What are Government Documents?
Government Documents = paper trail from all 3 branches of government; technically, every piece of paper the departments and agencies produce is a government document.
- Legislative Branch: Congress and the agencies that support Congress, like the Library of Congress
- Executive Branch: President, Vice-President, cabinet, 15 departments (advise and carry out policies), and independent agencies (carry out policies or special services)
- Judicial Branch: Supreme Court & lower courts
In reality, the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) decides what the Government Printing Office (GPO) will publish and disseminate through the Federal Depository System, which determines your access to it (i.e., availability online, via books here at Milne, or via Resource Sharing (IDS).)
Most current documents are disseminated online, and GPO is digitizing old documents, albeit at a slow rate.
Where to Search for Government Documents
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HeinOnline This link opens in a new windowAn ever-expanding database that specializes in offering original PDF copies of full-runs of legal collections. It includes: most major legal periodicals, federal and state statutes, court decisions, attorney general reports and opinions, federal legislative history materials, treaties, foreign & international law material, and numerous specialized legal collections. The text of collections are fully searchable and there are tools to browse or find items by citation.
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FDsys - Government Publications This link opens in a new windowThe Government Printing Office's Federal Digital System (FDsys) is an advanced digital system that enables GPO to manage Government information from all three branches of the U.S. Government.
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HeinOnline This link opens in a new windowAn ever-expanding database that specializes in offering original PDF copies of full-runs of legal collections. It includes: most major legal periodicals, federal and state statutes, court decisions, attorney general reports and opinions, federal legislative history materials, treaties, foreign & international law material, and numerous specialized legal collections. The text of collections are fully searchable and there are tools to browse or find items by citation.
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Google Book Search This search tool can pull up some full text books, butt many of the results will just have excerpts and snippets.
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Hathi TrustHathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and highly functional access platform. It provides long-term preservation and access services for public domain and in copyright content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house partner institution initiatives. Learn how to download ebooks to your device.
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Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowNexis Uni features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents.
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Library of Congress Digital Collections This link opens in a new windowBrowse the full array of digitized collections at the Library of Congress.
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FindLaw: U.S. Supreme Court DecisionsAll the U.S. Supreme Court decisions published since volume 150 of the U.S. Reports. The years of these decisions are from 1893 to the present.
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U.S. Data and StatisticsCentral source for up-to-date statistics from U.S. government; includes some reports analyzing statistics.
Specific Collections
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Code of Federal Regulations The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
Where to Find NY State Gov Docs
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New York State LegislatureSearchable session Information for both the State Assembly and Senate. Information includes the text of bills, bill sponsors, floor votes, vetoes and budget information from 1995 to the current.
Tracking State Environmental Legislation
Every state has a State Library, most of which have a web page with some information about getting state documents. Investigating a State Library’s web page can be challenging. Look for links that say Legislative Histories, or look for links to “Documents” or “Archives.” At the very least, you should be able to find a phone number to call and ask someone for help finding exactly what you are looking for.
Finding the Congressional Record
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Library of Congress--A Century of LawmakingFull text 1774-1875
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Congress.govFull text 1995 - 2014
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FDsys - Government Publications This link opens in a new window1994-2014 in Full text; 1983-1994 index only (listing but no full text.
