Federal Government Documents on the Internet

Federal Government Documents on the Internet

METRO Workshop presented by Jerry Breeze

April 1, 2004

Traditionally, large collections of U.S. government documents could be found only in those 1400 libraries which were designated as depository libraries by the Government Printing Office. Those libraries regularly receive a selection of government publications at no cost. Other libraries could purchase some government publications, but not the entire spectrum of materials available to the depositories. This resulted in a large number of referrals to libraries with depository collections. Library patrons don't usually like to be referred to another library -- they want the information on the spot.
With widespread web publication by U.S. government agencies, however, the situation has changed dramatically. Now any library can provide access to much government information to its users, with only the cost of maintaining web links. Government documents have traditionally been a specialized area of librarianship, but in the absence of a documents librarian, how can other libraries provide good access to government information on the web?

The focus of this workshop is:
1) to give you a brief overview of U.S. government publication practices
2) to familiarize you with some of the more important gateways to government information
3) to introduce you to search engines which specialize in government sites
You should leave with a greater sense of confidence about how to help your library users find online government information. This page serves as both a handout and online resource. You can access it for the next few weeks at this URL:
http://www.columbia.edu/~breeze/feddocs.html
Please feel free to take the resources from this page and incorporate them into your own library's web site. Using the tools that you learn today, you can add links to specific sites in areas of most interest to your library users!

Comprehensive Portals to U.S. Government Information

Sorry, but there is no single, comprehensive gateway to U.S. government information on the web. If there were, we wouldn't need the other resources listed on this page. In the 6th edition of Introduction to U.S. Government Information Sources, Joe Morehead says "The bibliographic apparatus for U.S. government information is complex and unwieldy, a reflection of the materials it attempts to encompass."¹ The statement is equally true of print and electronic formats.

The Government Printing Office's Federal Depository Library Program has created GPO Access, which includes a lengthy list of Online Resources, the Core Documents of U.S. Democracy, Federal Agency Internet Sites, Subject Bibliographies, and the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications. However, since an increasingly smaller percentage of government information is being distributed to depository libraries, this catalog is far from a comprehensive resource for all government information.

FirstGov has been promoted as "the portal" to government information on the web, but it is not comprehensive when measured by any standard. It serves well as an introduction for the general public and as an access for portal for interactive services offered by all levels of government, but doesn't meet the needs of academic or more specialized users.

What the government has done is set up internet portals arranged around several different subject areas, which can contain information from more than one agency. Examples of these subject portals are:

American Factfinder
URL: http://www.factfinder.census.gov/
Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids
URL: http://www.bensguide.gpo.gov/
BusinessLaw.gov
URL: http://www.businesslaw.gov/
ClinicalTrials.gov
URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/
Consumer.gov
URL: http://www.consumer.gov/
DisabilityInfo.gov
URL: http://disabilities.gov/
DisasterHelp
URL: http://www.disasterhelp.gov/
Export.gov
URL: http://www.export.gov/
The Federal Commons: grant information
URL: http://www.cfda.gov/public/granttopics.asp
FedForms
URL: http://www.fedforms.gov/
FedStats
URL: http://www.fedstats.gov/

FirstGov for Kids
URL: http://www.kids.gov/
FoodSafety.gov
URL: http://www.foodsafety.gov/
globalhealth.gov
URL: http://www.globalhealth.gov/
GovBenefits.com
URL: http://govbenefits.gov/index.jsp
Healthfinder
URL: http://www.healthfinder.gov/
Nutrition.gov
URL: http://www.nutrition.gov/
Recalls.gov
URL: http://www.recalls.gov/
Recreation.gov
URL: http://www.recreation.gov/
REGINFO.GOV
URL: http://www.reginfo.gov/
Regulations.gov
URL:http://www.regulations.gov/
science.gov
URL: http://www.science.gov/
Students.gov
URL: http://www.students.gov/
U.S. Business Advisor
URL: http://www.business.gov/busadv/index.cfm

Locating Government Agencies

Agency Lists

In locating government publications, whether in print or on the web, the first question to ask is "What agency would publish on that subject?" Many government documents collections are arranged by SUDOC call numbers, which are agency-based, not subject-based. The same is true when you go on the web -- you are often looking for the appropriate agency.

