Key Tools to Locate Government Information
Please note that resources tagged with a blue lock symbol are available remotely only to UC San Diego affiliates.
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Catalog of U.S. Government PublicationsLists and describes federal publications (1976- ) and provides direct links to those that are available online. Search by authoring agency, title, subject, and general keyword. (See below for indexes to pre-1976 documents.)
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FDsysPresents online versions of major U.S. government publications, such as: the Congressional Record, congressional publications of all kinds, the Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Supreme Court decisions, executive branch documents and more.
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GoogleYou know you're going to use it, so use it efficiently: add site:.gov (site colon dot gov) to your keywords to limit searching to governmental websites.
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govinfoReplaces the FDsys website.
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Govspeak: A Guide to U.S. Government Acronyms & AbbreviationsLists acronyms and abbreviations commonly used by the United States federal government. Each is defined and links to the home page (or best alternative) of the identified entity.
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Guide to U.S. Government Publications (Andriot)Traces depository publications through agency changes and assigned SuDoc numbers. Entries include title, publication history, ISSN, frequency of distribution, short descriptions, and notes about changes. Provides agency, title, and keyword in title indexes. The "Agency Class Chronology" traces the history of all agencies current or defunct. (Print only.)
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HeinOnlineOffers access to a vast number of publications from all three branches of the federal government. Search across collections from this main page, or click on a collection link to browse titles.
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MetaLibA federated search engine that searches multiple federal government databases, retrieving reports, articles, and citations while linking to selected resources available online.
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ProQuest CongressionalIndexes Congressional materials from 1789-present. Provides access to U.S. legislative information, including bills and pending legislation, legislative history, hearings, testimony, reports, documents, legislative calendars, committee rules of procedure, Congressional Record, CRS Reports, public laws, etc.
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Roger: The UC San Diego Library CatalogUse our catalog to find hard copy documents in our collection, as well as links to online documents. The advanced keyword search allows limiting to government publications.
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Statistical Abstract of the United States, ProQuest (2013- )Authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States. This database replaces the previously-free Census Bureau publication (which are available online). It uses many of the same, along with additional, data sources as the earlier editions.
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United States Government Documents Registry (HathiTrust)The Registry is intended to include item-level metadata for the comprehensive corpus of U.S. federal documents produced from 1789 to the present.
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United States Government ManualThis official handbook of the federal government describes programs and activities of the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The Manual also includes information about quasi-official agencies, international organizations with U.S. membership, and federal boards, commissions, and committees.
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U.S. Congressional Serial SetReports, Documents, and Journals of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. (1817-1980)
Collections of Digitized Documents & Archived Born-Digital Documents
Several libraries, governmental offices, and other organizations are actively working to increase availability of, and ensure permanent public access to, federal information. The sites below include collections of digitized documents - those that were originally published in physical format but have been converted to electronic format - and/or archived "born digital" documents - those that were originally published in electronic format.
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Congressional and Federal Government Web HarvestsSince 2006, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has harvested Congressional web sites at the end of each Congress. They also did a wider harvest of federal websites for the 2004 Presidential transition.
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CyberCemeteryAn archive of government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report).
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DataRefugePreservation for at-risk climate and environmental data.
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Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)Not specific to government publications, but offers access to digital content from a number of partners including the National Archives, HathiTrust, Internet Archive, Government Publishing Office, Library of Congress, and more.
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Digitization Projects RegistryDescribes and links to independent digitization projects for government documents.
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End of Term Web ArchiveCaptures and saves U.S. government websites at the end of presidential administrations. EOT has thus far preserved websites from administration changes in 2008 and 2012 and is currently preparing for the 2016 electoral season.
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Federal Depository Library Program Web ArchiveTo provide permanent public access to federal agency web content, the FDLP harvests and preserves select federal websites.
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Google BooksIncludes government documents, as well as other items. To focus a search to government publications, try adding "Government Printing Office" or "G.P.O." in the publisher field.
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GovernmentAttic.orgProvides electronic copies of thousands of federal government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
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HathiTrustThis large-scale digital repository includes many government documents.
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Internet Archive GovDocsCollection of federal government documents. See also the FedLink collection and the End of Term Web Crawls.
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Library of Congress Web ArchivingThe Library has been archiving select born-digital web content since 2000. Their collection includes, but is not limited to, federal government information.
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LLMC DigitalCollection of legal titles and government documents. Includes the Statutes at Large and US federal, US state, and foreign legislative, executive, and judicial materials.
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The Memory Hole 2Saves and preserves important documents that have been, or are at risk of being, deleted from government websites.
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National Security ArchiveNon-governmental archive of declassified U.S. documents. Founded by journalists and scholars to fight government secrecy.
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TRAIL: Technical Report Archive and Image LibraryCollection of federal technical reports published pre-1975.
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University of North Texas (UNT) LibrariesAccess to a large number of digitized documents, arranged in several distinct collections.
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Wayback MachineCaptures and preserves websites, including federal government websites. Search by URL.
Indexes to pre-1976 Government Publications
Links go the UCSD Library catalog, which provides call number and location information for these print resources.
- 1774-1881 Descriptive Catalog of the Government Publications of the United States (Poore) (also online)
- 1789-1909 Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909 (also online)
- 1789-1970 Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1970. Indexes.
- 1789-1976 Cumulative Title Index to United States Public Documents
- 1881-1893 Comprehensive Index to the Publications of the United States Government, 1881-1893 (Ames)
- 1885-1894 United States Government Publications (Hickcox) (online)
- 1893-1940 Catalog of the Public Documents of the Congress and of All Departments of the Government of the United States
- 1895-2004 Monthly Catalog of United States Publications (click "prior title" info to link to earlier volumes)
- 1900-1971 Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog
Research Help
Kelly L. Smith
Contact:
UC San Diego Library
9500 Gilman Dr. 0175R
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
858-534-6712
k5smith@ucsd.edu
9500 Gilman Dr. 0175R
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
858-534-6712
k5smith@ucsd.edu
Interested in government information? The GovInfo at UC San Diego Library Facebook page highlights one resource each day (M-F) to help others find helpful, newsworthy, and/or just plain cool federal information resources. Feel free to follow us!
How to Cite Government Publications
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DocsCiteProvides a template for creating government publication citations in APA or MLA format.
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General Guidelines for Citing Government PublicationsProvides good background material on deciphering the various elements of a government publication for citation.
Obama Administration Archives
Open Access for Federally-Funded Research
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White House MemorandumFebruary 22, 2013 memo from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), directing federal agencies to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the federal government.
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Public access mandates for federally funded research: implementation plansTable showing agencies that have made their OA plans public, with links to implementation plans. From Columbia University Libraries.
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SPARC/JHU: Data Sharing Requirements by Federal AgencyResource for tracking, comparing, and understanding federally funded research data sharing policies.
Preserving Access & Promoting Transparency
These resources are not provided by the federal government, but help provide access to federal government information.
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Wayback MachineEasy DIY web archiving. Use the "save page now" feature to archive a web page.
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Government Web & Data Archive Nomination ToolUse the "add a url" button to nominate a URL for capture.
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EDGI: Environmental Data & Governance InitiativeWorked to preserve data and web pages from EPA, DOE, NOAA, OSHA, NASA, USDA, DOI, and USGS. Monitors federal websites for changes made to environmental content.
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Sunlight FoundationWorks to make government more transparent and accountable.