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Florida Institute of Technology
What Are Government Publications?
- Any information produced by a government agency: city, county, state, federal or international level.
- Issued in paper, microfiche, video, CD-ROM, floppy disk, or the Internet.
Why Use Government Publications?
- Academic research: Governments support and publish research and statistics on aeronautics, agriculture, business, the economy, diseases, energy, engineering, human relations, nutrition, manufacturing, space, weather, and most other subjects.
- Informing yourself as a responsible citizen: Governments publish the laws and regulations we live by, the activities of the President, Congress, Governors and Legislatures, the decisions of the Courts, and the activities of departments and agencies of government.
- Informing yourself as a consumer: Governments inform and protect consumers with publications on financial aid to students, national and state parks, health, personal finance and credit, the cost of living, marketing scams, Social Security and Medicare rights, employee rights, veterans benefits, grant programs, patent, trademark, and copyright registrations, and many other areas.
About the Federal Depository Library Program
- The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) was established by Congress to ensure that the American public has access to its government’s information. For more than 130 years, depository libraries have safeguarded the public’s right to know by collecting, organizing, maintaining, preserving, and assisting users with information from the federal government. The Government Printing Office (GPO) provides government information at no cost to designated depository libraries throughout the country. These depository libraries, in turn, provide local, no-fee access to government information in all formats in an impartial environment with professional assistance. As institutions committed to equity of access and dedicated to free and unrestricted public use, the nation’s 1,300 depository libraries serve as one of the vital links between "We the people" and our government. Any member of the public can visit these depository libraries and use the federal depository collections.
- Florida Tech was appointed as a depository in 1963 and has received documents almost daily since then, housing over 200,000 on the third floor of the library.
- As a selective depository, Florida Tech chooses to receive approximately 33% of all government publications available, concentrating on those supporting the academic curricula as well as those needed by the general public. Strengths of the collection are in NASA, EPA, NOAA, FAA, USGS, ERIC, Census, Patent and Trademark documents, and laws, regulations, and court decisions.
- The University of Florida serves as Florida’s regional depository which receives all documents and retains them permanently as an archive for the state’s citizens. These documents are available through interlibrary loan to patrons of other libraries.
- The Central Brevard Library and Reference Center in Cocoa (321-633-1794) has been a federal depository since 1996, and the University of Central Florida Library in Orlando (407-823-2563) has been since 1966.
How to Find Government Information at Evans Library
- Online catalog: Approximately 90% of the documents available at Florida Tech may be found in the catalog in the same way as books, by searching keyword, author, title or subject. Those documents not available in the library are available through interlibrary loan or, in the case of ERIC documents, may be purchased.
- Paper indexes: Many older NASA documents held by the library are not cataloged but may be located through NASA’s STAR index in the first floor index collection. Citations to documents offered to depository libraries from all agencies, whether in Florida Tech’s collection or not, may be found in the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications on third floor index tables (1899-1996).
- Online indexes: Citations to depository documents from 1976 to present may be found in the online version of the Monthly Catalog (FirstSearch’s GPO database). In addition there are separate indexes to ERIC, Department of Energy, EPA, and other agency documents online in the Evans Library LINK’s "Databases/More Indexes and Databases" section.
- Third floor organization: Depository documents in all formats are located on the third floor of Evans Library. Paper documents occupy the center stacks. Microfiche documents are in gold-colored cabinets along the west wall, with a microfiche reader/printer nearby for making copies. CD-ROMs are in the Government Documents Office on the east side of the floor. Selected documents are shelved in Ready Reference and on Reserve, first floor.
- Arrangement of documents by call number: Government publications are arranged by their own unique system of call numbering, the Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) system. The beginning letter in each call number stands for the federal issuing agency such as D for Defense Department and J for Justice Department. Consequently the documents are arranged on the floor by agency rather than by subject. The numbers which follow the letters are all whole numbers, not decimals as in the rest of the library. Thus D 1.2: would shelve before D 1.10: because 2 is a smaller whole number than 10. Document call numbers may be distinguished from books in the general collection by the colon ( : ) located in each.
How to Find Government Information on the Web
- The Government Resources Section of the Evans Library LINK: Located under the "Search" button on the LINK menu, "Government Resources" assembles links to web pages with the government information most frequently requested by Evans Library patrons. Select Federal, State and Local, or International and Foreign links.
- GPO Access: The Government Printing Office’s official site for access to government information on the Web. Contains official versions of the most important government publications, links to the publications of many agencies, finding aids and information on purchasing government documents.
- USA.gov: Designed as a citizen-oriented site, this official portal to government information allows users to search over 51 million informational and service related federal and state government Web pages. Search by topic or select a general or advanced search.
Depository Location, Policies, Contacts, Hours
Free access to the collection: Everyone is welcome to use the
documents collection within the library. You do not have to be a
Florida Tech student, faculty or staff member.
Circulation of materials: You may check out most documents with
an Evans Library card just as you would a book. Exceptions are
reference documents and periodicals, all of which are labeled
"Reference" or "For Library Use Only." Non-university patrons may
purchase a community card from the first floor Service Desk if they
wish to check out documents, or may have their public library borrow
a document through its interlibrary loan system.
- Contacts:
Debra Wooldridge, Government Information Librarian
Phone: (321) 674-7531
Fax: (321) 724-2559
E-mail: dwooldri@fit.edu
Reference Assistance
Phone: (321) 674-8021
- Hours: Documents are available all hours the library is open. Reference assistance is available at the Service Desk from 10:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m. daily; 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Saturday; 2:00-9:00 p.m. Sunday. (Summer and break hours vary slightly.)
Links to Brevard County’s U.S. Senators and Representative
Link to Government Resources >
Adapted from web pages of the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University, the Greenley Library at Farmingdale College, and the Government Printing Office at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/libpro.html. |
