Reporting Publications to GPO

Unreported publications are public information products that are not discoverable through the Government Publishing Office’s Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP). Different terms have been used to refer to unreported publications over time, including fugitive documents, LostDocs, and non-receipts.

GPO’s Cataloging & Indexing (C&I) Program endeavors to develop a comprehensive national bibliography of U.S. Government public information, accessible through the CGP, to provide the public with a discovery tool for the National Collection.  The scope of the C&I Program is broader than that of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), and includes publications or formats not distributed to depository libraries.

There are several reasons a Federal information product may not be included in the CGP, such as:

• Agency did not fulfill their statutory obligation to notify GPO at time of publication (44 U.S.C. §§ 1710, 1902-1903).
• Pre-1976 publication was processed and indexed in the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, but was not included in the CGP as part of the GPO Historic Shelflist Project.
• Publication was not in scope of the C&I Program at time of publication (e.g., printed outside of GPO prior to 1962).
• Library received material through other means, such as agency mailing lists, from a regional office, or donation.

Submit Publications through askGPO

Depository libraries can help build the National Collection of U.S. Government Publication Information and request GPO to catalog publications by submitting through askGPO:

1. Navigate to the Federal Depository Library Program tile to start an inquiry. If you are already logged in, your contact information will be pre-populated.
2. Select the category Unreported Publications.
3. Use the radio buttons to select ONE publication or MULTIPLE publications.
   • If you are submitting ONE publication, provide the requested information about the publication in the form.
   • If you are submitting MULTIPLE publications, download the CSV template and provide the requested information for each publication on a separate row.

Please provide as much detail about the publication(s) as possible to facilitate processing:

For a single tangible publication, you have the option to upload a scanned surrogate. Please include the title page or the title page substitute, and any other pages providing additional information on which cataloging is based (e.g., title page verso, colophon, pages with a running title, spines or covers with differing titles from the title page).

• Title (required)
• Publishing Agency (required)
• Publication URL (required for online publications)
• SuDoc Number
• Format
• Series Title and Number
• Report Number
• Publication Year
• OCLC number
• Additional information (e.g., new edition, corrected, reprinted)

4. Submit your publication(s) to GPO.

GPO Library Technical Services will catalog publications in scope of the C&I Program in OCLC and the CGP.

Scope of the C&I Program

The scope of materials for the C&I program is all published Federal information products, regardless of format or medium, which are of public interest or educational value, and produced using Federal funds. This includes those information products that may be protected under copyright, or sold by the agency to be self-sustaining (“cooperative publications”). The only products out of scope of the C&I Program are those classified for reasons of national security, and those where the use is constrained by privacy considerations.

All Federal information products published on an agency’s (or an agency’s official partner’s) publicly accessible website, and originating from or funded by the agency, are intended for public use and are considered in scope.

For more information see SOD-PPS-2019-1 Scope of Government Information Products Included in the Cataloging and Indexing Program and Disseminated Through the Federal Depository Library Program and the Scope of the Cataloging & Indexing Program and the Federal Depository Library Program Webcast.

Tips

• When searching the CGP, consider whether the publication may have been cataloged as an integrating resource or series if you do not find it under the publication’s title.
• If you’re uncertain whether a publication is in scope of the C&I Program, or has already been cataloged, please submit it for evaluation.
• If you catalog or find an existing record for a publication in OCLC that you’re aware isn’t in the CGP, please report it to GPO. Every record brings us one step closer to a comprehensive index of the National Collection.
• Sometimes circumstances dictate that materials be shelved as quickly as possible. If you capture the requested information in the CSV template as you work, you can get materials on the shelf now and obtain a GPO record for your local catalog later.

Cataloging Data

In April 2021, LTS started to tag all CGP records, including brief bibliographic records, as unreported publications. LTS adds terms designating the source of the unreported publications in MARC 922 fields:

• UNREPORTEDPUBSASKGPO - submitted via askGPO
• UNREPORTEDPUBSSTAFF - identified by Library Services & Content Management (LSCM) staff members 
• UNREPORTEDPUBSOTHER - received by LSCM from other sources

MARC 922 fields are searchable in the CGP using the Common Command Language code, WLTS, in the expert search mode. The 922 fields are not displayed in the CGP. These are CGP searches for a truncated search of all codes and for each code.

• UNREPORTEDPUBS
• UNREPORTEDPUBSASKGPO
• UNREPORTEDPUBSSTAFF
• UNREPORTEDPUBSOTHER

LSCM compiles monthly statistics of the number of unreported publications submissions received through askGPO and other methods and the number of CGP records for those submissions. LSCM also provides selected data about those publications, such as the issuing agency and publication date.

Cumulated Cataloging Data

LTS compiled the monthly unreported publications data for April 2021 through May 2022. Please Note: As CGP records may have been changed or deleted during and since the period of coverage, the cumulated data, the monthly data, and the current number of CGP records do not exactly match.