LS 562: Government Documents
Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Buchanan
Spring1999
Office: 226-2447 OfficeHours:
Home: 226-4958
On-campus e-mail: Buchanan
Internet e-mail: Buchanan@clarion.edu

Office Hours:

Monday,2-4p.m.
Tuesday,9:30-11:30a.m.
Wednesday, 10:00-11:00 a.m.

TEXT:

Robinson, Judith Schiek. Tapping the Government Grapevine: The User-Friendly Guide to U.S. Government Information Sources. 3rd ed. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1998.

 

 I. Catalog Description: Study and evaluation of selected federal, state, and municipal documents, foreign government publications, and the United Nations. The nature of documents, their reference and research value; the techniques of acquisition, organization, and bibliographic control; on-line commercial and government databases.

NOTE: This course will focus principally on United States federal documents.

 II. Objectives: As a result of this course each student should: A. Gain an overview of the history of United States government publishing.

B. Understand the Superintendent of Documents classification system and its advantages and disadvantages as a system for organizing government document collections.

C. Understand the Depository Library System.

D. Become knowledgeable of the channels of distribution through which government publications are available to libraries and members of the public.

E. Develop proficiency in the use of bibliographies, indexes, and other reference resources that have been developed for government publications by federal agencies and by commercial publishers.

F. Become familiar with the basic documents of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government.
 
G. Understand the various means of organizing and administering government publications collections in libraries.

H. Become familiar with the professional literature supporting documents librarianship.

I. Become acquainted with electronic formats of government documents.

 

 III. Projects:

A. Class Presentation

Each student will research the history and current status of the publishing and depository programs of one of the following:

1. One of the fifty individual states in the U.S.
2. A national government other than the U.S.
3. An international organization e.g.:
    a. United Nations
    b. North Atlantic Treaty Organization
    c. Organization of American States

The results of this research will be rendered in two ways:

1. As a web-based user’s guide for finding information.
2. As a class presentation. You may use notes, overheads, etc., but please refrain from verbatim reading of your manuscript.

B. Journaling Assignment.

Each student will be responsible for reading eight journal articles or essays specifically related to government publications. These articles should come from the professional/scholarly literature of librarianship. For each entry please indicate how the article was retrieved (e.g., name of index or bibliography, indexing terms, etc.). You are encouraged to read in and become familiar with a wide spectrum of journals; however, at a minimum, your reading should include at least one article each from the following journals: DttP: Documents to the People

Government Information Quarterly

Government Publications Review (now known as Journal of Government Information)

The record of your reading should be kept in a journal which will be turned in segments as indicated on the calendar. Each journal entry should be approximately one double-spaced typed page in length and should include the following:

A proper citation to the article. Please use the current edition of Turabian's A Manual of Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations as your guide in preparing this citation.

A brief summary of the article in which the author(s) main points are highlighted.

Your response as a professional librarian to the issues raised.

A brief statement regarding how you located the article -- by browsing, by using an index, etc. Please do not use the browsing technique for more than three articles. For those articles located through an index search, please indicate the title and volume of the index as well as the search terms used. If you would like to identify articles by selecting from a bibliography, that is fine; once again, do not select more than two articles in this fashion. If you use a bibliography, please indicate the title, page, etc. of the work in which the bibliography is located.

 IV. Teaching Methods: Various instructional methods will be utilized, including lecture, class discussion, viewing of selected media, oral presentations, question lists, and at least one field trip.

 

 V. Evaluation:
Each student's evaluation will be based on the following:
A. BI Presentation 30%
B. Two Quizzes 25% (12.5% each)
C. Question Sets 30%
D. Journaling 10%
E. Class Participation 10%

COURSE CALENDAR
 
25 Jan Introduction; SuDocs; Depository Library Program
1 Feb No Class; Instructor at ALA
8 Feb Government Printing Office; Superintendent of Documents Chapters 1-5
15 Feb Retrospective and Current Bibliographies/Indexes; Index/Abstract Questions
22 Feb Legislative Documents; Legislative Questions
1 Mar WINTER BREAK – NO CLASS 
8 Mar Documents of the Presidency; Presidency Questions; quiz
15 Mar Executive Branch Documents; first half of journaling due; Census Questions
22 Mar Administrative Law Documents; Documents of the Judiciary; Judicary Questions
29 Mar Non-GPO Documents; "Fugitive Documents"
5 Apr Spring Break; No Class
12 Apr Documents of Other Nations, of International Organizations, and of Local and State Governments in the U.S.; Student Presentations
19 Apr Student Presentations
26 Apr Student Presentations
3 May Student Presentations; Journaling Projects Due
10 May Final Quiz
   
ACADEMIC HONESTY

The University has adopted a policy on academic honesty. A copy of that document is located elsewhere on the department's web site. Each student will be expected to abide by the policy.