Kent Library is a selective federal depository library, and receives a substantial number of federal documents in formats ranging from printed, hardcopy publications to microforms and electronic resources.  This guide suggests resources and strategies for undertaking research using these materials.

Background Information  |  Facts & Figures  |  Find Documents  |  Primary Sources  |  People  | 
Web Resources  |  Additional Resources 

A federal government document is any publication issued by or for an office or agency of the U. S. government.  While some of the more heavily used reference works, such as the Statistical Abstract of the United States, are integrated into the Reference Collection, most paper documents are kept together in the Government Documents area on the third floor, and are arranged using the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) Classification System. Unlike the Dewey Decimal System, which groups materials by subject, the SuDoc system groups materials by issuing agency.  The call number begins with an alpha-numeric designation indicating the parent agency and  subordinate bureau, followed by a number designating the title, and numbers indicating the year of publication.  For example, the SuDoc number C61.34:987 indicates the following:

 

C	61.	34:	987
Commerce Department (issuing agency)	International Trade Administration (subordinate bureau within the agency)	Number designating title	Year of publication

 

The federal documents include a great deal of primary source material in the form of House and Senate hearings; reports on the results of federally funded research and other activities; legal materials such as federal statutory, regulatory, and case law; Executive Orders and other presidential documents; official military records from the various wars in which the United States has been a combatant; and a wide range of other materials. In recent years, there has been a move to provide documents in digital formats.  Many of these are listed in Kent Library's online catalog, which provides links directly to the documents.  Others are available only through the federal government's online databases, GPO Access and FirstGov.

Use dictionaries, statistical works, atlases, handbooks and similar works to find and check facts about topics, people, or events. Useful paper publications include:

Statistical Abstract of the United States	R Ref Desk 317 Un3
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970	R 317.3 Un3h 1975
Official Congressional Directory	R 328 Un3
Occupational Outlook Handbook	R Ref Desk 331.702 Un3
The United States Government Manual	R Ref Desk 353 Un31
Code of Federal Regulations	AE 2.106/3:
Federal Register	AE 2.106:
United States Code:  Containing the General and Permanent Laws of the United States, in force on January 2, 2001	R 348.323 Un3 2000
United States Statutes at Large, Containing the Laws and Concurrent Resolutions ... and Reorganization Plan, Amendment to the Constitution, and Proclamations	AE 2.111
United States Reports	JU 6.8:
United States Treaties and Other International Agreements	S 9.12:

 

Sample online publications include:
 

The 9/11 Commission Report:  Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States	linked from library catalog record
The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks	linked from library catalog record
Reforming Law Enforcement, Counterterrorism, and Intelligence Collection in the United States	linked from library catalog record
Occupational Outlook Handbook	http://stats.bls.gov/oco/home.htm
DOD Dictionary of Military Terms	http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/
Core Documents of U S Democracy	http://www.gpoaccess.gov/coredocs.html
Davis-Bacon Wage Determinations	http://www.gpo.gov/davisbacon/index.html
The Plum Book (United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions)*	http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plumbook/2004/index.html
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Communitys Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq	http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html

*Alternately prepared after each Presidential election by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Government Reform, the Plum Book provides comprehensive information on thousands of Federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment, nationwide.

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Use the Kent Library Catalog (http://library.semo.edu/find/books.html) to find recent materials in documents. Advanced Keyword searches allow you to use your own words as search terms and to limit your search to government documents. Subject heading searches use Library of Congress subject headings. Printed volumes of these headings are located near the Reference Desk on the main floor.  Subject Heading searches cannot be limited to the documents collection. Federal documents published since July of 1976 can also be identified using the GPO database.  Materials published prior to that time must be identified using a variety of printed indexes which are housed in Documents Reference.  Documents published in electronic format can be retrieved using GPO Access, which is the official database of the Government Printing Office.

