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Government Publications in the Alexander Library: Guide 1
A government publication or document is any item issued by or under the auspices of a government agency, whether U.S. federal or state, foreign national, or international government body. Alexander's collection includes all these jurisdictions. What is a depository library?A depository library receives materials from a government agency in exchange for certain services, such as providing government information to the public. Materials may be in print, microform, DVD, CD-ROM, or online. Alexander Library has been a federal depository since 1907, but has acquired many items which predate its status as a land-grant depository. The library is also a depository for the State of New Jersey and for the State of New York. Depository status does not, however, guarantee receipt of all materials. Alexander obtains government publications through subscriptions and other purchases, gifts, and mailing lists. Many specialized microform and online resources supplement our holdings. What is the scope of Alexander Library?This library keeps primarily those documents which are related to the social sciences and humanities. Materials of a scientific or technical nature are at the Library of Science and Medicine. An exception is that all U.S.Congressional and N.J. Legislative materials are retained by Alexander Library regardless of topic. How do I begin a search for federal information?Searching for federal information usually begins with print or online indexes which analyze documents in much greater detail than our card or online catalogs. Relatively few of Alexander's federal government publications prior to August 2002 are in the online catalog. If a title appears in IRIS for another Rutgers library but not for Alexander, it is nevertheless likely that Alexander Library owns a copy. Many indexes and abstracts to access our collections are shelved in the DOCREF collection, and a separate card catalog is maintained for older government publications. Librarians at the Reference Desk can help you select the tools best suited to your research. Some basic tools include: Catalog of United States Government Publications. This is the primary tool for locating publications of executive departments, commissions, etc. MoCat indicates by the presence of a black dot (. ) or "Item Number" which material is depository versus materials that may be in the library's "non-depository" collections. MoCat is available 1) in print from 1895-1995 in DOCREF US GP3.8 or 2) online for 1976+ on the RU Libraries home page/Indexes/Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. CIS Index and Abstracts, 1970+ (DOCREF Index Table 1) references a wealth of Congressional source material--hearings, committee prints, reports, law summaries. Most of this material is available at Alexander. A separate Congressional Publications Finding Aid is available. THOMAS and GPOAccess are also helpful sites. American Statistics Index, 1974+ (DOCREF Index Table 2) covers federal government statistics. Alexander Library receives depository copies of much of the material; a companion ASI microfiche collection is available for the non- depository component. A companion reference tool, the Statistical Reference Index, is excellent for statistics of state governments. Both ASI and SRI indexes, and some full text, are also available online in LexisNexis Statistical. Alexander has a complete collection of SRI in microfiche. ASI non-depository microfiche and SRI microfiche are in red cabinets in the DOCREF area. Many other specialized indexes are available to access our federal collections. Examples include the American Foreign Policy & Treaty Index, Declassified Documents Reference System, Index to U.S. Congressional Committee Prints, indexes to FBIS publications, and Post World War II Foreign Policy Planning to name just a few. Federal documents are arranged on the shelves by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs, for short) classification system supplied by the government and used in numerous reference tools. It is an alpha-numeric sequence, with a "US" preceding each call number, e.g. US AA1.2:T25; US AC1.21:980; US C56.M19. Unlike Library of Congress class numbers, the number after the period in US AC1.21:980 is filed as whole number 21 rather than as a decimal. Alexander's local classification system for older state, foreign, and international materials is a modification of the SuDocs system. What about accessing international documents?Alexander is rich in materials from international governmental organizations (IGOs). Most IGOs publish their own extensive indexes or catalogs which may be used to obtain subject access. The online AccessUN and UNBISNET are especially useful for Model UN research (see separate Government finding aid); SourceOECD and United Nations (Statistics Division) Common Database (UNCDB) are two other important online titles. Other examples include the UNESCO List of Documents and Publications; Documentos Oficiales for the Organization of American States; and for British materials, the Government Information finding aid for British Government Publications at the Alexander Library. The Index to International Statistics (DOCREF Index Table 2) assists in subject searches for statistics published by most IGOs. Online indexes such as PAIS International and Archive and catalogs such as the RLG Union catalog and WorldCat (OCLC) are also useful for IGO research. Periodicals of most IGOs and many serials may now be found in IRIS and have a Library of Congress number preceded by DOC as the sublocation. These are located in stack 1 and following on the main floor. Except for materials of the World Bank which are fully cataloged, most pre-2000 IGO monographs and serials have yet to receive full cataloging. To locate these materials, search the Government Publications Card Catalog under the name of the agency, e.g. UNESCO, or ILO, and then under the title of the monograph or the series title of an item within a series. A local classification system is used; call numbers are prefaced with INT and filed in Aisle 1 beyond materials with LC numbers. Older UN sales publications are checked in and filed by the sales number. How can I verify that Alexander owns a particular document?Beginning August 2002, federal depository documents display in the online public catalog, and many records provides links to the full text of the document. Yet, most older documents have only local cataloging and appear in the separate Government Publications Card Catalog. No subject or title access is provided in this catalog; it is basically an agency file. Cards in this catalog are filed by name of the agency which issued the publication, e.g.
