Chris Brown is the Government Documents Coordinator at the University of Denver and the author of Mastering United States Government Information: Sources and Services.
Getting started with government information searching;
- Limit to a domain by adding "site:.gov" to a search. Keep in mind that the federal government also uses .com (usps), .mil. .us, and .org at times, and some states/cities use ".gov".
- Make a list of what government agencies would care about the question, then search that particular agency- e.g., "site:dea.gov".
- Use data catalogs to get started- what stats are being collected by who- data.gov, census.data.gov (used to be American Factfinder), etc.
- Hathitrust has a catalog of historical statistics from 1925.
- Guide to U.S. Government Publications (known as Andriot) can help you find old SuDoc stems.
- Historical Statistics of the United States.
- Statistical Programs of the United States Government.
- MetaLib
Although most government information is online, some things are hard to search for. It may be best at times to refer patrons to paid databases that make searching easier. The University of Minnesota has the following, which patrons should be able to search in person:
- Historical Statistics of the United States Online- newer stats than the print version and more search options.
- ProQuest Congressional- allows you to search both congressional and executive publications.
- ProQuest Legislative Insight- the best for searching for legislative history- every bill version, all Congressional Record references in full text, reports (legislative intent), hearings, committee prints, presidental signing statement.
- HeinOnline - makes it easy to get to Congressional records.
Specific questions:
- How do you find grandpa's census records?
- A: Only the Census data is available as government information. Census data is the collected info, records are the individual forms- the latter you can only see up to 1940 for privacy reasons- you have to have Ancestry Library or something similar.
- How do you find old federal regulations before they started publishing the Federal Register in 1936?
- A:Search Andriot for SuDoc stems or try the Monthly Catalog of US Government Publications (goes back to 1895).
- How do you search for legislative history?
- A: If you don't have the ProQuest databases, hard to find. The last page of each public law has a brief legislative history. Public law libraries may also have resources. The Legislative Reference Library has legislative history for State of Minnesota laws.
- How do you find patents?
- A: Pre-1976 patents are not full-text in uspto.gov- have to search Google Patents.
- How do you search the National Archives?
- A: There are two ways- the National Archive catalog- find out where the records are-and the Access to Archival Databases- search in specific collections by name- find famous people, relatives.
- How do I find if a building is in the National Register of Historic Places?
- How do I find government web sites that no longer exist?
- A: Use the Wayback Machine or End of Term Web Archive.
--Andrea H. @GLCL
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