The Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications was established by the Printing Act of January 12, 1895. It is issued each month by the Superintendent of Documents for the Government Printing Office, and catalogs all publications of the United States government, including those of the Congress and all executive departments (with the exception of administrative and confidential or restricted documents). The government prints thousands of documents each year, and many of these are sent to depository libraries. Records for all publications since July 1976 have been available online at the GPO's website, but earlier issues have generally only been available in print or on microfilm. This online version will make all issues of the Monthly Catalog from 1895 to July 1976 available online, both as keyed full text records and as page images of the original printed catalog.

Issues of the Monthly Catalog up to June 1976 are arranged alphabetically by department or issuing agency. Publications sent to depository libraries are identified, and the record for each publication includes two or more identification numbers. The entry number for each item (together with the year) allows it to be located within the catalog. These are a simple numeric series with the first item appearing in the January catalog each year being number 1. Each item is also given a Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification number. This is a unique identifier for each publication which begins with an alphabetic identifier for the issuing department. More information about SuDoc classification can be found on the GPO website here:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/pubs/explain.html

Where relevant, Library of Congress card numbers or other identifiers are also included in the record.

Each issue also includes an index, and these indexes are also reproduced in the online Monthly Catalog both as keyed text and as scanned page images. From 1974 separate title, author and subject indexes were included.

The online Monthly Catalog makes it much easier to locate government documents. Researchers can search for keywords across all issues or during a specific period, find documents by individual or corporate author, or search any of the other fields included in the records. Each issue can be browsed chronologically from the Browse tab, and many of the fields including Title, Author and SuDoc number can be browsed from the Search screen.

The Monthly Catalog is a finding aid only, and does not include full text for any of the publications included. However, it is intended that in future links will be included to digitized government documents elsewhere.

Status and Known Issues [June 2008]

ProQuest's online edition of the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications launched in June of 2008. The database currently contains all issues from January 1955 to December 1975, including scanned images from catalog numbers 720-971 comprising approximately 400,000 entries.

The remaining issues from December 1954 back to 1895, and from January to July 1976 will be completed by early 2009.

The complexity of the Monthly Catalog presented a number of challenges in the digitization process and is a work in progress. From time to time you may encounter data issues such as the following:

1. Some entries which are not perfectly fielded, such as a publication date which also contains the place of publication.
2. Incorrect zoning of entries when viewed on screen. On the Monthly Catalog Image Page the user can mouse over any entry. A box around the entry will appear and link to the keyed record for that entry. In a few cases the zoning around an entry was mistakenly extended to an adjoining entry, making it difficult to link to a corresponding entry. Any of these entries can be found by searching by Monthly Catalog number and Entry number.
3. While every page of the Monthly Catalog has been keyed to an accuracy rate of 99.95%, there will be some typographical errors, particularly in entries that are cramped or otherwise difficult to read.
4. Sometimes information that was prefaced at the beginning of a series entry ("The following entries ...") will be missing from the individual entries themselves. For example, an entry may reference a volume but miss the corresponding series title that would have appeared at the top of the list, or specific information about availability, or date of publication.

We intend to address all of these issues over time. However, if you have concerns or wish to notify us about any issues you may encounter, please feel free to contact us.