The government documents collection in Kraemer Family Library is in a separate collection. You can search the state and federal documents collections in the online catalog just as you would search for any item in the library. Please Note: Some pre-2007 documents do not have catalog records.
It is important to note that government documents call numbers look different from other library call numbers. This page includes explanations on how to read and use government documents call numbers.
Government documents are also available through Prospector and Interlibrary Loan if the item you're looking for isn't in our collection. If you need assistance of any kind with the government documents collection, contact the Research Assistance desk or the Government Documents Coordinator.
Please do not re-shelve documents you have looked at. Place them in the return baskets. If you have checked out a document, return it to the Circulation desk or to any of the Library's book returns.
The Superintendent of Documents Classification system was created by the Government Publishing Office (GPO) to organize a large and rapidly growing mass of government publications. It relies primarily on the origin of the item to organize government documents collections. This system has some unique features, so let's break down the elements of a SuDocs Number. Let's use this as an example:
The part of the call number before the colon is called the "Stem."
The first element of the stem represents the issuing agency. It is between one and four letters long. In this case, the letter is D, which indicates that the Defense Department issued this document.
The number after the alphabetic agency symbol before the stop indicates the subunit of the issuing agency. Our example is D 214, which is the Marine Corps.
The number after the stop and before the colon indicates the type of document. The original four form designators are:
.1 - Annual Reports
.2 - General Publications
.3 - Bulletins
.4 - Circulars
Our call number begins D 214.2, so we know the item is a general publication.
Note: In SuDocs Numbers, the periods between numbers are not decimal points. They are considered stops and numbers on both sides of the period are read as whole numbers. For example, D 214.2 comes before D 214.13.
The part of the call number after the colon is called the book number or the suffix. Book numbers describe in greater detail what the item is. In the case of our example, D 71 comes from the subject indicated by the title of the item.
For more information on constructing and reading the suffix of a SuDocs call number, check out the video below from the University of Minnesota Libraries. The first half of the video also includes a more in-depth look at SuDocs stems.
From the Advanced Catalog Search, you can search by title, author, or subject.
To search just the government documents collection, you will want to use the options under "Add Limits" to limit your search by location. You can use the CTRL key to select more than one option or simply click on either "Government Documents" or "Colorado Documents."
To search by call number, select the "Number" search option from the Advanced Search page and the number type "Government Documents Number."
