Yale University Library has announced that it is celebrating its 150th anniversary as a depository for US federal government documents. John Woodruff, US Representative from Connecticut, designated Yale College a repository for public documents in 1859 and the records of the second session of the 35th Congress of the US were sent to New Haven in July, 1860.
Over the succeeding fifteen decades, Yale has continued to build its collection of federal government documents by participating in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), administered by the US Government Printing Office. The FDLP provides government documents at no cost to designated depository libraries across the country and in American territories, as well as to selected libraries overseas. In turn, these libraries provide free public access to their depository collections.
The Library is marking this anniversary year with a major accomplishment - the cataloging of the entire federal depository collection in Orbis, the Library’s online catalogue. Until now, only documents from 1976 onwards have been catalogued. Much of the collection was accessible only through complicated print indexes.
All items in the depository collection, which number nearly a half-million volumes, can now be found in the online catalogue. Yale will also share these online records with other libraries so that they can identify and catalogue items in their own collections. Senior essays based on research done in the federal depository collection are also eligible for consideration for the Harvey M. Applebaum '59 Award, which has been given since 2008.
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