Many primary source materials are government documents.  Some examples of major resources include:

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents	AE 2.109:  or http://www.gpoaccess.gov/wcomp/
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789 - 1908	R 353.035 Un3com
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (current president plus the two immediately preceding him are in reference; earlier presidents in Docs)	R 353.035 Un3   (earlier in AE2.114:)    or  http://www.gpoaccess.gov/pubpapers/index.html
United States Statutes at Large	AE 2.111:      or http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/index.html
United States Code	R 348.323 Un3   or http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.html
Code of Federal Regulations	AE 2.106/3  or http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html
Federal Register	AE 2.106:  or http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
United States Reports	JU 6.8:  or http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2005 : Hearings before the Committee on the Budget, United States Senate, One Hundred Eighth Congress, second session	U S Gov Doc Fiche  Y 4.B 85/2:S.HRG.108-521
Regulations of U.S. Customs and Border Protection	HS 4.106/2:  2003

Biographical information can be located in government documents:

Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789-1993	Y 1.1/3: 104-26
Women in Congress, 1917-1990	Y 1.1/7: 101-238
Black Americans in Congress, 1870-1989	Y 1.1/7: 101-117
The Presidents of the United States of America [1982]	Y 3.H 62/4: 2 P 92
The First Ladies [1981]	Y 3.H 62/4: 2 F 51
The Secretaries of State:  Portraits and Biographical Sketches [1978]	S 1.69: 162
Signers of the Constitution; Historic Places Commemorating the Signing of the Constitution	I 29.2: H 62/9 v.19
Signers of the Declaration; Historic Places Commemorating the Signing of the Declaration of Independence	I 29.2: H62/9 v.18/975
Presidents of the United States	http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/
Congressional Pictorial Directory	http://www.gpoaccess.gov/pictorial/index.html
Members of the Supreme Court of the United States (1789 to date)	http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/members.pdf
The Justices of the Supreme Court (current member biographies)	http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf

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Databases

GPO Access     http://www.gpoaccess.gov/	Provides access to a wide range of full-text materials in electronic format
GPO	Subsumed under FirstSearch.  Provides indexing and abstracting for government documents back to July, 1976
Factfinder	Database produced by the U S Bureau of the Census
FirstGov     http://www.firstgov.gov/	The U S Government's official web portal
Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe	Collective title of Lexis-Nexis sources covering news, business, legal research, medical, and reference
National Center for Education Statistics	Contains a wide variety of statistical data for all levels of education
National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts	Contains summaries of over 150,000 criminal justice publications, including federal, state, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research
Occupational Outlook Handbook     http://www.stats.bls.gov/oco/#content	Useful for exploring career options.  Provides information on various occupations, including required levels of education or training, average salaries, and job prospects
PubMed	Open access version of Medline.  Includes citations and abstracts for journal articles back to 1966
PubMed Central	Open access electronic archive for full text journal articles. Every full text article in PubMed Central has a corresponding entry in PubMed.
StatUSA	One stop internet browsing for business, trade, and economic information.  Maintained by the Department of Commerce.  Some areas of the site are password protected, and can only be accessed in the Library, with the assistance of the Reference Librarians.
Thomas     http://thomas.loc.gov	Open access database of legislative information maintained by the Library of Congress.  Good place to look for the text and status of bills, Public Laws, voting records, Congressional committee reports, etc.

 

Web Sites

White House	http://www.whitehouse.gov/
United States House of Representatives	http://www.house.gov/
United States Senate	http://www.senate.gov/
Supreme Court of the United States	http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

Individual agencies and sub-agencies offer web resources dealing with the particular subject areas which fall within their purviews.  Some example include:

