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Government Information Sources: Full-text

Guide to finding, using, and citing government information at the federal, state, and local levels

Selected full-text databases and websites

These selected databases and websites specialize in providing full-text (or access to full-text) of U.S. government information.

General

  • FDSys, replacing GPO Access, includes Congressional Bills, Congressional Documents, Congressional Hearings, Congressional Record, Congressional Reports, Economic Indicators, Economic Report of the President, Public Laws, United States Statutes at Large, United States Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Budget of the United States Government, Compilation of Presidential Documents, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Supreme Court Decisions (FLITE) Bulk Data, GAO Reports, and more.
  • FedFlix, films of the United States Government freely available for reuse.
  • USA.gov, U.S. Government's official web portal to Federal, State, and local government websites.
  • Indiana University. Department of Computer Science. "This site provides access to an online database containing government documents originally publishied on CDROM. It is possible to access the original CDROM contents through a browser. The CDROMs can be imported using the AFS file system."

History, culture, education

  • American Memory, Library of Congress. "Free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience"
  • ERIC, an education database that provides access to much full-text

Law, legislation

  • American Memory, Library of Congress. "Free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience"
  • CONGRESS.gov, the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public.
  • FDSys, replacing GPO Access, includes Congressional Bills, Congressional Documents, Congressional Hearings, Congressional Record, Congressional Reports, Public Laws, United States Statutes at Large, United States Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Compilation of Presidential Documents, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Supreme Court Decisions (FLITE) Bulk Data, and more.
  • FindLaw, online legal information for consumers
  • LEXIS-NEXIS Academic is especially strong in legal materials.
  • THOMAS, legislative information from the Library of Congress.

Science and technology

  • DOE Collections, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information. "Find research results and science information from the Manhattan Project to the present, download documents, view energy citations, discover patents and e-prints, read about ongoing federal and DOE research projects and amazing accomplishments, search multimedia, science conference proceedings, scientific research data, and software, and connect to federated search of DOE collections, U.S., and global science portals, as well as customized resources."
  • DTIC Online, Defense Technical Information Center, Department of Defense. "Government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information".
  • NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), "NASA's current and historical technical literature and engineering results. Over 500,000 aerospace-related citations, over 200,000 full-text online documents, and over 500,000 images and videos are available. [...] The types of information found in the NTRS include: conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos."
  • National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "The system includes EPA publications, with more than 7,000 hardcopy titles in stock and more than 35,000 digital titles. The searches look at a full text index of the electronic documents and an index of the metadata records for both the hardcopy and digital titles."
  • Official Publications of the Headquarters, United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). "Official USACE Engineering Regulations (ERs), Engineering Circulars (ECs), Engineering Manuals (EMs) and other official public documents originating from HQ, USACE".
  • science.gov searches over 45 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.
  • TRAIL - Technical Report Archive & Image Library, an initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with CRL, etc., focusing on reports issued prior to 1975
  • TRID (Transportation Research Information Service). "TRID is a newly integrated database that combines the records from TRB's Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database and the OECD's Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) Database. TRID provides access to over 940,000 records of transportation research worldwide."
  • The Virtual Technical Reports Center. University Libraries, University of Maryland. "The Institutions listed here provide either full-text reports, or searchable extended abstracts of their technical reports on the World Wide Web."

Statistics

  • American FactFinder, statistical data from the Census Bureau, including the Census, American Community Survey, Economic Census, etc.
  • Census Bureau Publications
  • data.gov, "machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government".
  • FDSys, replacing GPO Access, includes Economic Indicators, Economic Report of the President, Budget of the United States Government, and more.
  • FedStats, access to statistics and information produced by more than 100 U.S. Federal Government agencies.
  • FRASER, Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research, economic statistical publications and data
  • Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition Online, comprehensive historical statistics, including population; work and welfare; economic structure and performance; economic sectors; governance and international relations.
  • Social Explorer, demographic statistics, maps, etc.

Other sources

These services include a significant number of government publications, although they do not specialize in them.