Government Documents at Depository Libraries
• Federal: The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) was established by Congress to ensure that the American public has access to its Government's information. Since 1813, depository libraries have collected government documents and provided free access to them for the public. Anyone can visit one of the 1,250 Federal depository libraries and use the Federal depository collections.
• State: The State of South Dakota has its own depository library system for disseminating South Dakota government publications to the public.
The I.D. Weeks Library has been a selective depository library for U.S. Government Documents publications since 1889. The Library selects approximately 45 percent of the publications made available to participating depository libraries. The Documents Collection is arranged by the Superintendent of Documents Classification System (SuDocs), which arranges publications by their issuing agency. Documents are located on the 2nd floor of the Library. The Collection is especially strong in areas of law, health sciences, earth sciences, education, business, history, and political science. One of the features of the documents collection is its nearly complete coverage of Congressional materials dating from the Continental Congress to the present.
