About the GVSU Government Documents Collection

Most U.S. government documents at GVSU are classified using the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification system.  This system organizes materials by the government agency that created the document. 

Due to the ever-changing nature of the government bureaucracy this can make finding older documents difficult.  For example, if you were looking for current government publications from the Department of Education you would find them classified under the ED's.  If you were looking for Department of Education publications from the 1970s, though, you would have to look under the ED's and the HE's because until the late 1970s the Department of Education was part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (today known as the Health and Human Services Department) whose publications are classified under the HE's.

While the majority of U.S. government documents are classified using the SuDoc system, many commonly used resources, such as the Statistical Abstract of the United States, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, and the United States Government Manual are classified using the Library of Congress (LC) classification system.

For some quick tips for finding documents classified using the SuDoc system, check out this site on SuDoc Basics from Michigan State University.  Click here for a more detailed explanation of system from the Government Printing Office.