When searching for government documents, it is important to understand the role of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP).
There are specific libraries across the United States who are members of the program and regularly recieve shipments of federal documents and are required to allow the public access to these documents. If a document that you are looking for is not on the internet, you may need to contact one of these libraries.
How to find the closest FDLP library? Click here.
This is the catalog of all US government publications. If a document was officially published by the Government Printing Office, check this catalog to find it.
Congressional Quarterly (known as CQ) publishes a number of valuable secondary sources on the activities of the U.S. government. See below for a selection, as well as a few databases through other companies.
Subjects: History, International Relations, Peace Studies
Description: General data collection from CQ Press containing full text. Contains biographical and voting data for members of Congress. Useful for analyzing voting records, habits or patterns. Download Data allows users to export data into a spreadsheet.
Contents: Statistics / Datasets; Reference Tool, Commentary
Subjects: History
Description: General data collection from CQ Press containing full text. Contains case summaries of major supreme court decisions and justice profiles. A reference tool for analyzing data: justice roles, opinion writing, opinion alignment, and voting bloc analysis.
Contents: Statistics / Datasets; Reference tool, Commentary
Subjects: MANY
Description: General research database from LexisNexis containing full text from news, business, and legal sources.
Contents: Popular (Non-Scholarly) Articles - Newspapers; Trade/Professional Articles
Subjects: History, Political Science, African American Studies
Description: Primary source collection from Readex containing full text. Includes materials from 1789-1839. Mainly focused on United States history from the legislative and executive branches of U.S. government.
Contents: Primary Sources
The Census of the United States contains useful information about the population going back nearly to the origin of the nation. What most people tend to think of as 'the' Census is taken every ten years and contains a wealth of information about everything from the number of people covered under health insurance to housing prices in a particular area.
The Census Bureau has the 2000 and 2010 Censuses online, but further back it is necessary to use print resources or a specialized resource (See the Historical Information tab for details).
If you are looking for simple, recent statistics on an area, American Factfinder is most likely the best choice. It is a simplified version of the main census tables.
Loyola Marymount also has access to a database called SimplyMap, which allows users to access Census data and map it to a particular area or even census tract. You will have to create a free username in order to use SimplyMap, and there is a QuickGuide that may be useful to new users.
Reproduced from the Census Bureau. April 13, 2009.