U.S. government publications are arranged on the shelf by an alphanumeric system called the Superintendent of Documents Classification Scheme (SuDocs).
Letters stand for the publishing agency, for instance
A for Agriculture
C for Commerce
L for Labor
PR for Presidential documents
and so forth
The number following the period is a whole number NOT A DECIMAL.
C 3.9 (9 files as the number nine)
C 3.44 (44 files as the number forty-four)
C 3.223 (223 files as the number two hundred twenty-three)
The government documents collection is next to Periodicals (south side, first floor)
The Serial Set includes various Congress working papers such as:
It does not usually include hearings. The collection does include a small number of older hearings that were considered so important that they were republished as House or Senate Documents.
All U.S. Serial Set documents, 1789-present, are included full text in ProQuest Congressional!
A sample of a few Serial Set documents:
Other databases and paper indexes that can be used to identify the House and Senate documents and reports that might be useful:
Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publicationis 1900-1971
MAIN GOV DOCS INDEXES Z 1223 .A 1973x v.1-15
Cumulative Title Index to United States Public Documents 1789-1976
MAIN GOV DOCS INDEXES Z 1223 .Z7L47J83 v.1-16
Index to U.S. Government Periodicals, 1975 - 1987
GOV DOCS REF Z 1233 .Z915
Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, 1895 - 1976
MAIN GOV DOCS INDEXES GP 3.8: