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FINDING A FEDERAL DOCUMENT: AN INTRODUCTION

The Federal Depository Library Program is one method through which the federal government distributes publications from the various agencies, departments, and Congress. Libraries which participate in the program fall into two categories: selective and full depositories:

Full depositories (the Fogler Library at the Orono campus is the only one in Maine) receive all of the publications which are distributed through the Depository program.

Selective depositories (like UM Presque Isle, USM, and the Law School) receive a self-selected portion of these publications.

UM Presque Isle selects publications which support academic programs at the University. The Library also receives publications related to the federal, judicial and law-making processes, e.g., Congressional documents and reports.

Think of government publications just as you would anything else relevant to your research -- they are important sources of current and historical information. All documents at UM Presque Isle may be borrowed except for those in the reference, microfiche, and periodical collections. Sources which will lead you to federal publications are the URSUS online catalog and the Monthly Catalog on compact disk (backfiles in print).

You might also want to try the World Wide Web. One site is the U.S. Government Printing Office at the url:http://www.access.gpo.gov. Another site would be Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet at the url:http://thomas.loc.gov.