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Government Publications

Government Publications is a collection of materials put on deposit by the federal and state government for all citizens use free of charge and located on the Third Floor of the James E. Brooks Library. We encourage you to browse our collection.

U.S. Government Information

  • Catalog of U.S. Government Publications: A database of federal publications. You may search by authoring agency, subject, title, keyword, report number, etc.  Goes back to 1976.
  • Data.gov: Home of U.S. Government's open data.
  • Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED): A  free economic database from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that aggregates 40 different data sources. (There are additional versions of FRED: GeoFRED - a mapping economic data, and ALFRED - a list of vintage versions of economic data.)
  • Govinfo.gov: The official, authenticated repository of digital government information for the U.S. government.Contents include current legislative, administrative, and legal information that needs to be accessible immediately after release.
  • MetaLib: A "federated search engine that searches across multiple U.S. federal government databases, retrieving reports, articles, and citations while providing direct links to selected resources available." It was created by the U.S. Government Publishing Office.
  • NCJRS, National Criminal Justice Reference Service: The place to go for reports, data, and other information from state and federal agencies related to crime, criminality, justice, and law.
  • Science.gov: Searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information including research and development results. For technical reports, try using the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) which collects and digitizes millions of contractor and government reports going back to the 1950s.
  • TreeSearch: An online system for sharing free, full text publications by scientists in the US Forest Service.
  • U.S. Government Documents Registry: A database from the HathiTrust digital library composed of metadata from U.S. federal documents dating back to 1790. This is not comprehensive as it depends upon depository libraries adding materials to the registry. It is a great place to begin your research.
  • USA Trade Online: A dynamic data tool that gives users access to current and cumulative U.S. export and import data.
  • Congress.gov: Contains current legislative information. It is an excellent resource for U.S. bills, committee reports, and other information regarding federal legislation. The United States Congress is a bicameral body, which means it is comprised of two legislative bodies.
  • U.S. House of Representatives: The lower of the two legislative bodies whose representation is based on population. Each member of the House represents a certain number of people which is based on the U.S. census. More populous states have more representatives while less populous states have fewer representatives. The absolute minimum a state can have is one representative. Learn more about the activities of this legislative body through their website.
  • U.S. Senate: The upper legislative body of Congress; each state has two senators. Each state gets the same equal number of senators; if a new state where to emerge, that state would automatically get two senators to represent them. Lean more about this legislative body by visiting their website.
  • U.S. Supreme Court: The last arbiter of the law. They are the ones who have the final say on how a law is interpreted. They base their decisions on legal precedent and the U.S. Constitution.
  • USA.gov: An Executive Branch portal that provides search access to federal, state, local, tribal, and international government information, services, and social media content.
Additional Resources
  • Court Listener: Access millions of state and federal court opinions and listen to oral arguments
  • Library of Congress - Law Library Research Guide: This research guide provides a starting point for researching legal topics and recommends relevant materials in the Law Library's collections and online.
  • Legal Research Without the Law Library (YouTube): This video is part of the "Help! I am an accidental government publications librarian!" series and provided by Jennifer L. Behrens, is the Head of Reference Services & a Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School’s J. Michael Goodson Law Library. She goes through the ins and out of general legal research.
  • Supreme Court Reports: Find decisions, opinions, schedules, biographical information about the 9 justices, schedules and more.
  • U.S. Courts: Search for court by zip code. Find out which courts have cavancies or learn the history of our court system.
  • Congressional Research Service Reports at the University of North Texas: Provides access to congressional reports that have been posted.
  • CyberCemetary: an archive of government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report). It is maintained by the University of North Texas Libraries and the U.S. Government Printing Office, as part of the Federal Depository Library Program.
  • HathiTrust: Preserves and provides lawful access to the 17+ million digitized items, including federal government publications since they started their repository. The FDLP added them to their LibGuides as one source for finding government publications.
  • ILOSTAT: Provides statistics from International Labour Organization, a part of the UN.
  • Louisiana State University Libraries (U.S. Government databases): LSU Libraries' Government Publications Department maintains a comprehensive A to Z list of U.S. Government databases and web sites.
  • TRAIL: Identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.