Government Documents & Cataloging

Steve Firtko, Government Documents

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What is a Government Document?

  • A document issued by the government
    • Either for its own use
    • Or for public use
  • Usually printed by the government
  • Before 1861, printing was done by private concerns
    • Lowest bidder on a contract
      • Some questionable government documents
    • Most of 19th century documents were part of the Serial Set
      • Sequentially numbered volumes 1–14,900+ (1817-)
  • Government Printing Office was started in 1861
    • Printing is done by GPO, the issuing agencies, or by a private publisher
      • Ex: Schizophrenia Bulletin - Oxford University Press

How are Government Documents Cataloged?

All items should be cataloged by GPO [note that GPO even has its own cataloging guidelines, similar to OCLC's Bibliographic Formats and Standards and LC's LCRI ]
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/cip/gpocatgu.doc

GPO creates bibliographic records and is considered the official source (as LC is for monographic cataloging) even though other records for items may exist

For Lehigh, records are provided by Marcive, an intermediary commercial service that customizes GPO records to fit our selection profile

The most important feature is the call number – the SuDoc number

The Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification scheme was developed in 1895 by Ms. Adelaide Hasse
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/history/hasse.html

To quote Hasse:

"Never forget that it is the spirit with which you endow your work that makes it useful or futile. Let us always work towards the end that the compensations of librarianship may at least be honorable, and that the true spirit of workmanship may be kept alive among us."

The basic approach: What is the document?

Not what it is about (subject)

How to Find a U.S. Government Document

The classification scheme is based on the issuing agency
http://www.wtamu.edu/library/documents/rsudoc.shtml

Alphanumeric: Broken down by divisions/subclasses.

Punctuation is used as a means of showing subclasses:

Period .

Slash /

Colon : (every SuDoc number has a colon)

Each document has its own unique call number that is universally used.

With few exceptions, there is no difference between a MARC record for a government document and other publications.

TOP FIVE MARC FIELDS FOR GOV DOC CATALOGING

074--GPO Item Number

086--Government Document Classification Number

780--Preceding Entry

785--Succeeding Entry

856--Electronic Location and Access

Tools of the Trade:

GPO ACCESS

List of Classes – Official list of Government Publications Available for Selection by Depository Libraries
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/loc/index.html

Superseded List – U.S. Documents That May be Discarded by Depository Libraries
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/suplist/suplist02.pdf

Lehigh University is the oldest active federal depository for government documents in Pennsylvania (1876). We are a selective depository whereby we select those publications which we want, in addition to those that are essential titles.

Item Lister – Selection Profile of Lehigh University
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/tools/itemlist.html

Library #0532 has selected 54.13% of the total items offered
Item Numbers Selected -> 3938
Total Possible Selections -> 7275

[Note that even though Lehigh selects 54.13% of the publications available through GPO, we received 100% of all electronic records (selected and non-selected) through Marvice.]

Shipping Lists – Packaging list that comes with each shipment
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/tools/sl/index.html

Web Claim – Online claim service for items not received
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/tools/webclaim.html

ANTS - Administrative Notes Technical Supplement
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/techsup/index.html

MARCIVE – Commercial Catalog of Government Documents
http://dewey.marcive.com/webdocs/webdocs.dll

What I do:

Ideally – I should not do any cataloging

Records arrive automatically from Marcive based on our selection profile. I load the record files into SIRSI and that is it.

Specific tasks:

  1. Initial processing of recently received items.
    Load weekly temporary records into catalog, including bar-coding.
  2. Temporary records are overlaid with full (permanent) bibliographic records on a monthly basis.
  3. Also load monthly records for online (electronic) items.
    Terri Sarik checks links.

Internal Control:

Reality – About 4-5% of the documents that we received are not cataloged by GPO (with NASA Contractor Reports and Technical Memoranda 10%).

Procedure:

  1. Wait three months in order for full record to overlay temporary records.
    Use shipping lists as primary source documents.
  2. Make corrections to records that did not overlay properly.
  3. If no full record, keep a list of temporary records.
    \\home10.ad.lehigh.edu\A-H\e049\public
  4. Await full record, wait, wait, wait, & wait.
  5. After 2 years, copy catalog a suitable record into the system.
    \\home10.ad.lehigh.edu\A-H\e049\public
  6. Keep file of records imported into catalog.

 Retrospective Conversion:

  • Inventory of government documents collection for items issued after 1975
  • Over 180,000+ records were loaded into the catalog in 1998
  • Most were shadowed

Duties:

  • Un-shadowing
  • Bar-coding
  • Changing location and item type, if necessary
  • Removing records for items never received
  • Importing records

Quick reference