OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY LENDING DIVISION Available to Purchase

Official publications at the British Library Lending Division include the published and ‘semi‐published’ documents of national and inter‐governmental departments, agencies and fringe bodies, together with local government publications. The maintenance of such a collection presents special problems and the Division has a special section to deal with these. The general principles for selection depend upon the categories being acquired. British official publications published by HMSO are received on a subscription basis. Those not published by HMSO are either selected individually, or acquired under depository arrangements with the issuing Department. British local government publications are being acquired through a firm specializing in local government documentation. Foreign official publications are either acquired on demand, or obtained through back up libraries such as the Official Publications Library of the British Library Reference Division or via international interlibrary loan. There are special arrangements to acquire the output of particular inter‐governmental organizations such as OECD, FAO, Unesco, IAEA and the Division has been a main depository library for all EC publications since 1973. Thousands of official reports from the United States are acquired through agencies such as NTIS and ERIC. Recording and shelving of official publications vary according to the type of publication eg serial, monograph, microfiche etc. Some of the material acquired is indexed in the Division's publication British Reports, Translations and Theses and selected input is forwarded for inclusion in SIGLE (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe).