A Federal Depository Library
Celebrating 90 Years of Service and Discovery: The Federal Depository Library Program at UCLA
Today our multidisciplinary collection is the oldest and the largest federal depository collection in the UC system. Our Library receives more than 7000 items numbers, including paper, CD, DVD, maps, and online products from the FDLP depository. The collections in tangible and electronic formats are integrated with general collections and are located in the Charles E. Young Research Library, Science and Engineering Library, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, and SRLF.
About the Federal Government Collection
Congress established the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) to ensure the American public access to its government's information. In 1932 Senator Samuel Shortridge designated the UCLA Library a selective Federal Depository Library (0043) to support informational needs of residents in the 29th Congressional district and the UCLA community. This federal program, administered by the U.S. Government Publishing Office, allows libraries to obtain federal government publications while agreeing to maintain the collection and provide public access and information services.
The federal collection consists of more than million print and online items in various formats, including books, periodicals, maps, pamphlets, posters, and electronic resources, in subject such as legislation, education, demography, economics, business, agriculture, military, engineering, patents, and cartography. Our federal depository collection is integrated with general collections using Library of Congress subject classification, and is fully cataloged and searchable through the UCLA Library Catalog.
Access Policy
The general public is welcome to use materials in the library. Federal depository law guarantees free and unimpeded access to the collection (44 U.S.C. § 1911) or access FDLP Basic Collection: Core U.S. Government Resources.
Federal Government: General Resources
- GovInfoGPO’s system of online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
- United States Federal Government Documents Registry. HathiTrustThe Registry is intended to include item-level metadata for the comprehensive corpus of U.S. federal documents produced from 1789 to the present.
- USA.govSearching government information by topics
- Catalog of U.S. Government PublicationsCGP is a finding tool for federal publications it from 1976 to the present
- Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909by Mary Ann Hartwell
- MetaLib GPOA federated search engine from the Government Publishing Office searches multiple US federal government databases, retrieving reports, articles, and citations while providing direct links to selected resources available online.
- National ArchivesGovernment Documents in the Archives Library Information Center.
- Constitution of the United StatesThe Constitution was drafted in 1787 and is the supreme law of the United States of America.
- United States Government ManualThe official handbook of the Federal Government. Contains comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the United States Government.
Federal Election Resources
- NARA’s U.S. Electoral College PageNational archives and tools for current and past elections.
- U.S. Election Assistance CommissionNational clearinghouse and resource of information regarding election administration.
- Presidential Election ProcessOverview of federal election procedures.
- Federal Election CommissionHomepage of the independent agency responsible for enforcing campaign finance law in US Federal Elections