October 5, 2001: Volume 53, Number 5

Pentagon papers to zip codes, government documents has it all

The Pentagon Papers. A collection of Gemini photos of Earth. A 1942 publication on the internment of Japanese on the West Coast. A 2000 document titled Patterns of Global Terrorism.

Those and other pieces of American history from the College's Government Documents collection will be on display this term in the Lally Reading Room of Schaffer Library. "Documents Through the Decades" commemorates the 100th anniversary of the library's designation as a Selective Federal Document Depository, one of about 1,400 nationally.

As part of the commemoration, Robert Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, will speak on "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Freedom of Access" on Monday, Oct. 29, at 3 p.m. in Reamer Auditorium.

Each year, the College receives between 4,000 and 5,000 paper copies of documents, an additional number of microfiche publications, topographic maps and several hundred CDs, all without charge from the Library Programs Service of the Government Printing Office, the largest publisher in the world. Union selects about 25 percent of the 6,200 items offered, and has ready access to regional depositories, which keep everything.

Contained in the massive offerings is not just information from the three branches of government, but subject areas covering agriculture, law, medicine, history, economics, energy, engineering, fish and wildlife, oceans, transportation and health.

"I think people are unaware of what we have here," says Donna Burton, reference librarian and government documents specialist, who has curated the exhibit. "If we lead them to (the documents collection) they are surprised."

The range of offerings, which also include such mundane documents as zip code directories and IRS tax forms, also surprises library patrons, Burton added.

The most heavily used documents are the Statistical Abstracts of the United States, popular with students and faculty doing research on everything from demographics to economic trends, Burton says. Schaffer has them dating back to 1929.

And among the least popular but most memorable? Perhaps an army training manual titled Know Your 8-Inch Howitzer, or a lengthy volume on Congressional hearings on the replacement of silverware at U.S. Embassies or a document from a House hearing on the shortage of canning lids.

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