Module 3: Government Resources: Electronic and Print

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Electronic Resources 

Here are some of the top databases for finding government information.

• Govinfo  (Links to an external site.)(formerly FDSys) provides free online access to official authenticated publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
• Proquest Congressional Publications Links to an external site.: an online index and database that provides full-text Congressional publications, including bill text, voting records, hearings and more.
• Congress.gov (Links to an external site.): the official source for federal legislative information, including current bills, their text, actions associated with the bills, amendments, sponsors, and related bills.
• Data.gov: provides access to Federal datasets on a variety of topics including agriculture, climate, energy cities, ethics, and more.
• National Criminal Justice Reference Service Links to an external site.: provides access to more than 200,000 publications including books, government reports, research reports, and unpublished research.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics (Links to an external site.): provides access to labor, business, industrial, occupational, employment statistics, and more.
• Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Links to an external site.: provides access to education literature and resources. There is limited access to full-text articles. Full articles are available in paper and microfiche at McKeldin Library.

Additional databases can be found on the Database Finder Links to an external site.. On the front page, scroll down to "Government Documents" to see more databases with government information.

Print Publications

To find a government publication that is not available online, you can use the UMD Libraries Catalog to find documents from the 1990s to the present, as well as some older government documents. To search only the U.S. Government Documents Collection, select "Advanced Search (Links to an external site.)," and under Library:," select  "U.S. Government Documents, McKeldin Library" from the drop-down menu. 

Note: Some government documents may be located in other areas of the Libraries.

Government documents are arranged by special call numbers established by the Superintendent of Documents, known as the SuDoc classification system (Links to an external site.). In the SuDoc system, government publications are grouped together by issuing agency rather than by subject, so all publications from a particular government agency or department are shelved together. The first part of a SuDoc number represents the government agency that created the document.

Example:

Food For Us All. 1969. Location: UMCP McKeldin Library U.S. Government Information SuDocs A 1.10:969.

Questions? For assistance developing your research strategies, or finding resources for your topic, or any other questions, please contact government specialist: Celina Nichols (cnichol5@umd.edu)