UM Libraries Celebrates Anniversary as a Federal Documents Repository

GPO superintendent Laurie Hill to speak April 25 in Faulkner Room

Laurie Hall

OXFORD, Miss. – Laurie Hall, superintendent of the U.S. Government Publishing Office, will visit the University of Mississippi’s J.D. Williams Library on April 25 for a special celebration event.

“Becoming a Citizen” will begin at 2 p.m. in the Faulkner Room of the library. With funding from a Mississippi Humanities Council grant, UM Libraries has been celebrating 135 years as a federal depository library. This is the last event recognizing the important anniversary.

“Hall, who leads the GPO in providing public access to government information published by the U.S. Congress, federal agencies and the federal courts, will deliver the keynote address,” said Cecilia Botero, dean and professor of university libraries. “There will also be two representatives from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services there who will discuss the steps to naturalization and answer questions about the process.”

The program will also highlight the U.S. Citizenship Resource Corner.

“This center contains free information, forms and study materials for anyone interested in becoming a citizen,” said Ashley Dees, research and instruction librarian and regional depository coordinator. “The resource corner is located on the first floor of the J.D. Williams Library.”

Through the Federal Depository Library Program, approximately 1,150 libraries nationwide work with the Government Publishing Office to provide public access to authentic, published information from all three branches of the federal government in print and electronic formats.

The program’s antecedents can be traced back to the act of Congress dated Dec. 27, 1813 (3 Stat. 140), which provided that one copy of the journals and documents of the Senate and House be sent to each university and college and each historical society in each state.

The J.D. Williams Library, main library at Ole Miss, has been a federal depository library since 1883.

For more about the 135th anniversary of the Government Depository Library at UM, visit http://guides.lib.olemiss.edu/FDLP135.