About Government Publications

North Carolina State Government Publications

The State Library of North Carolina's Government and Heritage Library (GHL) collection has been in existence since 1812. This extensive collection - of more than 100,000 volumes of print and/or digital government publications - dates from late 18th century up to the present day. All publications in the collection can be found using the GHL's library catalog. In addition, the North Carolina State Government Publications Collection - ncgovdocs.org - provides direct access to the more than 30,000 born digital and digitized historic publications.

In 1987, G.S. 125-11 created the North Carolina State Publications Clearinghouse, which distributes print publications to depository libraries in North Carolina and identifies, collects, and preserves born digital state publications. The legislation designated the GHL as the official permanent depository for all North Carolina state publications and charged the GHL with facilitating public access to North Carolina State Government Publications.

Federal Government Publications

The State Library of North Carolina's Government and Heritage Library (GHL) has belonged to the Federal Depository Library Program(FDLP) since 1886. The FDLP's purpose is to provide free access to U.S. Federal Government publications. The federal documents collection is made up of more than 400,000 items in a variety of formats. The primary areas of focus in GHL's profile include:

• U.S. Census and Demographics
• Military history
• Statistical data
• Politics and Law
• People and Cultures
• Environment
• Business and Economy

Today, most of the new documents received by the library are in digital format. These titles can be found in the GHL's library catalog, where there are links directly to the documents on the internet.