FDSYS -- Federal Digital System

The Government Printing Office (GPO) offers electronic access to federal documents at a new web site: www.fdsys.gov. FDSYS offers the breadth of United States Government information.

Full text legislative documents are available such as: Congressional Bills, the Congressional Record, Public and Private Laws, the Code of Federal Regulations, Public Papers of the Presidents, Budget of the United States Government and many others.

Among the myriad of publications, there is also access to MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine database and to Science.gov, publications from the scientific community.

See your government at work.

The Government Documents Staff

New Decorated Bindings Images Added to Flickr

Recently I was walking through the stacks and came across a selection of books that have interesting cover images. The books turned out to be the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture. A description of the title from the USDA's website:

"The main purpose of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture was to summarize USDA’s research developments. However, the Yearbook, which was published (with a couple of exceptions) annually from 1894 to 1992, has a broad appeal outside of the scientific community. In fact, Congress passed a law to provide for its publication as part of an effort to make agricultural information more readily available to farmers and other interested citizens."

The USDA has digitized the full run of the yearbook; however, it does not appear that they digitized the covers of the volumes. A selection of cover images can be found on the State Library's Flickr page. I highly recommend checking out the the digitized volumes on the USDA's site, as the title and introductory pages of the volumes also include wonderful mid-century graphics. Print copies of these yearbooks are accessible to the public in the State Library, room 341.

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Massachusetts Benchmarks

The Journal of the Massachusetts Economy is entitled MASSACHUSETTS BENCHMARKS. It is a publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the University of Massachusetts and is published quarterly.

The economy of Massachusetts is analyzed and discussed in articles, reports, and commentary by regions and industries. The most current issue, for example, has an article about Housing in Massachusetts and the Economic Vitality of the Blackstone Valley Mills.

The State Library has this publication in both paper format (tangible) and in its online collection.

We invite you to enrich your understanding of our economy using BENCHMARKS.

The Documents Department

Federal Documents at the State Library

The State Library of Massachusetts is a selective federal depository library and, as such, we participate in the Federal Depository Library Program. The library collects documents from numerous agencies including the U.S. Census, Congress, and the Justice Department as well as laws and regulations.

Some of the federal documents the State Library receives are these:

ED 1.109: 2009
The Condition of Education
This is an annual report on subjects like the growth in enrollment, statistics concerning poverty and education, statistics on homeschooling, reading and scores.

HE 20.7042/6: 2008
Health, United States, 2008: with Special Feature on Health of Young Adults
This publication has charts on mortality rates, influenza and pneumococcal vaccination among middle-age and older adults by age, and health insurance expenditures. It also covers death rates and birth rates.

PREX 3.15: 2008
World Factbook
This book, produced by the CIA, contains many facts broken down into topics by geography, government, military, and additional subjects for each profiled country.

J 1.14/7: 1995-2008 online
Crime in the U.S.
“Several annual statistical publications, such as the comprehensive Crime in the United States, are produced from data provided by nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States.” It gives statistics on offenses in the categories of violent crime, property crime, homicides, burglary, and other unlawful acts.

J 1.8/2: F 87/2009
Guide to the Freedom of Information Act 2009
This book is an overview of the Freedom of Information Act requirements, exemptions, and litigation considerations.

For more links to federal documents go to the State Library’s web page at http://mass.gov/lib. Choose Government Data & Documents, then Federal Data & Resources