LibGuides: Government Information: Subject Searching

Search Strategies

Sears and Moody identified various search strategies in their book, Using Government Publications: Electronic and Print.

Known Item Search: Useful when you know the title of the item you are seeking, for example Hearing on Appalachia : poverty alleviation strategies : hearing before the Select Committee on Hunger.

Subject searches: are similar in approach whether searching for government information or other library resources. Bibliographies, guides, indexes, and search engines are useful. There are a variety of special government publication
indexes and locators.

Agency Search: Most kinds of government information are not cited by the author but by the agency responsible for issuing them. One strategy is to identify the government agency responsible for publishing the information you want. For instance if you wanted a crop report you could go to the USDA website.

Statistical Search: The government issues a huge amount of data and if you're looking for numbers, a government source is frequently available. In a statistical search you will need to define in detail what you need--do you want crime data by race or other demographic characteristics? Do you need statistics at the city or national level? Do you need statistics for 1910 or 2010?

Special techniques searches: Include a number of complex, multistep search strategies employed when you want to locate a special topic or type of material such as material at the National Archives, historical information, legislative histories, regulations, grants, treaties, or patents.

Start by Searching for the Subject in the Catalogs

A good place to start is to search for the topic in these catalogs.

BGSU Libraries Catalog
Start by searching this catalog to see if BGSU owns government publications on your topic or if the library has cataloged relevant government Internet sites. All of the documents in our government documents collections have been cataloged.
OhioLINK Central Catalog
If BGSU doesn't own documents on your topic, try the OhioLINK Central Catalog. It contains the holdings of the libraries at more than 80 colleges and universities throughout Ohio, many of which have government documents collections.
WorldCat
WorldCat is a database of the holdings of many libraries throughout North American and other countries. If you identify a document you want to borrow, you can use your Interlibrary Loan (ILL) account to request it.

Try These Databases To Identify Government Documents

We have various research databases that might help you identify government documents on your topic:

Catalog of U.S. Government Publications 1976 - present
Contains more than 500,000 records describing U.S. government publications published since 1976. The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) is the online counterpart to the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, which ceased as a print publication in 2004.
MetaLib
This site searches multiple U.S. government search engines simultaneously.

ProQuest Congressional
ProQuest Congressional is a comprehensive database that searches across current and historical documents of the United States Congress, many of which are included in full text. It includes the U.S. Serial Set (the published working papers of Congress), Congressional Hearings, the Congressional Record (through 1997) and hundreds of thousands of House and Senate reports, State of the Union messages, Congressional journals, hearings, high-resolution maps, and more.
Access has recently been expanded to include ProQuest Congressional Hearings Digital Collection Historical Archive Parts B and C (1980-2010), ProQuest Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, and ProQuest U.S. Serial Set 2 Parts G, H, and I.

A Few of the Internet Sites That Provide Subject Access to Government Documents

Here are just a few of the many Internet sites that index government documents:

GovInfo.gov
Access to a wide variety of databases that contain full text U.S. government documents. This is the replacement for FDSys.
FDSys (Federal Digital System)
FDSys provided access to a wide variety of databases that contain full text U.S. government documents. When it's complete, it will replace GPO Access.
USA.gov: U.S. Government Services and Information
A directory of U.S. government information, arranged by topic.
USA.gov: Cross Agency Portals
A list of subject specific portals that list sources of U.S. government information.
CyberCemetery
A site, maintained by the University of North Texas, that provides copies of documents from U.S. government agencies that are no longer in existence.
National Technical Reports Library
This database searches more than 3 million technical reports sponsored by the U.S. government. More than 800,000 of these reports are full text. Although the emphasis is on science and medicine, there are numerous reports in the social sciences.
Government of Canada Publications
A search engine for Canadian government documents, including those that are full text on the Internet.
Official Document System of the United Nations
Indexes and provides copies of full text documents from the United Nations system.