Federal Government Documents Tutorial
SuDoc numbers
Most depository libraries arrange their federal documents
collections using a call number sequence that arranges the material by the
issuing agency, not by the materials' subject matter. This arrangement
is chosen for pragmatic reasons: it's quicker to use numbers that GPO
supplies along with the publications than it is to send the federal depository
material through the technical services processes within the library.
A trade-off to using these numbers in documents collections is that
they may not remain constant over time. If the agency that publishes a
given document is shifted from one department to another, or undergoes a name
change, a new spot in the classification scheme will be made for the agency's
new place in the government's organizational chart. The Homeland
Security Department, created in 2002, resulted in a large number of call
number changes in documents collections.
The same title may have multiple call numbers in a documents
collection. Here's what has happened to one title over the course of
sixty years:
| The Child |
| L 5.35: |
v. 1 - v. 10 |
1936 - 1946 |
| FS 3.207: |
v. 11 - v. 15 |
1946 - 1950 |
| The Child became... |
| Children |
| FS 3.207/2: |
| FS 14.109: |
v. 10 - v. 14 |
1963 - 1967 |
| FS 17.209: |
v. 15 - v. 16 |
1968 - 1969 |
| HE 21.9: |
v. 17 - v. 18 |
1970 - 1971 |
| Children became... |
| Children Today |
| HE 21.9/2: |
v. 1 - v. 2 |
1972 - 1973 |
| HE 1.459: |
v. 3 - v. 6 |
1974 - 1977 |
| HE 23.1209: |
v. 7 - v. 14 |
1978 - 1985 |
| HE 23.12: |
v. 15 - v. 24 |
1986 - 1997 |
This numbering scheme, used in most depositories for federal
documents, is called the Superintendent of Documents (or SuDoc) classification
system, named for the office within GPO that sends documents to depository
libraries. Material on your topic could easily be separated throughout
the federal document collection. It won't all be in one place, and so it
is impossible to browse a SuDoc collection as you might browse for books in
the main collection in the D.H. Hill library.
"A Practical Guide to the Superintendent of Documents
Classification System," and a list of the call numbers used in the federal
documents collection, are found in the publication, Guide to U.S.
Government Publications. This tool is frequently identified solely
by its editor, Andriot. The most recent copy of "Andriot" is available
at the Reference Desk at Z1223 .Z7 G8.
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