New Jersey State Data Center
Annual Network Meeting
June 17, 2010
Bobray Bordelon, bordelon@princeton.edu

• 1789: U.S. Dept. of State employs newspapers to publish the laws, orders, & resolutions of Congress.
• 1813: Congress passes legislation to send a copy of the House & the
Senate Journals & other
Congressional documents to universities & historical societies.

• 1857: Secretary of the Interior begins to oversee government printing & the designation of depositories.
• 1858: Congress enables each representative to designate a depository in his/her district or territory. Public libraries can now serve as depositories.
• 1859: Congress allows for each Senator to designate a depository in his/her state.
• 1860: GPO established.

• GPO's legal authority is guaranteed in Title 44 of the United States Code and set its mission to
"keep America informed" by providing government documents to libraries for access by the public.
• 1895: authority for the depository program transferred from the to the Office of the
Superintendent of Documents. Indexing of government publications begins. All publications of the Executive Departments not intended for their special use are added to distribution.
• Today select depositories choose which agencies and classes of publications to receive.

• NJ state document depository system dates back to 1875.
• 1957: Law changed to increase the number of copies of materials to be sent to the State
Library from 6 to 25. Thirteen libraries were depositories at this time.
• 1960's: More depositories added.
• 1967: Law revised to send 75 copies
• Select depositories agree to provide public access to state documents for 5 years.
• State Library is also preserving digital documents.

• Documents Association of New Jersey website http://danj.org/
• Federal Depository Library Program Website http://www.gpoaccess.gov/libraries.html
• Hernon, Peter and Laura Saunders. “The Federal Depository Library Program in
2003: One Perspective on the Transition to the Future”. College and Research
Libraries. Volume 70, No. 4. Pages 351-70.
• Kessler, Ridley R. “A brief history of the Federal Depository Library Program: A personal perspective”. Journal of Government Information. Volume 23, Issue 4,
(July-August 1996) Pages 369-380.
• What is the FDLP? Brief History of the Federal Depository Library Program http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/doemoff/govinfo/federal/fdlpexhibit/whatisfdlp.html