Superintendent of Documents Classification System

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The Superintendent of Documents Classification System originated from the Library of the Government Printing Office between 1895 and 1903 (The Superintendent, 2004). It is attributed to Miss Adelaide R. Hasse, who assigned classification numbers based on government organization authorship to a List of Publications of the U. S. Department of Agriculture from 1841 to June 30, 1895. The system was first published by the Department of Agriculture in their Library Bulletin No. 9 in 1896, and this system has gradually expanded as the federal government has grown over the years. Some of the elements of the system have changed, but it is based on the same principles.

The system is based on the organizational status of the government author, and so it must change as the federal government undergoes organizational changes. This leads to publications from some agencies being located in several different parts of the system (The Superintendent, 2004). Despite all these changes, the classification system is still used, and has been adopted to arrange documents collections in most depository libraries and at the National Archives.

The Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification system groups together government publications according to their government author (The Superintendent, 2004). Documents are grouped according to subordinate organizations within an agency or department. The executive departments and agencies, the judiciary, Congress, and all major independent e

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3 etc. Annuals, such as the Annual Report of the Secretary of Agriculture would be A 1.1:993. If more than one year is covered, a combination of dates is used, e.g. Annual Register of the U. S. Naval Academy, 1993-1994 is D 208.107:993-994. Unencumbered Publications are numbered according to the principal subject word in the title using C.A. Cutter's Two-Figure Author Table, e.g. Radioactive Heating of Vehicles Entering the Earth's Atmosphere, NAS 1.2:R 11, with "Radioactive" being the key word, and Measurements of Radiation from Flow Fields of Bodies Flying Speeds up to 13.4 Kilometers per Second would be NAS 1.2:R 11/2. Using C.A. Cutter's Three-Figure Author Table, a revision of the first example would be NAS 1.2:R 11/994, and more revisions in the same year would end with 994-2, 994-3, etc. Periodicals and series are identified by the number, or volume and number e.g. Agricultural Outlook No. 160 A 93.10/2:160, and unnumbered periodicals and continuations are identified by the year of issuance and order of issuance within the year, e.g. United States Savings Bonds Issued and Redeemed T 63.209/8-:994/1 (The Superintendent, 2004). Special treatment are employed for certain Government agencies, which consist of three cl
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Approximate Word count = 1392
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

Superintendent of Documents Classification System

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