Federal Depository
Library Program

Collection Development Statement for Government Publications

General Statement

Brooklyn College was first designated as a depository in 1937.
The Government Publications unit's purpose is two-fold: 1) In compliance with the requirements defined in the Instructions to Depository Libraries, Guidelines for the Depository Library System, and the Federal Depository Library Manual, it serves the government information needs of the constituents of the 9th U.S. Congressional District; 2) In support of Brooklyn College's mission to provide undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students with a superior education in the liberal arts and sciences, it participates in the general collecting activities of the Library which not only serves the college community but CUNY and selected high schools as well.
The Government Publications unit participates in the New York State depository program as a Tier 3 member receiving selected materials at the discretion of the NY State Library.
New York City has no depository program, their sole designee for official publications is the Municipal Reference and Research Center at 31 Chambers St, NYC. Our patrons are referred to the center for materials not available online.
The Library is not a member of the United Nations depository program and international materials fall under the responsibilities of the social science bibliographers.
The Government Publications librarian includes selected links to NYC and UN webpages on the Government Information subject page located at: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/library/electronic_resources/govdocs.htm

Federal Publications

Brooklyn College selects 46.84% of the available depository materials, more than any other depository library in Brooklyn. This percentage is in line with the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) recommendations for academic libraries serving comparable numbers of students.
The FDLP materials are housed separately as a distinctive collection and maintained in Superintendent of Documents classification (SuDoc) order. Format availability is not a consideration used in making selection decisions. The Library collects materials in all formats: paper, microforms (fiche, film and microcards) and electronic media both tangible (computer files, cds, dvds, video) and intangible (webpages). Format choices are based on availability, frequency of use, and user preferences. Adequate numbers of microform reader-printers are provided and access to electronic formats is supported by workstations throughout the campus. CUNY Central is using a supplemental MARCIVE service to comprehensively add the URLs of all new government publications to CUNY+. The Government Publications librarian and other subject specialists include appropriate URLs in their subject pages.
Records for documents received after 1975 are included in CUNY+, including URLs for web-based titles. Online finding aids for electronic materials such as GPO Access are also used to locate and add URLs to the collection. Appropriate indices for periodical literature produced by the government such as Government Periodicals Index and Search Full-Text Government Periodicals Online are available.
Earlier materials are accessed via paper indexes: Poores, Ames, The Documents Index,CIS index, Serial Set Index, Congressional Hearings Index, Cumulative Subject Index 1900-1971,Cumulative Title Index to U.S. Public Documents 1789-1976, and the Monthly Catalog.

Collection Development Tools

The unit uses the following collection development tools:
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP)
Documents Data Miner
Federal Depository Library Directory
Government Information Products for Sale by Topic
Item lister
List of Classes
Sales and new product announcement lists
Subscription lists
Superseded list
GovDoc-L postings
The Government Publications librarian consults with other members of the METRO Government Documents Interest Group (METRO-GODIG) to coordinate collections with other local depositories.  The Government Publications librarian also consults with faculty and other bibliographers on selections. Requests for non-depository publications printed by GPO or other government agencies, as well as second copies for reference or circulation, are filled using the Library of Congress Documents Expediting service or with funds from deposit accounts with the Government Printing Office, Bureau of the Census and the National Technical Information Service.

Subjects

The unit collects U.S. government publications to support the following subject areas: accounting, business and economics, census and demographics, consumer affairs, education, geology, health, U.S. history, international information (country data collected by the US government), military history, congressional materials, and science.
In addition to publications from Congress, the Judiciary and the Executive branch, agencies publishing in these areas include: Agriculture, Commerce, Civil Rights Commission, Defense, Education,  EPA, FCC, Federal Reserve, FDA,  Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Geological Survey and Department of the Interior, Library of Congress, NASA, Smithsonian Institute, State Department, and Treasury. Some materials from other agencies are also included in our FDLP selection profile.