Agency	Sub-agency	Web Address
USDA (U S Department of Agriculture)		http://www.usda.gov/
	Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Department of Agriculture	http://www.aphis.usda.gov/
U S Department of Commerce		http://www.commerce.gov/
	Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce	http://www.bis.doc.gov/
U S Department of Defense		http://www.defenselink.mil/
	Smallpox Vaccination Program	http://www.smallpx.army.mil/
	Department of the Air Force	http://www.af.mil/
	Department of the Army	http://www.army.mil/
	Department of the Navy	http://www.navy.mil/
	United States Marine Corps (under the Department of the Navy)	http://www.usmc.mil/
U S Department of Education		http://www.ed.gov/
	Federal Student Aid	http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/fsa/index.html?src=oc
U S Department of Energy		http://www.energy.gov/
	Los Alamos National Laboratory	http://www.lanl.gov/worldview
U S Department of Health and Human Services		http://www.dhhs.gov/
	U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative	http://www.hhs.gov/familyhistory/
	Food and Drug Administration	http://www.fda.gov/
U S Department of Homeland Security		http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/index.jsp
	Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties	http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?theme=9&content=3720
	United States Coast Guard (a branch of the Armed Forces under the Navy, and also a service within the Department of Homeland Security)	http://uscg.mil/
U S Department of Housing and Urban Development		http://www.hud.gov/
	Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives	http://www.hud.gov/offices/fbci/index.cfm
U S Department of the Interior		http://www.doi.gov/
	National Park Service	http://www.nps.gov/
U S Department of Justice		http://www.doj.gov/
	Federal Bureau of Investigation	http://www.fbi.gov/
U S Department of Labor		http://www.dol.gov/
	Bureau of Labor Statistics	http://www.bls.gov/
U S Department of State*		http://www.state.gov/
	Foreign Consular Offices in the United States	http://www.state.gov/s/cpr/rls/fco/
U S Department of Transportation		http://www.dot.gov/
	Federal Aviation Administration	http://www.faa.gov/
U S Department of the Treasury		http://www.ustreas.gov/
	Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury	http://www.irs.gov/
U S Department of Veterans Affairs		http://www.va.gov/
	National Cemetery Administration	http://www.cem.va.gov/site_map.htm

*NOTE:  to find links to Background Notes, the CIA World Factbook entry, or Country Study on a given country, go to the Department of State home page and use the A-Z link under "About the State Department" on the left side of the screen.  Select the letter the country's name begins with; then click on the country link.  Not all country links will include the CIA World Factbook or the Country Study. For a list of Web searching tools, see the Find: web resources page (http://library.semo.edu/find/webpages.html).

General Resources
LewisandClark200.gov	http://www.lewisandclark200.gov/
Cybercemetery of Former Federal Web Sites	http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cybercemetery.html
Federal Toll-Free Numbers by Agency	http://www.info.gov/toll-free.htm
Specialized Collections	http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/ec/scfti.html
State of the Union	http://www.gpoaccess.gov/sou/index.html
Presidential Libraries	http://www.archives.gov/presidential_libraries/addresses/addresses.html
Country Studies	http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html
U.S. Government Graphics and Photos	http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml
Resources for Children and Teachers
Ben's Guide to U S Government for Kids	http://bensguide.gpo.gov/benfranklin/index.html
Celebrating America's Freedoms	http://www1.va.gov/opa/feature/celebrate/index.htm
Environmental Kids Club	http://www.epa.gov/kids/
FirstGov for Kids	http://www.kids.gov/
Free Federal Resources for Educational Excellence	http://www.ed.gov/free/index.html
Gem:  Gateway to Educational Materials	http://thegateway.org/
The Learning Page . . . Especially for Teachers	http://memory.loc.gov/learn/
Our Documents Initiative:  100 Milestone Documents	http://www.ourdocuments.gov/index.php?flash=true&
NASA Education Program	http://education.nasa.gov/home/index.html
Science.Gov	http://www.science.gov/browse/w_133A.htm
Smithsonian Education:  Students	http://smithsonianeducation.org/students/index.html
Smithsonian Education:  Educators	http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/
Genealogical Resources
Ellis Island	http://www.ellisisland.org/
Immigration Arrival Records	http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/immrecs/immrec.htm
National Archives Genealogy Resources	http://www.archives.gov/research_room/genealogy/index.html
Naturalization Records	http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/natzrec/natrec.htm
Ports of Entry and Their Records	http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/poelist/poe.htm