1 - The Sudoc System:

As I said before, the government documents housed in the government documents reading room on the first floor of Watson Library are shelved and filed by the Sudoc classification system. This is a system based on issuing agency rather than on subject and personal author like the Library of Congress system. While sudoc is a combination of letters and numbers like LC, it is arranged a bit differently.

All sudoc numbers start with a letter. This letter represents the issuing agency. For example, A for Agriculture, ED for Education, I for Interior and so on. After the letter(s) will come numbers. These letters and numbers to the left of the colon (:) form the sudoc �stem�. The stem designates the issuing agency and the type of publication. All numbers in the stem are whole numbers even though they may come after a period (.).

After the colon, you will have either letters or numbers which designate the specific publication. In the case of a letter, the letter indicates a monographic (like a book - a one time deal with a unique title) publication and in theory comes from the first significant word in the title. Following the letter there will be more numbers. These numbers are treated as decimals. In the case of a number following the colon, this number indicates a volume, issue or year of a serial publication (like any other journal of magazine). In every case, letters are always always always filed before numbers.

Just follow these examples and you�ll be fine. If you have any question or doubt in your mind about how to shelve or file a document, ASK!!!!! Don�t worry about getting in trouble or something. What we really want is for each document to be in it�s appropriate place on the shelf because if it isn�t there the patrons can�t find it and that defeats the purpose. OK?

See the next page for some examples and some further explanation.

Here are some examples:

Sudoc Stems in Order:	Specific Sudocs in order:
A 1.2:	A 1.2: A 13
A 1.3:	A 1.2: A 13/994
A 1.22:	A 1.2: A 13/995
A 1.22/2:	A 1.2: A 13/2
A 1.22/3:	A 1.2: A 13/3
A 1.22/3-2:	A 1.2: A 13/3/994
A 1.223	A 1.2: A 13/4

Stems With Both Letters and Numbers:

A 93.12: B 32

A 93.12: D15

A 93.12: 7

A 93.12: 44

Remember - Letters before numbers!

Senate Committee Publications:
All of these publications start with Y4. and are followed by a letter and then numbers. For example Y 4. F 49: behaves just like a normal sudoc stem. After the colon, there will come either letters or numbers. Again, these follow the letters before numbers pattern. Since these class numbers are profuse and often confusing, here are some examples.

Y 4. F 49: Au 8/3/pt.3

Y 4. F 49: B 85/2

Y 4. F 49: M 66

Y 4. F 49: S.hrg. 98-42 (S.hrg. stands for Senate hearing)

Y 4. F 49: S.prt. 98-12 (S.prt. stands for Senate print)

Y 4. F 49: Su 3/19

Y 4. F 49: T 19/86

Y 4. F 49: 97-114

Y 4. F 49: 98-72

Y 4. F 49: 99-01

Had enough? Well, the hard part is over. Just a few more details about filing and shelving procedures and you�ll be ready to go!

2 - Shelving and Filing Tips:

As a student assistant, one of your primary responsibilities will be shelving and filing government documents. Your first priority in this process is to reshelve publications which have been used in the library by patrons. Check around the documents room to make sure all used documents are reshelved. Count the documents you reshelve and record the number on the �In-House Usage Statistics Log�.

After all documents have been reshelved, check the truck in the documents processing area which contains new documents to be shelved. If these documents aren�t already in sudoc number order, put them in order prior to shelving them. Duh. Just remember, it is more important to do this right than to do it fast. If you have questions or doubts, now is the time to express them.

Things to remember while shelving include making sure to get each document in it�s proper place. Make sure you check carefully the document to the left and the document to the right was well as the class number on the Princeton file (if applicable). If you find a few documents out of order, go ahead and put them in their correct order. If you find a lot of documents out of order, report it to the documents librarian right away.

We use Princeton files (metal boxes) to hold documents which are too small or thin to reside comfortably on the shelf on their own. Each Princeton file should be labeled to indicate it�s contents with the documents filed in it in sudoc number order from left to right. A supply of these files is kept in the back corner of the Government Documents Reading Room. Before installing a new Princeton file, make sure you make a label for it.

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