Extending Your Reach: Creating Topical Guides Featuring Government Information

Abstract

Many government information guides are targeted, purposefully or not, at researchers who already know that government resources exist and are useful. They often are divided by governmental departments or branches. While these serve a purpose and are worth maintaining, it is also useful to provide subject or topical guides that coincidently (well, not really coincidently) feature government resources. This article will describe what one librarian created to support the local community and will provide suggestions for how others can create similar resources. Additionally, with permission and credit, duplicating other’s materials is one of the great things about the web. Seeking out existing guides and pointing to them is another way to extend your library guide reach. Because newer government information materials are increasingly available on the web and most libraries use the supplied Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) numbers for their print collections, existing guides will not need modification beyond local locations for print within buildings, something easily summarized at the top of the resource.