The U.S Government Printing Office (GPO) is the largest publisher in the United States. Congress passed a law during the 19th century creating the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), which today supplies copies of government publications to approximately 1,350 depository libraries nationwide. Kenyon has participated in this program since 1873.
U.S. Government publications are mostly kept in a separate section in the library, and are shelved using a special call number system: the SuDocs system, short for the Superintendent of Documents System. It is a system of letters, numbers, and punctuation (such as colons and slashes) unique to federal documents. Each call number starts with a letter(s) that indicates the issuing agency. Thus Agriculture Department documents start with the letter A, Defense with D, etc. There are, of course, exceptions: since the Commerce Department got C, Congress is filed under Y.
Note: There is, unfortunately, no single definitive place one can go to search a complete list of Kenyon’s government documents collection. However, by using several tools one can get a good sense of what is available. If you are not sure whether Kenyon owns something, always write down the title and SuDocs number (call number) and speak with a librarian if you cannot locate it on the Government Documents shelves.