Our collection is one of the seven largest of our sister federal depositories in Tennessee with the University of Memphis McWhirter Library serving as our regional depository. During the past 50 plus years, our collection has grown to well over 800,000 items. We select heavily in areas relating to education, health, justice, business, the environment, and veterans' affairs. We are currently in the process of weeding our collection for the first time in preparation for our eventual move into our new library presently under construction. When we move during the fall of 1998 or the spring of 1999, we will merge our scattered documents holdings into one department thus making retrieval of materials more convenient and enable us to preserve our historical items move efficiently.
Government information comes in many sizes, shapes and formats.
Almost all official publications appeared solely in print or paper until the 1970's. At that time many publications were also released in microfiche. Then in the 1980's the diversity of government information really became apparent. Various audiovisual items and electronic data on floppy diskettes began to appear. The 1990's has seen the rise of electronic information and government information being issued on cd-roms.