Government Publishing Office

Government Publishing Office in the United States

Definition

This Congressional concept is provided by the United States Congress website as a a basic reference document: Government Publishing Office is a legislative branch agency that provides publishing and dissemination services for the official and authentic government publications to Congress, federal agencies, federal depository libraries, and the American public.

Note: there is futher information about the Government Publishing Office in the entry about the Government Printing Office.

Government Publishing Office

The Government Printing Office changed its name to the Government Publishing Office in 2014. Either way, it is generally known as “the GPO.”

The GPO publishes and distributes most official government publications. You can contact the GPO by calling the GPO Bookstore in Washington, D.C. (202-512-1800 or toll free at 866-512-1800).

To get GPO Publications: The GPO Web posts an online U.S. Government Bookstore. You should be able to order all of these through the Web site or by calling the GPO Bookstore in D.C. If speed is of the essence, the GPO warehouse is located in Laurel, MD, and you can hire a document retrieval service to make pick-ups.

In addition, the GPO gives its publications free to depository libraries that agree to make their collections open to the public. For materials published since 1994, search for the publication in the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. When you find it, scroll to the bottom, click on the “Locate Libraries” link, and you can get contact information for the depository libraries that have what you’re looking for.

If you need a pre-1994 publication, you can find local depository libraries using theLocate a Federal Depository Library database, then call or search the library’s online catalog to see if they have what you need. Alternatively, you can search nationally using OCLC’s WorldCat or by searching the online catalogs of other likely libraries.

Researching GPO Materials: The GPO’s Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications (MoCat) lists all government publications published by the GPO since about the end of the 19th Century. Though the issues come out monthly, the indexes are annual.

For materials published since 1994, you can search the online version of the Monthly Catalog, called the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. Not only does this let you search all available years at once, the “Locate Libraries” links on the hit lists tells you which depository libraries hold each of the referenced publications.

More Information

The Government Publishing Office produces, procures, and disseminates printed and electronic publications of the Congress, executive departments, and Federal agencies and establishments.

The Government Publishing Office (GPO) was created on June 23, 1860, by Congressional Joint Resolution 25. The Office opened for business on March 4, 1861. It’s duties are defined in title 44 of the U.S. Code. The President appoints the Director, who is then confirmed by the Senate.

Activities

Headquartered in Washington, DC, with a total employment of approximately 1,700, the Office is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for the three branches of the Federal Government. It is the Federal Government’s primary centralized resource for producing, procuring, cataloging, indexing, authenticating, disseminating, and preserving the official information products of the U.S. Government in digital
and tangible forms.

While many of the informational products, such as the “Congressional Record” and “Federal Register,” are produced at the main GPO plant, most of the Government’s printing is done in partnership with America’s printing industry. The Office procures 75 percent of all printing orders through private sector vendors across the country, competitively buying products and services from thousands of businesses in all 50 States. The contracts cover the entire spectrum of printing and publishing services and are suitable for companies of all sizes.

The Office disseminates Federal information products through a sales program, distribution network of more than 1,200 Federal libraries nationwide, and the Federal Digital System (FDsys). The public can access more than 800,000 Federal Government document titles online, using the FDsys Web site.

Printed copies of many documents, ranging from Supreme Court opinions to reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, may be purchased.

See Also

Congress
Federal Register
Government Documents
United States Code


Posted

in

, , ,

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *