U.S. Federal Government Publication Classification Guidelines

The Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) classification guidelines detail policies for assigning classification numbers to all U.S. Government publications. Published by the Government Publishing Office, this resource conveys the official system for organizing Federal Government publications regardless of format.

Use Cases

• Apply SuDocs classification numbers to new Federal Government publications based on the official guidelines
• Organize a library's collection of U.S. Government publications using the standardized SuDocs system
• Train cataloging staff on the principles for classifying Federal Government publications across all formats

Strengths

• Official guidelines published by the authoritative Government Publishing Office (GPO)
• Principles apply to all U.S. Government publications regardless of format
• Updated recently, with a last update recorded in September 2025

Limitations

• Data is presented in HTML format, not a structured, machine-readable table or database
• No quantitative data (row counts, columnar features) is provided for analytical modeling
• Content is a procedural manual, limiting use to reference and application rather than statistical analysis

Provenance

Source

Government Publishing Office (GPO)

Collection Method

Official classification manual published by the GPO.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2025-09-04.

Geography

United States Federal Government publications.