The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) is a government program created to make U.S. federal government publications available to the public at no cost. As of April 2021, [update] there are 1,114 depository libraries in the United States and its territories. [1] A "government publication" is defined in the U.S. Code as "informational matter which is published as an individual document at Government expense, or as required by law" (44 U.S.C. 1901).
The groundwork for the FDLP was established by an 1813 Congressional Joint Resolution ordering that certain publications be distributed to libraries outside of the federal government. [2] Initially, the Librarian of Congress was responsible for running this program, but the responsibility shifted to the Secretary of the Interior in the 1850s.
The Printing Act of 1895 revised public printing laws and established the roles of the FDLP and the Government Printing Office (GPO) in distributing government information. This act also assigned leadership of the program to the Superintendent of Public Documents, who would be under the control of the GPO [3] and added executive documents to the distribution list. [4]
The Depository Library Act of 1962 (DLA) created the present-day FDLP as codified in Title 44, Chapter 19 of the U.S. Code. The DLA allowed two depository libraries in each Congressional district, eliminated postage charges to depository libraries receiving material, provided for the distribution of non-GPO documents, permitted independent federal agencies to be eligible for depository designation, and created regional depository libraries.
The Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-40), codified in Title 44, Chapter 41 of the U.S. Code, requires the Superintendent of Documents to maintain an electronic directory of federal electronic information, provide online access to the Congressional Record , Federal Register and other select publications, and operate an electronic storage facility. The electronic service now includes over 2,200 databases and is available via http://www.govinfo.gov.
On January 4, 2020, the FDLP website was hacked and defaced with pro-Iranian/anti-US messaging in response to the American airstrike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force. [5] The FDLP site was taken offline, [6] then restored the next day following a security analysis. [7]
The Government Publishing Office (GPO) is responsible for printing and distributing government documents and overseeing the FDLP. There are several important individuals in charge of maintaining the link between GPO and the FDLP:
There are two types of depository libraries:
There are two ways in which a library may qualify for FDLP status:
Libraries with depository status are required to provide the documents received at no cost to their patrons. Though they receive the publications free of charge, depository libraries are responsible for the costs of processing the items and making them available. All depository libraries must make their collections of these documents available to the general public, and the services provided for government documents must be on par with the services offered to the primary users of a library. Circulation policies for government documents, however, are established by each library itself. Libraries may house the materials however they like; for example, they may separate the government documents from the rest of their collection or they may integrate them. A library cannot filter Internet search results at public access stations as access to health or biological science articles may not be infringed upon.
Depository libraries must maintain collections of at least 10,000 books, not including the collection of government documents. A depository library may voluntarily resign from its position as a depository library, or it may be stripped of its depository status by the Superintendent of Documents if it does not carry out its responsibilities as enumerated in the U.S. Code. In either case, the library must properly dispose of the government documents it acquired while part of the program as these publications are the property of the U.S. Government. The documents would generally be returned to the state regional library and then redistributed to selected libraries within the state.
Libraries are required to maintain a series of titles known as the FDLP Basic Collection. Beyond this, libraries order the materials that best suit the needs of their patrons; there is no selection percentage criterion that must be met. The FDLP offers the opportunity to order several kinds of material for libraries' collections, including maps, Braille, large print documents, foreign language items, and audio.
The Core Collection was established in 1977. Every depository library is required to have certain publications available for use. These include, among others:
Libraries select the documents they wish to receive from the List of Classes of United States Government Publications Available for Selection by Depository Libraries and the Union List of Item Selections. This is a document listing all of the classes of items available for selection through the program and their associated item numbers. Each item with an item number is available through the FDLP program. Because of the large number of documents published by the government each year, the documents are arranged into categories of related classes from which to choose. By selecting a class, the library receives all of the documents within that class. Selections made during the year take effect on October 1. The Union List of Item Selections updates the titles in the List of Classes on a semiannual basis.
Unlike adding items, selections may be removed at any time; the library stops receiving the documents within 72 hours.
Selective depository libraries must keep government documents in their collections for five years minimum, after which time the items may be removed from the collection with the approval of a regional library. Items marked for disposal must be offered first to the regional, then to other depositories (44 U.S.C. § 1912). All depository libraries, including regional libraries, may dispose of items that have been superseded or issued later in bound form (44 U.S.C. § 1911). If an item has been deselected, the library must still retain the publications it possesses from that item number for five years before they may be discarded. Libraries may not financially benefit from the disposal of depository publications.
After 1996, government publications increasingly shifted to online formats; in addition, most Federal publications now originate online. Regional libraries still continue to collect information in a wide variety of formats, but many government documents are now published exclusively online. Electronic documents positively impact issues such as storage, length of retention, and access, which can be enhanced with library networking.
Libraries may substitute electronic documents for tangible documents as the only copy of the item in the collection, as long as the electronic document is complete, official, and permanently accessible. Access to electronic documents is provided through Persistent Uniform Resources Locators (PURL) and is facilitated by GovInfo and the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP).
Recently, federal agencies have been bypassing the GPO in lieu of publishing documents directly online. These documents, known as "fugitive documents", are not published through GPO, and hence are not part of the FDLP program.
The United States Government Publishing Office is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States Federal government. The office produces and distributes information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications of the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive departments, and independent agencies.
The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on federal holidays. The final rules promulgated by a federal agency and published in the Federal Register are ultimately reorganized by topic or subject matter and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is updated quarterly.
The director of The U.S. Government Publishing Office, formerly the public printer of the United States, is the head of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO). Pursuant to 44 U.S.C. § 301, this officer is nominated by the president of the United States and approved by the United States Senate. The title was changed to "Director" when in December 2014, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law H.R. 83, which consolidated and continued appropriations for FY 2015. Section 1301 of that act changed the name of the Government Printing Office to the Government Publishing Office and the title of public printer to director. Thus, Davita Vance-Cooks was the last public printer of the United States and the first director of the U.S. Government Publishing Office.
