Government Information: About the Department

Government Information Services of the Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources is committed to providing information and reference assistance to the VU community and the citizens of the First Congressional District of Indiana. Valparaiso University was established as a selective federal depository library of the U.S. government in 1930 and continues in selecting about 24% of the documents offered to libraries. In addition, VU is also a depository for the state of Indiana.

While there is no service desk specifically for documents, assistance may be obtained from the Government Information Services Librarian (Rm 264) and the Research Desk on the 2nd Floor. The documents may be accessed at the Christopher Center whenever the library is open. [Library Hours]

Finding the Christopher Center for Library and Information Resources

Government Documents Collection Development Policy

Finding Documents at the Christopher Center

U.S. Government documents may be found by using indexes, such as the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (formerly the Monthly Catalog), Marcive WebDocs (VU community access only) or the library's catalog.

Government documents owned by the Library are arranged on the shelf by Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) number. To locate this number, look in our catalog, for the document by author, title, subject or keyword. The SuDocs number will appear in the location box as the call number. The Documents collection in book form is on the 1st floor of the Christopher Center. The documents in microfiche are on the 2nd floor in the Microforms Room (251) next to the Circulation Desk, and the electronic documents are in the Media Area on the 1st floor. Map documents are in the map cases in the Reference Area on the 2nd floor.

If the Library does not own the document you need, it might be available on the Internet. Check for the title in the Catalog of U.S. Government publications of GPO Access or by using the many databases made available to the public by the government.

Interlibrary loan is also available for government documents for VU students, faculty and staff.

Indiana State Document Collection

Indiana documents may be found by using the Checklist of Indiana State Documents from the Indiana State Library. VU's collection of Indiana documents includes the Indiana House and Senate Journals; reports from the State Departments of Health, Natural Resources and Commerce; and labor and market information from Indiana Workforce Development.

Indiana documents have been cataloged and appear in the library catalog. The documents are kept with the circulating book collection on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Christopher Center.

If VU does not own the document you need, it might be available on the Internet. Check for information from Access Indiana or by using the Library's State and Local Information webpages.