Government Documents: An Introduction

Guide to Government Publications Series

Government documents include publications of the U.S. federal, U.S. state and local, foreign national and local, and international governmental agencies. Government documents are housed in the Jonsson Library of Government Documents, in the Green Library stack and branch libraries. All document serial publications, regardless of location, are included in Socrates, the Stanford Libraries' online catalog. In general, documents housed in the Green Library stack or branch libraries are fully cataloged and included in Socrates or the printed union catalog in Green Library.

Foreign Documents

Treatment at Stanford

Foreign documents are cataloged and housed in the Green Library stack or branch libraries. The Jonsson Library houses a small reference collections (latest statistical abstracts and publication lists), the core of the British document collection, and unbound current serials.

Access tools

SOCRATES, Parliamentary Papers Index (cdrom), various country publications lists and subject specialists.

Strengths

Great Britain; France; Argentina; Brazil; Chile; Uruguay; SubSaharan Africa.

U.S. Federal Documents

Treatment at Stanford

U.S. federal documents are housed in the Jonsson Library, the Information Center, and the Social Sciences Resource Center. Some publications are duplicated in branch libraries and are fully cataloged.

Access tools

Socrates, LexisNexis Congressional Universe, Lexis Nexis Statistical Universe, GPO Access, and Thomas.

Strengths

Collection is generally very strong in both paper and large microform collections. Depository status began in 1895, and publications prior to that date have been acquired. Non-depository documents are collected.

U.S. State & Local Documents

Treatment at Stanford

Most California State documents are shelved in the Jonsson Library of the Social Sciences Resource Center (Green Library) and classified in the California State Library classification scheme. They have been included in Socrates since 1986. California state publications received prior to 1986 are listed California State Publications shelved in the California stacks in the Jonsson Library. These publications are also listed in Melvyl, catalog of the U.C. Libraries and the California State Library. Publications from local jurisdictions, e.g. San Francisco, Metropolitan Transportation District, are cataloged in Socrates and shelved in Green Library stacks. Publications of other states and jurisdictions are in the Green Library stack and branch libraries with a small reference collection in the Social Sciences Resources Center, Bing Wing, Green Library.

Access to full-text state and local documents is available in electronic databases. (See Access Tools.)

Access Tools

Socrates, LexisNexis State Capitol, LexisNexis Statistical, Index to Current Urban Documents.

Strengths

Collection is strong in both paper and digital collections and in large microform sets. California depository status began in 1965, and publications prior to that date have been acquired. Stanford is also a depository for the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).

International Documents

Treatment at Stanford

Many international governmental agency (agencies to which three or more national governments belong) publications are housed in the Jonsson Library of Government Documents and are unclassified. The United Nations classification scheme and other documents schemes (e.g. OAS, UNESCO, etc.) are also used. Other international documents are fully cataloged and housed in the Green Library stack or branch libraries.

Access Tools

SOCRATES (for serials and all cataloged documents), various agency publications lists and indexes such as the Index to International Statistics (IIS) (Statistical Masterfile on Folio cd-rom network) ; UNBIS Plus; and the Index to United Nations Documents and Publications.

Strengths

United Nations (depository since U.N. was established in 1946); Organization of American States (depository, then full subscription library); specialized agencies of the United Nations (World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, etc.).