Federal Documents Depository Program
The Indiana State Library is a participant in the Federal Depository Library Program. This depository library program is administered by the U.S. Government Printing Office through which selected U.S. government documents are made available in libraries throughout the country.
The depository library system is a long established cooperative program between the federal government and designated major libraries throughout the United States under which certain classes of government documents are distributed free of cost to those libraries for the purpose of making such documents accessible to the American public.
The Indiana State Library's collection of federal documents dates from 1789. The Library was officially designated as a state regional depository for federal government publications in 1963. Documents are not generally included in our Online Catalog. Federal documents distributed through the federal depository library program since January 1994 can be identified using the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. Federal documents distributed before 1994 can be identified by consulting a number of print format biblographic finding aids, indexes, catalogs, and checklists. Many may be borrowed through regular circulation or Interlibrary Loan.
The United States government is the largest publisher in the world. It distributes materials in a variety of formats (Internet, CD, microfiche, and paper), such as pamphlets describing national parks and how to grow tomatoes, magazines like "Aging" and "Monthly Labor Review," and books on the history of the Revolutionary War and exhibition catalogs from the Smithsonian Institution.
As part of this publishing program the Government Printing Office (GPO) sends documents to over 1300 depository libraries throughout the United States. Designated "depository libraries" receive materials free from the GPO. There are 33 depositories in Indiana. All but one of the libraries are selective depositories. They "select" the materials most useful to the citizens of their community and are required to make the publications available to the public.
Supplementing the selective depositories is the document collection at the Indiana State Library. The Indiana State Library receives all of the federal documents distributed through the federal depository library program. It is the regional depository of federal documents for the state.
A recent enhancement to the Depository Program is GPO Access. GPO Access is designed to provide electronic access to:
Congressional Bills--all published versions of bills, beginning with bills introduced in the 103rd Congress
Congressional Record--databases include the "Congressional Record," starting with 1994, Congressional Record Indexes starting with 1992 and a History of Bills, starting with 1994
Federal Register--starting with 1994, and a Unified Regulatory Agenda starting with 1994
Federal Depository Libraries in Indiana
Anderson
Anderson University (765) 641-4275
Bloomington
Indiana University (812) 855-6924
Indiana University School of Law (812) 855-4611
Crawfordsville
Wabash College (765) 361-6361
Evansville
Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library (812) 428-8239
University of Southern Indiana (812) 464-1920
Fort Wayne
Allen County Public Library (260) 421-1200 ext. 2153
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (260) 481-6506
Gary
Gary Public Library (219) 886-2484
Indiana University Northwest (219) 980-6946
Greencastle
Depauw University (765) 658-4427
Hammond
Hammond Public Library (219) 931-5100 ext. 328
Hanover
Hanover College (812) 866-7162
Huntington
Huntington University (260) 359-4062
Indianapolis
Butler University (317) 940-9236
Indiana State Library (317) 232-3679
Indiana Supreme Court (317) 233-8692
Indiana University School of Law, Indianapolis (317) 274-1932
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (317) 274-0469
Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library (317) 269-1733
Kokomo
Indiana University Kokomo (765) 455-9437
Muncie
Ball State University (765) 285-1110
New Albany
Indiana University Southeast (812) 941-2552
Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame (574) 631-6043
University of Notre Dame Law School (574) 631-5922
Rensselaer
St. Joseph's College (219) 866-6189
Richmond
Earlham College (765) 983-1363
Morrison Reeves Library (765) 966-8291 ext. 27
South Bend
Indiana University South Bend (574) 237-4442
Terre Haute
Indiana State University (812) 237-3946
Valparaiso
Valparaiso University (219) 464-5771
Valparaiso University School of Law (219) 465-7866
West Lafayette
Purdue University (765) 494-2837
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