State and local documents

Statement of programs and library needs

Virginia state and local government publications are important for research in many academic fields and to the general public. The University Libraries are dedicated to procuring and maintaining a research level collection of state and local documents for any time period and in any format.

The University Libraries have been a full depository for Virginia state publications since the inception of the program in 1981 (Virginia Code 2.1-467.2 and 42.1-19). Every agency is mandated by law to furnish a copy of each of its publications for distribution to the Virginia State Documents Depository Libraries. Deposited material is supplemented when needed with purchased and gift materials.

Documents of statewide and local (southwest Virginia) interest are cataloged and maintained by the University Libraries. These items are available through our online catalog. Items of an ephemeral nature such as pamphlets and brochures, dated materials and periodicals geared toward agency employees remain uncataloged and are retained on a short term basis or discarded. The ephemeral items are segregated in a vertical file.

The majority of Virginia documents are published in book, periodical or pamphlet format on paper and are located in the libraries' circulating or reference collections. All maps are integrated into the uncataloged map collection. Microforms are cataloged and housed in the microforms area of Newman Library. Online items may be accessed through the Virginia Information Resources web page.

All cataloging, housing and retention decisions are made by the documents librarian. Whenever necessary other experts in the library are consulted when decisions are made.

Revised 10/2000