The Government Documents and Maps section of the Library is one of about 1,250 federal depository collections in the United States. These libraries receive selected government publications and provide free public access to a wide variety of federal government sources in print and electronic formats, and have staff available to assist users.
The Rasmuson Library receives about 40% of the titles available for selection, making it one of the largest such collections in Alaska. Strengths of the collection include material from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Interior, Justice, and research oriented agencies such as the Census Bureau, USGS, NASA, NOAA and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as Congress and the Supreme Court. In addition, the library receives technical reports distributed by NTIS pertaining to northern latitude topics such as permafrost and cold weather engineering. Although Anchorage Municipal Library is Alaska's official depository for U.S. patents and Trademarks, UAF does have many patent related indexes and material including the agricultural plant patents. The map and atlas collection is worldwide in scope with an emphasis on Alaska and northern Canada.
Documents from the Alaska State government are included in the Alaska and Polar Regions Collection. Documents from the United Nations and other international agencies are included in the general collection.
Most but not all of the government documents may be checked out. Documents not in our collection can usually be obtained via Interlibrary Loan.