United States Geological Survey Library
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| Agency overview | |
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| Formed | March 3, 1879 |
| Headquarters | Reston, Virginia |
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| Parent agency | Department of the Interior |
The United States Geological Survey Library (USGS Library) is a program within the United States Geological Survey, a scientific bureau within the Department of Interior of the United States government. The USGS operates as a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility.
The USGS Library has major branches in Lakewood, Colorado (Denver Federal Center), and Menlo Park, California and smaller, focused research libraries in Flagstaff, Arizona and Lafayette, Louisiana.
Today the United States Geological Survey Library's users have access to over 3 million items: over 1.7 million books and journals, 700,000 maps, 370,000 microforms, 270,000 pamphlets, 260,000 black-and-white photographs, 60,000 color transparencies, 15,000 field record notebooks, and 250 videocassettes. Materials include USGS publications as well as those produced by state and foreign geological surveys, scientific societies, museums, academic institutions, and government scientific agencies. The libraries in Reston and Menlo Park are designated as official depositories for selected U.S. Government publications. The libraries in Reston and Menlo Park have been designated as official Federal Government Depositories providing public access to selected U.S. Government publications.
The newly revised classification system presented in this report is designed for use in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library and other earth science libraries. Prior to the administration of Fred Boughton Weeks, 1903-1908, the library lacked a classification scheme. The Dewey Decimal system for geologic material was not sufficiently developed to accommodate the range of specialized material collected at the USGS Library, and The Library of Congress Classification System had not yet been published. The library staff and patrons were concerned about continued development of the collection without an acceptable classification scheme. Mr. Weeks and bibliographer John M. Nickles of the library staff, with the assistance of three consultants from the New York Public Library, developed the USGS classification system designed specifically for an earth science library. The U.S. Geological Survey Library classification system has been designed for earth science libraries. It is a tool for assigning call numbers to earth science and allied pure science materials in order to collect these materials into related subject groups on the library shelves and arrange them alphabetically by author and title. The classification can be used as a retrieval system to access materials through the subject and geographic numbers. The classification scheme has been developed over the years since 1904 to meet the ever-changing needs of increased specialization and the development of new areas of research in the earth sciences.
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