Gems from the Government Documents Collection Throughout US History
Syracuse University has a long history of cooperation with the US Federal Government in providing freely available government information to the SU community and the general public. SU has been a Federal Depository Library for 147 years. On Feb 7, 1878, eight years after Syracuse’s founding, the Library was congressionally designated by Congressman Frank Hiscock.
The Government Documents collection is located on the 3rd floor of Bird Library and contains over 1 million federal depository documents that we have received from the Federal Government. The majority of these older documents are either in tangible print format or on microform. With the change to digital publications by the government, 98% of the new titles we receive now that are produced by Congress, the Judiciary, the President and the Executive Offices, Departments and Agencies are now available electronically through our online catalog as digital content. Many other government documents, data, and information can be found by searching one of the many government search engines found on the Library’s Government Documents Research Guide.
Below are some unique, odd and interesting documents from our collection.