LibGuides: Government Information: Databases & Search Engines

Databases

Legislation

Catalog of Government Publications (CGP)
Congress.gov The official site for information on U.S. federal legislative information. Includes a record for every bill introduced into Congress from the 93rd Congress (1973), the full text for bills from the 101st Congress (1989), the full text for laws from 104th Congress (1995) and Amendment records from 97th Congress (1981) with full-text for amendments from 104th Congress (1995).
GovInfo.com Govinfo is the website that the Government Publishing Office uses to store all full-text documents it is given for online publication from all three branches of government.
USA.gov Data & Statistics

Federal Government Databases

Catalog of Government Publications (CGP)
United States House of Representatives Find schedules, proceedings, votes, bills, and reports for the U.S. House of Representatives. Watch live streaming video of House proceedings.
United States Senate Find schedules, proceedings, hearings, votes, etc. about the U.S. Senate.
United States Supreme Court Find U.S. Supreme Court rulings, filings, rules, oral arguments, and case documents.
The White House Find information about the economy, national security, the budget, immigration and other national concerns.
Congress.gov The official site for information on U.S. federal legislative information. Includes a record for every bill introduced into Congress from the 93rd Congress (1973), the full text for bills from the 101st Congress (1989), the full text for laws from 104th Congress (1995) and Amendment records from 97th Congress (1981) with full-text for amendments from 104th Congress (1995).
Chrome Extension for Congress.gov For Google Chrome users, you can download this Chrome extension that allows you to highlight text in an article or web page and automatically search congress.com for it in a new web browser.
Patent Public Search Tool Search for and access prior art for patents
GovInfo.gov Provides free access to official publications from all three branches of the U.S. government.

Briggs Library Databases

Monthly Catalog Online The monthly catalog was the index of everything that the government published in that month.
Government Document Indexes This is a collection of indexes published by the government of government publications and digitized.

CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window Noted for in-depth, unbiased coverage of health, social trends, criminal justice, international affairs, education, the environment, technology, and the economy. Each issue focuses on one controversial topic and includes an overview, background, chronology, and pro-con debates. Full-text back to 1923.

MarciveWeb DOCS Provides citations to United States government publications from 1976 to present. URL’s provided for resources available online. Updated weekly.

World Cat This link opens in a new window Provides access to over 179 million records for all types of materials, e.g., books, music, videos, software, web pages, etc., cataloged by libraries in the United States and many other countries. Both interfaces provide complete bibliographic information for each item and enable the user to identify libraries that own each item. The Basic link leads to Worldcat.org, which is a free version with a simplified search interface.

Government Agencies Online

U.S. Congressional Serial Set

Checklist of United States Public Documents 1789-1909
The Checklist represents a historical record of primary documents issued by the Federal Government including Serial Set volumes to 1909.
Library of Congress U.S. Serial Set
American Memory project at the Library of Congress provides digitized copies of some Serial Volumes.
UNT Congressional Serial Set Inventory
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set Inventory inventories serial set holdings in U.S. libraries, from volume 1 through volume 13219-3. Search and browse by serial set volume, by library, or by session of Congress.
Serial Set on HathiTrust
Many volumes of the Serial Set are digitized on HathiTrust and available for viewing. HathiTrust allows for searching the full text of items.

Adler, J.B., ed. (1975). CIS U.S. Serial Set Index. Washington, DC: Congressional Information Service, Inc. GOVT DOC/LOWER LEVEL J74 .C66 Doc Index

The Congressional Information Service (CIS) provides comprehensive coverage of a wide range of subjects covered in Congressional committee reports, journals, manuals and administrative reports, Executive reports and The American State Papers. Miscellaneous Executive branch publications indexed include reports, bulletins and annual reports of Executive agencies and some serial publications.

United States Congressional Serial Set. (1846- ). Washington: GPO. GOVT DOC/LOWER LEVEL. LOCKED COMPACT SHELVING.

Briggs Library has an extensive historical collection of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set. Included within this collection are annual reports of federal agencies dating back to the 1800s including annual reports of the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Ethnology. Please ask for assistance in the Government Documents Office.

Primary Sources/Online Document Collections

Featured Resources

PILOTS: Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress. The PILOTS Database is produced by the National Center for PTSD, and is electronically available to the public. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the PILOTS Database is not limited to literature on PTSD among Veterans.

Digital Public Library of America The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) have partnered to provide free online access to the Government information available through the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP).

HathiTrust Digital Library HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

TRAIL Technical Report Archive & Image Library The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports.

Digitization Projects Directory
This site offers a directory of digitized government documents from many different sources.

Government Internet Resources

USA.gov This link opens in a new window Easy-to-search, free-access website designed to give you a centralized place to find information from U.S. local, state, and federal government agency websites. Topics included cover a broad range of subject areas.

United States Government Manual
Government Departments and Agencies
Center for Legislative Archives An indext to Congressional Collections including locations of repositories for the private and personal papers of former members of U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
Congressional Directory for the 117th Congress
uability.gov
How to make websites more user friendly.