Words such as "Office of," "Bureau of," "Department of" are disregarded in filing the agency name. One-time publications, called monographs, are entered under agency and then by unique title; consecutively issued materials, i.e. series, are recorded by the series' overall titles only. If you do not know the series within which a publication has been issued, it may be necessary to return to whatever index you used or to do a search in the OCLC database. Ask for assistance at the Reference Desk before concluding that Alexander Library does not own a particular item! How do I locate government journals?Most government journals appear in IRIS. A few old titles may appear only under the issuing agency in the Government Publications card catalog. Current issues of journals are shelved in DOCPER stacks 88-92. Older issues are bound and classified in the Government Publications stack area. Classification numbers for the bound volumes may usually be found in IRIS or on the label under the current issues. To locate journal articles on a specific subject, a variety of indexes are available. For articles in federal government journals, try the Index to U.S. Government Periodicals 1970-1987; for 1988 to date consult IRIS. The online PAIS International and Archive indexes government journals from a variety of jurisdictions, while recent issues of United Nations journals and newsletters are indexed by AccessUN. Do government publications circulate?Alexander's Government Publications collection has open stacks which users are welcome to browse. Some materials may be shelved in DOCREF, on Reserve, or may be in circulation. Others may be in a microform collection and accessible only through specialized indexes and not individually listed in any card or online catalog. Many materials circulate to qualified borrowers or are available through interlibrary loan. Exceptions include journals, census, legal, looseleaf and DOCREF. What about publications of the state of New Jersey?All New Jersey state publications are fully cataloged and display in IRIS. These items have a DOCNJ prefix and are located in stacks 71-76. An effective method of searching IRIS for a New Jersey government publication on a given topic is to search "Jersey" AND a keyword in "Words Anywhere." Selective materials may also be found at http://www.njstatelib.org/NJ_Information/links/index.php. State of New Jersey publications prior to 1850 are generally located in the Library's Department of Special Collections and University Archives on the B level. How can I identify what older NJ documents were printed?Various tools exist to help identify older state publications. Among sources which may be consulted are:
A separate finding aid is available for New Jersey Legislation. Where are legal materials for New Jersey kept?
Legal materials for New Jersey are filed in DOCLAWNJ in stacks 77-80. These include West's New Jersey Digest, New
Jersey Statutes Annotated, New Jersey Administrative Code, New Jersey Reports, New Jersey Superior Court Reports, Laws
of New Jersey, School Law Decisions, the Legislative Index, and other sources. New Jersey bills are filed in stacks 79-
80. Recent legislative bills and other legal resources may also be
found online at
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us
or through
http://lawlibrary.rutgers.edu. 
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Original text prepared by Mary Fetzer, November 1996; Revision: 8/02, 7/05, 8/06, 5/07 MF
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