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Finding Government Information Produced Prior to 1976

Government documents are often primary sources that record the work of the government, but also reflect the economic, social, political, and legislative history of the nation. From 1976 to the present, bibliographic indexes to government publications and the publications themselves have been migrating to electronic format. In early the years of the twenty-first century,  60% of material published by the government is available electronically. Such a trend has greatly facilitated access to such valuable sources.  

Government Information Published Since 1976 

Since 1895, the Monthly Catalog has provided some bibliographic access to government information. In 1976, this catalog began to use standard library cataloging and more recently it became available electronically. Currently, the best bibliographic access to publications of the federal government is through the Monthly Catalog, or Marcive WebDocs, a commercial version of the catalog. 

Government Information Published Prior to 1976

But what about sources published prior to 1976?  How do we find them? Bibliographic information on these materials can be found through traditional indexes published long ago, and found in depository and other libraries in paper, but newer electronic indexes can also provide access.  In addition to bibliographic leads, the full-text of historic documents is also becoming available electronically through federal agencies and bureaus, particularly those with a historic commitment to preservation and dissemination of information.  

Traditional Indexes

•  A Descriptive Catalogue of the Government Publications of the United States, September 5, 1774-March 4, 1881 / by Ben. Perley Poore. Washington, Govt. Print. Off., 1885. [REF]   Z1223 .A 1885c
• Comprehensive index to the publications of the United States government, 1881-1893 / by John G. Ames. Washington, Govt. Print. Off., 1905. [REF] Z1223 .A5 1905aa
• Checklist of United States public documents, 1789-1976, indexes / [compiled by Daniel W. Lester and Marilyn A. L  [REF] Z1223.Z7 L45 1978
• Catalogue of the Public Documents… 1893-1940     25. vols. [REF] Z1223 .A13

The above indexes provide bibliographic access to titles of government publications which can then be located through the online catalog, in microform collections, or borrowed from other libraries. 

Worldcat

Worldcat, which offers bibliographic records for materials owned by libraries around the world, and links to valuable, stable sites on the Internet, is probably the world’s largest and richest database of bibliographic information and is a good source of bibliographic information on government publications.While there is no way to limit Worldcat searches to government information, government information contained in the catalogs of libraries across the nation will be retrieved with other items. You can limit your results to Internet items and in this way retrieve some of the valuable primary source information, including declassified documents which government agencies and bureaus are making available on the WWW, but may not be retrieved through search engines which only search parts of the Internet.

Full-Text Access on the Internet 

While the most comprehensive access to the vast body of government information published is still only available in paper, federal agencies and bureaus that are making serious and significant attempts to make collections of such information available in full-text of the Internet.  In general such material can be found on their web pages but is not easily found through one search engine or web site. Some strategies to locating such information would be thorough use of Marcive WebDocs, the Government Printing Office’s GPO Access site, the University of Michigan’s Historical Document’s Site or through use of a general search engine or one that is dedicated to government information.  

Marcive WebDocs

Marcive WebDOCS is a general index to federal government documents published from 1976 to the present. It is updated monthly. It indexes many types of federal government documents including agency publications, annual reports, census data, Congressional hearings, and statistical publications. Links are provided if the publication is online.  

To Search for Internet sites, enter the subject (author, title, etc.) on the "Combined Search" form. Then in the "Notes" text box, enter the word "Internet". If a title is located at a government agency's site, the record is hot linked and you may go directly to the electronic version of the document.   

Government Printing Office

It is not surprising that the Government Printing Office, who has for more than one hundred years had as its central mission printing and making available government information to the public, and who provided the Monthly Catalog that provided bibliographic access to documents for most of the twentieth century, would be making an effort to provide easy access to significant historical collections available through federal web sites.   

• Core Documents of  U.S Democracy site http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/coredocs/
  Includes materials such as Cornerstone Documents  from The Articles of Confederation to the Gettysburg Address and other Congressional, Presidential, Demographic, Economic, and Miscellaneous documents.

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress which has long served as a national library and taken the lead in library initiatives has undertaken the creation of a National Digital Library. Underway for a number of years, it now contains millions of digital images of materials from its collection which document the history of the nation. 

• American Memory--http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/. This collection is part of the Library of Congress’s digital collections American Memory. Designed to be a gateway site to primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States it contains  millions of digital items many of which are government publications.
• Century of Lawmaking http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hlawquery.html. includes  publications from the A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation comprises twelve different titles, covering the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the 1st through 42nd Federal Congresses.

 National Archives 

• Digital Classroom—Teaching with Documents--http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/teaching_with_documents.html

U.S. Department of State

The State Department web site includes a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001.  

• Foreign Relations Series -- http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frusonline.html

Central Intelligence Agency 

• Intelligence in the War of Independence http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/warindep/frames.html

Megasite for Historic Government Information 

• Univeristy of Michigan Historic Documents  http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/fedhis.html