive at least three hits to have a link to the document you are seeking. Search results are ranked by relevance. In general, it is best to use search terms that are as specific as possible. Helpful searching hints are available at the Web site.

You often have the choice of viewing the document you found in plain text or in Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF preserves the original fonts and layout of the document; documents in PDF format can be easily viewed by setting up Acrobat Reader as a helper application in your Web browser. Acrobat Reader is free from Adobe. Laser printers will produce copies of PDF-formatted documents that are nearly indistinguishable from the print version.

Avoid searching GPO Access in the afternoon when the load on the GPO server is heavy and the response time is often very slow. An excellent, and sometimes faster, alternative for searching the Congressional databases is Thomas, a Web site from the Library of Congress.

Another important file available from GPO is the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, an extensive catalog that, in its printed form, has long been a staple for identifying and locating Federal documents. The Monthly Catalog uses the same Web search interface as other GPO databases and contains detailed citations for documents cataloged since January 1994.

If you have reason to search and copy portions of government documents, GPO Access deserves a spot in your Bookmark list. For more information on using GPO Access on the Web, contact us at okuref@cornell.edu or stop by the reference desk in Olin Library.

Michael Engle, Reference Librarian
moe1@cornell.edu

New York State Documents

Cornell has received New York State documents as an official depository since at least 1955, and has many older documents as well. Under the present depository program, which began in 1989, Cornell receives documents in two categories. As a New York State Documents Research Depository Library we receive an extensive collection of documents on microfiche. Everything, excluding most copyrighted material, which the New York State Library receives from issuing agencies is included in the microfiche depository. As a New York State Documents Depository Library we also receive a wide variety of documents in paper form.

Olin has the comprehensive microfiche collection of New York State documents from Legislative and Executive agencies It is located in Olin Library's Microforms and Newspapers Department and found under the call number Microfiche 932. Coverage begins with 1989, and it is ongoing. The latest shipment received covers December 1992.

The paper collection of New York State documents covers many of the same materials as the microfiche collection but is not nearly as comprehensive. However, this collection is more current and includes documents from our very oldest through the newest documents issued in 1997. Paper documents are cataloged and classified and are found in the Olin stacks, as well as in other subject collections across campus.

The largest component of our historic New York State documents collection is the bound series of collected documents known as the "Legislative series of documents" (Olin +J87.N70, J87.N7h, J87.N7g, and J87.N7j). These series include not only legislative documents but also publications of the Executive and Judicial branches. The series were issued in this form from 1830 through 1976. Similar documents issued after 1976 were received and cataloged individually. Cornell has some documents which are included in the collected series cataloged separately as well.

The online and basic card catalogs include entries for individual New York State document books, serials and maps at Cornell. The Checklist of Official Publications of the State of New York (Olin Ref Z1223.5 .N56) is the comprehensive list of New York State documents, covering 1947-1997. Olin Reference has printed guides to the Legislative series of documents which locate individual documents in the large sets (Olin Ref Z1223.5 .N45.C319 1992 and Olin Ref Z1223.5 .N56.C32 1986). A rich source of information about New York State documents is the OCLC WorldCat database, which contains the bibliographic records of the New York State Library and cites many paper and microfiche documents found in Cornell's collections.

The New York State Library (NYSL) receives electronic New York State documents in formats such as diskettes and CD-ROMs. They also offer access to many Internet documents through the New York State Library Home Page. Electronic New York State documents are not supplied to depository libraries, but NYSL makes many of these documents available for remote access through their FTP, Gopher and Web sites. NYSL made over 300 New York State documents available electronically during 1996.

Julia Stiles, Documents Librarian, Central Technical Services
jgs3@cornell.edu

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