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Index is updated daily online and published monthly. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code authorizes publication of the Congressional Record.
The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central reference and research library for state government and the Legislature. The California State Library advises, consults with and provides technical assistance to California's public libraries. It directs state and federal funds to support local public libraries and statewide library programs, including Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grants. The California State Library's mission is to serve as "...the state’s information hub, preserving California’s cultural heritage and connecting people, libraries and government to the resources and tools they need to succeed and to build a strong California." With the exception of the Sutro Library in the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University, the other three branches are located in Sacramento, California, at 914 Capitol Mall, 900 N Street and at the State Capitol.
The United States Congressional Serial Set began in 1817 as the official collection of reports and documents of the United States Congress. The collection was published in a "serial" fashion, hence its name. It has been described as the "nation's most treasured publication" and beloved by librarians as "part of their most valued holdings."
A United States congressional hearing is the principal formal method by which United States congressional committees collect and analyze information in the early stages of legislative policymaking. Whether confirmation hearings, legislative, oversight, investigative, or a combination of these, all hearings share common elements of preparation and conduct. Hearings usually include oral testimony from witnesses and questioning of the witnesses by members of Congress. George B. Galloway termed congressional hearings a goldmine of information for all the public problems of the United States. A leading authority on U.S. government publications has referred to the published hearings as "the most important publications originating within Congress." The Senate Library in a similar vein noted "Hearings are among the most important publications originating in Congress."
Title 44 of the United States Code outlines the role of public printing and documents in the United States Code.
The State Library of Ohio is a state agency that provides services to state government and all types of libraries to ensure that all Ohio residents, rich or poor, rural or urban, receive the best possible library service and are able to engage in lifelong learning which strengthens the economic health of Ohio.
Malcolm A. Love Library, opened in 1971, is the primary, central academic library serving multiple campuses of San Diego State University (SDSU) in Southern California and Northern Baja California, Mexico. Located on the Montezuma Mesa in the College Area of San Diego, California, the library underwent a major expansion to improve Library & Information Access for students institution-wide with construction of the Manchester Hall addition including a spectacular glass enclosed atrium to serve as the new entrance gateway for the University Library. The iconic design and architecture of the new glass and steel enclosed lobby, and its stated purpose, has earned the entire complex the reference The Info Dome.
Adelaide Rosalie Hasse was an American librarian. She is listed as one of the "100 most important leaders we had in the 20th century" in the December 1999 edition of American Libraries. She is credited with having developed the Superintendent of Documents Classification system used by the Government Printing Office and Federal Depository Library Program.
The University of North Texas Libraries is an American academic research library system that serves the constituent colleges and schools of University of North Texas in Denton. The phrase "University of North Texas Libraries" encompasses three aspects: The library collections as a whole and its organizational structure; The physical facilities and digital platform that house the collections; and certain self-contained collections of substantial size that warrant the name "Library"—the Music Library and the Digital Libraries (collections), for example, are housed in Willis Library.
The Energy Citations Database (ECD) was created in 2001 in order to make scientific literature citations, and electronic documents, publicly accessible from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and its predecessor agencies, at no cost to the user. This database also contains all the unclassified materials from Energy Research Abstracts. Classified materials are not available to the public. ECD does include the unclassified, unlimited distribution scientific and technical reports from the Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Energy Research and Development Administration. The database is usually updated twice per week.
William Joseph Boarman was an American printer who served as the 26th Public Printer of the United States. Boarman was a labor union leader and government consultant, and served as senior vice-president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and president of that union's Printing, Publishing & Media Works Sector.
The Printing Act of 1895 was a law designed to centralize in the United States Government Printing Office the printing, binding, and distribution of U.S. Government documents. The Act revised public printing laws and established the roles of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and the Government Printing Office (GPO) in distributing government information. The act also assigned leadership of the program to the Superintendent of Public Documents, who would be under the control of the GPO,
The Public Papers of the Presidents contain the papers and speeches of the presidents of the United States that were issued by the White House Office of the Press Secretary. The series constitutes a special edition of the Federal Register.
The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER) is a digital archive begun in 2004 by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to safeguard, preserve and provide easy access to the United States' economic history, particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System, through digitization of documents related to the U.S. financial system.
The Federal Register Modernization Act was a bill that would require the Federal Register to be published, rather than printed, and that documents in the Federal Register be made available for sale or distribution to the public in published form.
Depository Library Act of 1962 is a federal statute revising the depository library laws passed in the United States from 1895 to 1939. The Act of Congress mandated the availability of U.S. government publications through the Superintendent of Documents for public information. The statute established requirements for two depository libraries as allocated by U.S. Congressional representatives per their respective congressional districts. The U.S. federal law provided provisions appointing land-grant colleges and the United States service academies as depository libraries for U.S. government publications. The 87th U.S. Congressional legislation authorized regional depository libraries allocating two depository libraries per U.S. state as defined by a United States Senator. The Act repealed Public Law 76-281 designating the United States Coast Guard Academy library as a depository of U.S. government publications while redelegating the New London, Connecticut office of the Superintendent of Documents.
Superintendent of Documents Classification, commonly called as SuDocs or SuDoc, is a system of library classification developed and maintained by the United States Government Publishing Office. Unlike Library of Congress Classification, Dewey Decimal Classification, or Universal Decimal Classification, SuDocs is not a universal system. Rather, it is intended for use only with publications of the Federal Government of the United States. Also, SuDocs does not organize materials by subject, but by the agency that created those materials, making it a provenance-based or archival classification system.
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