The URLs for many government agencies are straightforward: http://www.census.gov or http://www.nlrb.gov for example. When that doesn't work, however, there are lists of Federal government agencies, with links to their web sites.

-- The LSU Libraries Federal Agencies Directory, from Louisiana State University Libraries, a GPO partner, is the official source for direct links to U.S. government agencies.
-- The USLinks: U.S. Federal Government Agencies Database, from Duke University, also includes information about each agency, taken from the U.S. Government Manual and the agency's web site.

Three Branches of Government

Legislative Branch

THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet
United States Congress (from Thomas)
U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Senate
Voter Information Services

Executive Branch

The White House
Official US Executive Branch Web Sites
(Library of Congress)
Clinton Presidential Materials Project
(National Archives)

Judicial Branch

Supreme Court
The U.S. Courts (Federal)
The Federal Court Locator
(Villanova University School of Law)
FindLaw.com

Print Resources

Even though we are looking on the web, some print resources can still prove invaluable, particularly if they help to identify and locate sources.
I highly recommend the following four titles:

Andriot, Laurie.
Internet Blue Pages: the Guide to Federal Government Web Sites.
Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books, 2002.
($27.95) This book lists and describes over 900 web sites with .gov or .mil domains. It is arranged like the U.S. Government Manual, by agency, but also has an alphabetical list of agencies and a detailed subject index of 55 pages. The entry for each agency gives the URL, the mission of the agency, and lists the links available from the main agency page.

Cheney, Debora.
The Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources: a Manual for Social Science & Business Research.
Bethesda, MD : LexisNexis ; Congressional Information Service, c2002.
($30) The best, most comprehensive guide to citing government documents at all levels -- U.S. federal, state, and local; IGO; and foreign -- and in all formats. Includes extensive coverage of electronic formats (WWW files, data files, e-mail messages, Webcasts, image files, etc.)

Hernon, Peter.
U.S. Government on the Web.
Englewood, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited, 1999.
($42) The Hernon book doesn't go into as much detail for each agency web site as the Andriot book does, but it contains additional valuable sections that are lacking in Andriot. There are chapters on Statistics, One-Stop Shopping, Maps and GIS, and Web Pages for Kids. It also contains good introductory chapters on the nature of government information, the structure of government and the types of publications, which are of particular help to the non-documents specialist.

Sears, Jean L.
Using Government Information Sources: Print and Electronic. 3rd ed.
Phoenix, Ariz. : Oryx Press, 2001.
($125) For those libraries without a government information specialist, the Sears book is an excellent guide to government publications. The identification and descriptions of titles make it a valuable source to consult before searching the web. It includes 20 chapters on specific subject searches, from foreign policy to health, chapters on grants, regulations, and administrative actions & decisions, 16 chapters on statistical searches, and special techniques chapters like technical reports, patents & trademarks, and legislative history. Most of the titles mentioned are in fact available at the web sites of the agencies which publish the titles, and URLs are provided for all titles available online.

Using Search Engines to Find Government Publications

It happens all the time. I read an article on the front page of the New York Times which begins: "According to a recent government report ..." But does the Times then cite the report by title, or offer a URL where it can be located? Sometimes the title, more often just the agency, never the URL.
How do I find the report on the web? If I know the agency, I just go to the agency web site using one of the tools above, and search for the title. If I just have the title, or worse, nothing but a description of it, I have to search the web. Luckily, I don't have to use a general search engine -- there are good search engines which specialize in government sites:

The best one is Google Uncle Sam, a subset of the Google search engine, but it searches only for .gov and .mil domain names. Google Uncle Sam is fast, relevant, and reliable.
URL: http://www.google.com/unclesam/

