FDsys: search engine for Government Printing Office

At the recommendation of Dorothy Ormes, government information librarian at Southern Oregon University’s Hannon Library, I viewed the first in a set of tutorials about the U.S. Government Printing Office’s Federal Digital System (FDsys).

Logo: Federal
Depository Library

Hannon Library is enrolled in the Federal Depository Library Program of the GPO. Since May, I have volunteered in the Government Information Department.

In addition to maintaining physical collection and digital archives, the department offers training in the use of government mobile sites and apps on iPads available through Hannon Library to SOU students, faculty and staff.

FDsys is the key to accessing increasingly digitized resources from the Government Printing Office. The search engine matches input terms to text and metadata when returning its results among U.S. government documents.

Similar to commercial engines, FDsys recognizes “search operators,” exact phrases in quotation marks and the use of an asterisk to bring up different spellings of a word.

Results can be limited by a variety of filters including collection, date published, government author, organization, location and keyword.

Hannon’s federal publications collection is available to constituents in Oregon’s Second Congressional District. The department’s digital archive specializes in Southern Oregon history, the Southern Oregon bioregion and a First Nations/ Tribal Collection.