Government Publications and Information--U.S.

Government Publications and Information--U.S. [1]

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Landscape

Governments, like other large organizations, collect, produce, and distribute information. They generate statistical, demographic, economic, and geospatial information, and publish documents such as laws, regulations, executive orders, and other public records of legislative, judicial, and executive decisions and activities.

In the print era, the United States government agencies published most of their documents and data through the Government Printing Office.

GPO

Libraries acquired those materials, stored, organized, and preserved them, and promoted access by cataloging and indexing them and providing guidance on their use to researchers. Many U.S. research libraries serve as regional and selective federal depositories, maintaining and continuing to add to collections of government print and microform publications. CRL preserves government publications that are not widely available elsewhere, especially U.S. state agency publications prior to 1950.

Libraries also purchase access to government documents and data aggregated and republished by commercial publishers like ProQuest, LexisNexis, and others . . .

In the digital era, government agencies expose documents, data, and information directly to the web, and “open government” data initiatives have been embraced in the U.S. at the local, state, and federal levels. As a result, more actors are involved in the production and distribution of government information, leading to greater complexities and contingencies in the supply chain.

These actors include organizations responsible for the technologies that enable production and distribution of government information in electronic form: organizations that produce the software agencies use for creating digital documents and content . . .

And makers of the cloud-based applications and platforms, like Google Maps, YouTube, and FaceBook, that enable the storage, display, manipulation, and analysis of government-produced content, and its interoperability with related documents and information from other sources . . .

In addition, a growing number of commercial entities mine, re-aggregate, and provide access to government-produced information in the digital era, building new services and products around data generated and exposed by federal, state, and local agencies.

The electronic publishing process is fluid and dynamic: instead of producing “documents” and other discrete units of digital information, agencies output information in the form of electronic text, video, datasets, and other formats that can be continually updated, edited, and revised-- and even withdrawn entirely from the platforms on which they are published.

Preserving digital government information therefore requires a different set of strategies than those that ensured the long-term integrity and persistence of paper-based materials. Government agencies, research libraries, and commercial publishers and aggregators will all play roles in that endeavor.

CRL Collections

CRL's collection of government publications, information, and data is extensive, containing more than a half million volumes of official publications from U.S. federal and state government agencies and legislatures. The holdings were built primarily through contributions of rare and/or infrequently used materials from CRL libraries. CRL continues to grow the collections through ongoing acquisition of print, purchase of collections through CRL's p [2]urchase programs [2], and adding new materials through collection partnerships.

The references below feature many of the strengths of CRL's holdings. Links point to detailed descriptions in the CRL catalog and, where available, lead to digital versions of the content or digitized finding aids for microfilm.

See also:

Censuses [3]
Government Records and Archives-U.S. [4]

Congressional Bills and Resolutions

U.S. Congressional Bills and Resolutions, 1789-1933.

Temporal Coverage: 1789–1933

CRL holds the microfilm set of congressional bills and resolutions from the 1st through the 72nd Congress.

Catalog Record [5]

U.S. Congressional Bills and Resolutions, 1933-1938.

Temporal Coverage: 1933-1938

CRL holds microfiche of the congressional bills and resolutions from the 73rd through the 75th Congress.

Catalog Record [6]

U.S. Congressional Bills and Resolutions, 1939-1956.

Temporal Coverage: 1939-1956

CRL holds hard copy (incomplete) of printed legislation and other materials issued by the United States Congress (76th through the 84th Congress), including: House bills; House resolutions; House joint resolutions; House concurrent resolutions; House amendments; Senate bills; Senate resolutions; Senate joint resolutions; Senate concurrent resolutions; and Senate amendments. Arranged on the shelf by congress, session and bill/resolution number.

Catalog Record [7]

U.S. Congressional Bills and Resolutions, 1957-Nov. 1965.

Publisher : Readex

Temporal Coverage: 1957–Nov. 1965

CRL holds the microprint set of congressional bills and resolutions from the 85th through the first session of the 89th Congress. Uncataloged. The microprint is arranged by the entry number in the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

Uncataloged

U.S. Congressional Bills and Resolutions, 1967-1979.

Publisher : United States. Congressional Information Service.

Temporal Coverage: 1967–1979

CRL holds microfiche of congressional bills and resolutions from the 90th through the 95th Congress, arranged by congress and bill/resolution number.

Cataloged separately. See the following links:

90th Session [8] (1967-69)
91st Session [9] (1969-71)
92nd Session [10] (1971-73)
93rd Session [11] (1973-75)
94th Session [12] (1975-77)
95th Session [13] (1977-79)

Uncataloged

U.S. Congressional hearings, 1869-1950.