If I want to limit my domain name search even further, I can use SearchGov.com or SearchMil.com, which do exactly what you expect them to do. The latter is especially useful when I know that the information I'm looking for comes from a military source, even though it's non-military in nature. Some health and weather topics are good examples.
URL: http://www.searchgov.com/
URL: http://www.searchmil.com/

Web Guides

Another approach is to draw upon the skills of those who have already located, identified, and evaluated good web statistical resources:

Infomine: Government Information: A database of web resources created by librarians in the University of California System, Infomine contains hundreds of annotated resources, which can be searched or browsed by subject, title, and keyword.
URL: http://infomine.ucr.edu/search/govpubsearch.phtml
Internet Scout Report: A weekly report, prepared by librarians at the University of Wisconsin; it identifies and describes important web sites for academic users, including government sites.
URL: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
Legislative Source Book: The Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. produces this valuable guide. Its most useful feature is the Internet and Online Sources of Legislative and Regulatory Information, which provides detailed comparisons of what can be found on CQ.com, Lexis-Nexis, Thomas, Westlaw, GPO Access, and other sources of legislative documents. Updated annually!
URL: http://www.llsdc.org/sourcebook/index.html
The ResourceShelf: Resources and News for Information Professionals, compiled and edited by Gary Price: Links to all types of solid information on the web, including new government resources.
URL: http://www.resourceshelf.com
U.S. Government Documents Ready Reference Collection, from Columbia University Libraries: An arrangement of 300+ titles (many statistical) into 15 subject areas; indicates frequency of update and format of web versions.
URL: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/usgd/rref/index.html
University of Michigan Documents Center: The best known, and one of the most developed, web sites for a Federal depository library. There are separate sections clustered by broad subject areas, but the web directory on the site lists dozens of specific subjects, from Abortion Law to Zip Codes. Highly recommended!
URL: http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/

¹ Morehead, Joe. Introduction to United States Government Information Sources. 6th ed. (1999). Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1999. p. 65.

Andriot, Laurie. Internet Blue Pages: the Guide to Federal Government Web Sites. Medford, NJ: CyberAge Books, 2002. ($27.95)		This book lists and describes over 900 web sites with .gov or .mil domains. It is arranged like the U.S. Government Manual, by agency, but also has an alphabetical list of agencies and a detailed subject index of 55 pages. The entry for each agency gives the URL, the mission of the agency, and lists the links available from the main agency page.
Cheney, Debora. The Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources: a Manual for Social Science & Business Research. Bethesda, MD : LexisNexis ; Congressional Information Service, c2002. ($30)		The best, most comprehensive guide to citing government documents at all levels -- U.S. federal, state, and local; IGO; and foreign -- and in all formats. Includes extensive coverage of electronic formats (WWW files, data files, e-mail messages, Webcasts, image files, etc.)
Hernon, Peter. U.S. Government on the Web. Englewood, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited, 1999. ($42)		The Hernon book doesn't go into as much detail for each agency web site as the Andriot book does, but it contains additional valuable sections that are lacking in Andriot. There are chapters on Statistics, One-Stop Shopping, Maps and GIS, and Web Pages for Kids. It also contains good introductory chapters on the nature of government information, the structure of government and the types of publications, which are of particular help to the non-documents specialist.
Sears, Jean L. Using Government Information Sources: Print and Electronic. 3rd ed. Phoenix, Ariz. : Oryx Press, 2001. ($125)		For those libraries without a government information specialist, the Sears book is an excellent guide to government publications. The identification and descriptions of titles make it a valuable source to consult before searching the web. It includes 20 chapters on specific subject searches, from foreign policy to health, chapters on grants, regulations, and administrative actions & decisions, 16 chapters on statistical searches, and special techniques chapters like technical reports, patents & trademarks, and legislative history. Most of the titles mentioned are in fact available at the web sites of the agencies which publish the titles, and URLs are provided for all titles available online.