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Natural Resources Agency Government Documents and Technical Reports

 

This is a research guide to govenment documents and technical reports issued by United States federal and California State agencies. The focus is on agencies responsible for managing and conducting research in natural resources.

Documents issued by other state, foreign, or international agencies are listed in the HSU Library Catalog and are located in the regular bookstacks. You should consult the "Monographic Series" section in individual natural resources research guides for the best way to search for these publications.

Government Documents   Government Technical Reports

Government Documents

Introduction


There are major federal and state government agencies that conduct research, gather statistics and have managerial or regulatory responsibilities over the nation's natural resources. Print and online publications resulting from these activities typically fall into four general categories of publications:

  1. Informational and public relations handouts, e.g., brochures and maps
  2. Records of activities, e.g., annual reports and administrative regulations
  3. Research reports (Note: the results of some agency research is published in the "open" scientific literature as journal articles and other publications)
  4. Statistical compilations

The HSU Library is an official "depository library" for federal and state govenment documents and annually receives approximately 6,000 government documents in either paper or microfiche format. Currently 60% of all federal publications are available on the Internet.

Location and Organization


Publications from federal and California state agencies are located in a separate "Documents Collection" on the third floor of the HSU Library that currently contains over 500,000 government documents dating back to the 1800's.

Federal documents are shelved using the hierarchical Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) Classification System which places all documents issued by a particular agency together under the same classification number, e.g. I 49 for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The Government Agencies section below lists the basic classification numbers for federal departments and independent agencies in natural resources. Within each agency, every publication series is assigned its own unique sub-number, e.g. I 49.66 for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Resource Publication series. 80% of government documents are published in a named or numbered series. For a complete description see An Explanation of the Superintendent of Documents Classification System.

California docments are shelved in a similar fashion using the California State Agency Classification System. In this classification the first line is based on a key word in the agency's name plus a numeric whole number, e.g., W730 for the State Water Resources Control Board. The next line derives from a keyword in the publication or series title and the third line, if necessary, refers to years, bulletins, numbers, etc.; e.g., W 730 W32 for the Water Quality Monitoring Report.

For further information on locating government documents see the Library's general Documents web pages.

Natural Resources Agencies and their Publications


The following agencies publish research and popular information in natural resources. The entry for each agency includes its documents classification number; its major publication series; and Internet links to the agency and specific publication series. Some publication series are also duplicated in the US Serial Set, especially older publications. See the US Congressional Serial Set Finding List for a list of available series by agency or documents classification number.

Federal Agencies

California State Agencies

General Indexes and Web Directories


Federal Documents

California Documents

Agency Indexes and Bibliographies


Federal Documents

California State Agencies

Government Technical Reports

Introduction


Governement technical reports typically publish the results of research projects conducted for government agencies. They are usually produced in response to specific information needs with research either 1) conducted "in-house" by state or federal research labs, or 2) contracted out to universities, consulting firms, research institutes, or private industry.

Progress and final reports typically are used directly by the sponsoring agency with limited distribution beyond the organization. As a result technical report literature is sometimes called "gray literature" because of its difficulty to identify and acquire.

The format of technical reports is more flexible in organization and tends to contain more of the scientific data collected. Research first reported in a technical report may be reworked and published in other "primary" literature formats.

Location and Availability


Availability of technical reports in the HSU Library is limited. Of those available:

Government technical reports not available locally can be requested through the Library's Interlibrary Loan Service.

General Indexes

Agency Indexes and Bibliographies