Government documents are publications produced by city, state, federal, or international governments. They may also be from any nation.
United States Government PublicationsToday, many government documents are automatically put online. One of the best ways of searching these materials is through the
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications, put out by the Government Printing Office. The materials are searchable through titles, subjects and authors and are on a variety of subjects.
The AUR Library Catalog helps you search this catalog more easily by
using the Extend Search feature. After selecting
the relevant text in the catalog, then choose Electronic Book Projects. From here, select U.S. Govt. Documents. inYou can click on the
Extenddatabase Searchname function.for guides for more information.
There are additional ways of finding U.S. Government documents. See
Finding Government Documents Today for an excellent discussion.
State Documents and non-U.S. Government Publications State documents and non-U.S. government publications are often available on the web as well, but there is not a comprehensive resource for these documents. Publications of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom can be found at this site. There are links to historical records at
British History Online.
One of the best collections of links for non-U.S. government publications is
Government documents from Truman State University. Also keep in mind
Portals to the World maintained by the Library of Congress.
International Government DocumentsInternational agencies such as the
European Union and the different parts of the
United Nations also produce many documents on many topics. Most of the time, you must find the organization's website and then search their
Documents or
Publications. One of the best ways to find these websites is through
Northwestern University's International Documents Collection. Again, select the organization, go to their website, and you should find something similar to
Documents or
Publications that you can browse or search.