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New Mexico State University Library
Finding Documents Using
Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc)
ClassificationHandout


  1. Each department or independent agency is assigned a letter, or combination of letters, based on the agency name.

    I = Department of the Interior

  2. Sub-agencies within each department are assigned a number which comes after the department letter.

    I 29 = Department of the Interior, National Park Service

  3. The number after the period usually represents an information series created by the sub-agency.

    I 29.6 = Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Parks Information Circulars

    The biggest difference between document call numbers and the rest of the library is that the period is a punctuation mark and not a decimal. Call numbers are shelved by whole number, not decimals.

    I 29.1
    I 29.2
    I 29.11
    I 29.37

  4. After the colon, each document is assigned an unique identifier using numbers, letters, or a combination of both. In shelving, numbers come before letters.

    I 19.27:14
    I 19.27:47/3
    I 19.27:C 43
    I 19.27:C 43/7

  5. Congressional documents are shelved in the following order:

    Y 4.IN 7/2:101-171
    Y 4.IN 7/2:St 8/3
    Y 4.IN 7/2:S.HRG.101-42
    Y 4.IN 7/2:S.PRT.101-41
    Y 4.IN 7/2:S.PUB.101-6



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