Collection strengths levels

Census and Demographics 3-1
  • Census of Population and Housing (incomplete--current and historical)
  • Economic Censuses (various formats)
  • Statistical Abstract of the U.S.
  • National Center for Education Statistics publications
  • National Center for Health Statistics publications
  • National Institute for Criminal Justice Statistics publications
  • Bureau of Labor Statistics publications
Law, Justice and the Judiciary 3-2
  • Crime in the US
  • Uniform Crime Reports
  • FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin
  • Miscellaneous Justice Statistics Bureau publications
  • Correctional Populations in the U.S.
  • INS publications
  • ADA materials
  • Supreme Court Reports
Economics and Business 3-1
  • Commerce Department publications
  • Economic Censuses
  • Commerce Business Daily
  • Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey
  • Current Business Reports
  • Federal Reserve Bulletin
  • Bureau of Economic Analysis publications
  • Consumer Price Index
  • Income and Earnings
  • Area Trends
  • Monthly Labor Review
  • Stat-USA
  • Import/Export information
  • AgExporter (Agriculture Department)
  • Country Commercial Guides
Education 3-1
  • ERIC
  • General publications from the Department of Education
  • National Library of Education
  • National Center for Education Statistics publications
  • National Education Goals materials
  • Education Research and Improvement Office publications
  • Elementary and Secondary Education Office publications
Foreign relations of the U.S. (State Department) 3-2
  • Foreign Relations of the U.S. 1861-current
  • Treaties in Force 1776-current
  • Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution
Geology 3-1
  • USGS Professional Papers
  • USGS Bulletins
  • Geographic Names publications
  • Topographic maps (housed in the Geology Department)
  • Selected National Park Service publications
Health and Nutrition 3-1
  • Health USA
  • Healthy People 2000 series
  • MMWR (Morbidity Mortality Weekly Report)
  • Centers for Disease Control publications
  • National Center for Heath Statistics publications
  • National Institutes of Health publications
  • National Institutes of Mental Health publications
  • ICD-9 (series)
  • National Cancer Institute publications
  • PubMed
  • National Library of Medicine publications
  • Medicare and Medicaid materials
  • Health Care Financing Review
  • OSHA publications
  • Human Nutrition Service publications (Agriculture Department)
  • Composition of Foods
History U.S. 3-1
  • Hearings
  • Serial Set (House and Senate Reports and Documents--incomplete series)
  • Congressional Globe/Congressional Record 1853-present
  • War of the Rebellion
  • Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies during the War of the Rebellion
  • Department of War and Department of the Navy publications
  • Letters to Delegates to Congress 1774-1789
  • Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence (Wharton), 1775-1785
  • American Archives Documentary History of the American Revolution
  • Territorial Papers of the United States vol 2-28 (missing vol 1)
  • Documentary History of the United States of America
  • Waits State Papers 1789-1815
  • Smithsonian Institute Ethnographic Series
  • Foreign Relations of the United States 1861-present
  • Census publications
  • Nuremburg Trail materials (Green, Red, Blue sets)
Military History 2 (Defense Department publications)
Country information 3-2
  • CIA World Factbook
  • Area Handbooks (Defense Department)
  • Country Market Surveys
  • Foreign Economic Trends
  • Country Information from the State Department
– List of Independent Countries

– Diplomatic List

– Chiefs of State of Foreign Countries

– U.S. Embassies and Consulates

– Background Notes

- International Organization Affairs

Regional Reports from the State Department

Country Commercial Guides

International Topics and Issues

Post Reports

StatUSA
IRS publications (Treasury Department) 3-1
  • IRS Bulletin
  • IRS Tax Publications
  • Forms (3 years + current)
  • Package X : Reference Copies of Federal Tax Forms and Instructions
  • Lexis Nexis
  • NYS Tax Forms: Reproducible Forms (2 years + current)
Legislative materials 3-1
  • Bills 96th Congress-present
  • Congressional Hearings (selelcted committees)
Congressional Hearings Index

CIS Index

Serial Set (House and Senate Reports and Documents--incomplete series)

Serial Set Index

Congressional Globe/Congressional Record 1853-present

House and Senate Journals

Statutes At Large

U.S. Code

U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News

Federal Register

Code of Federal Regulations
Presidential papers 3-2
  • Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents
  • Executive Orders
  • Roosevelt (privately published)
  • Truman-present

Other Collections

New York State 2

Brooklyn College is a Tier 3 member of the New York State depository program. While this theoretically includes a core list of 15 titles plus other titles as they are made available in sufficient quantities for distribution. Core titles are seldom distributed in a timely fashion; the additional materials are somewhat random in nature.

The Government Publications unit reviews lists of materials and requests items of interest; however, most agencies do not have a budget for mailing materials. Essential materials are purchased when possible. Web publications are used to fill these gaps where available.

New York State provides its own classification for publications; however, not all materials distributed have numbers. The unit keeps an authority file of the basic letter designations for each agency and uses them to group publications with no numbers with other publications from the same agency. As there are no indices for New York State materials, significant titles are submitted to technical services for LC cataloging and inclusion in CUNY+.

Statistical materials and directories or materials relating specifically to New York City are kept at the Government Publications' service desk and shelved with comparable federal publications due to the lack of indexing available for NYS materials.

New York City 2

New York City has no depository program. Many agencies supply their publications free of charge if the requesting library can pick them up. Agencies do not maintain mailing lists, have no mail budget and may or may not release publication schedules making it difficult to obtain materials even if they are free. The Library does not systematically collect NYC materials; however, materials relating to demographics and local community information and maps are purchased from City Books or City Planning's Map Sales Office when they become available.

It is hoped that as online resources for both New York State and New York City become more extensive they may be used to fill gaps in the collection. The New York State GILS (Government Information Locator) is an important tool for developing this part of the collection as is the NYC Publications page http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/serdir/html/pubs.html.

Commercially published materials

Where needed, commercially published materials are purchased to assist users of government information. Important finding aids include: CIS Index, NTIS, Census products, Federal Register microfiche, Guide to U.S. Government Publications (Andriot), and Government Periodicals Universe.

Duplication

Duplicate copies of publications are purchased in accordance with these priorities:

Material requested by bibliographers for inclusion in the main reference collection or the circulating collection. Examples include Statistical Abstract of the United States (reference) and Area Handbooks (circulating).

Materials requested for the Reserve collection.

Office use material or other specially requested government publications (upon approval by a subject bibliographer or the Government Publications librarian) supporting faculty research.

Jane Cramer
Government Publications Librarian 4/23/01