Publisher : Greenwood Press

Temporal Coverage: 1839-1950

Microfiche set of the records of the House, Senate, Joint, Select, and Special committees. Includes hearings from the 25th Congress (1839) through the 91st Congress, 1st session (1969).

GUIDES:

U.S. Congress. Senate. Library. Index of Congressional committee hearings prior to January 3, 1935 in the United States Senate Library. Z1223.A 1935
Thomen. Harold Ordell. Supplement to the Index of Congressional committee hearings prior to January 3, 1935. D-9385 [14]
U.S. Congress. Senate. Library. Cumulative index of Congressional committee hearings from Seventy-fourth Congress (January 3, 1935) through Eighty-fifth Congress (January 3, 1959) in the United States Senate Library. Z1223.A 1959

Catalog Record [15]

Government Agency Publications

Hearings of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Publisher : University Publications of America

Temporal Coverage: 1975–August 1979

Collection of NRC hearings from 1975 to August 1979.

Catalog Record [16] Online Guide [17]

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Schedules, Specifications, and Drawings.

Publisher : Govt. Printing Office

Temporal Coverage: 1907–53

Collection of the Department of the Interior’s reports containing schedules, specifications, and drawings for projects in the area from Denver west. CRL has incomplete holdings of nos. 419-3972 for 1923–53. CRL also holds earlier nos. [49-127 [18]] (1905-1907) and [128-418 [19]] (1907-1923) from predecessor agencies.

Catalog Record [20]

United States government publications; non-depository

Publisher : Readex

Temporal Coverage: 1953-1980

This is the microprint set of all non-depository documents listed in the Monthly catalog of United States government publications. The Center has the microprint from 1953 through 1980 only.

When requesting these documents through interlibrary loan, please specify the date of the issue of the Monthly catalog and the entry number of the document.

Online Guide [21] Uncataloged

Works Progress Administration.

CRL has a collection of materials (approximately 1,300 volumes) produced by the Historical Records Survey Program of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). CRL acquired its holdings from deposits by member libraries.

The materials consist of inventories of state, county, municipal, and church archives, church directories, newspaper indexes, ship registers, and indexes to personal archives.

CRL’s WPA materials are not cataloged, but are arranged on the shelf by state. The guide to this collection is a list of the titles, arranged by geographic area.

Uncataloged

US State Documents

Records of the states of the United States of America: a microfilm compilation

Publisher : Library of Congress

Temporal Coverage: 1635-1950

1875 reels created under the "State Records Microfilm Project" (conducted 1941-1950).

Selection of documents of the states, including legislative journals, statutory laws, records of American Indian Nations, and constitutional, administrative, executive and court records. Some local (county and city) records are included, and, in the supplementary reels, some early newspapers that contain the only extant printings of official proceedings or records.

GUIDE: William Sumner Jenkins. A guide to the microfilm collection of early state records. Z1033.M6U48 (main volume and supplement)

Catalog Record [22] - Electronic Version [23] Online Guide [24]

U.S. State documents

Temporal Coverage: 1850-1990

CRL's collection of U.S. state documents consists of the official publications of the legislative bodies, departments, and agencies of all fifty of the United States.The collection contains materials issued from the earliest period of state or territorial government, through 1950, with holdings of legislative journals included through 1990. The total collection is estimated to contain over 500,000 items occupying 30,500 linear feet.

This collection includes substantial files of legislative journals, budgets, administrative and financial reports of state agencies. It includes monographic and serial titles important for research in several research areas: environment, health, education, highways and other public services provided by state governments. Other kinds of materials in the collection are blue books, budgets, statistical yearbooks, constitutions and proceedings of constitutional conventions.

Most of these holdings are hardcopy volumes deposited by member libraries. By policy, the state documents collection is not cataloged, and there are no records for these materials in the Center's catalog. The documents are arranged on the shelves by state and alphabetically by issuing body and title. The Library of Congress' Monthly checklist of state publications [25] and checklists issued by individual states are appropriate sources for identifying or verifying specific titles.

Certain types of publications are excluded from CRL's collection policy: internal agency newsletters, promotional publications, agricultural experiment station publications, maps, ephemera, session laws and compiled statues, and state court reports. CRL also excluded certain publications known to be widely available or, in some cases, collected by the National Agricultural Library or the National Library of Medicine.

Uncataloged

All Topic Guides [48]

Tabbed

Congressional Bills and Resolutions

Government Agency Publications

US State Documents

FOCUS

Topic Guides

CRL Reports