These selected databases and websites specialize in providing full-text (or access to full-text) of U.S. government information.
General
- govinfo, includes Congressional Bills, Congressional Documents, Congressional Hearings, Congressional Record, Congressional Reports, Economic Indicators, Economic Report of the President, Public Laws, United States Statutes at Large, United States Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Budget of the United States Government, Compilation of Presidential Documents, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Supreme Court Decisions (FLITE) Bulk Data, GAO Reports, and more.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1941-1996. Full text of Daily Reports from the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. Individual reports include speeches, broadcasts, news articles from countries in Africa, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Caribbean, Middle East/near East, North America, South America. Texts are translated into English by the CIA.
- Fine Arts Collection, General Services Administration. "GSA owns of one of our nation’s oldest and largest public art collections with over 26,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, new media, and more. [...] The Fine Arts Collection is an interactive website that allows users to quickly find works by their favorite artists, or discover what works are in their state or hometown."
- USA.gov, U.S. Government's official web portal to Federal, State, and local government websites.
- Indiana University. Department of Computer Science. "This site provides access to an online database containing government documents originally publishied on CDROM. It is possible to access the original CDROM contents through a browser. The CDROMs can be imported using the AFS file system."
- UNT Digital Library, University of North Texas. Includes the following collections and much more: Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), Annals of Congress, Congressional Globe, Congressional Record, Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports, CyberCemetery, Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commissions, FCC Record, Federal Register, Government Documents A to Z Digitization, Government Documents General Collections, Office of Technology Assessment, Register of Debates in Congress, selections from the Technical Report Archive and Image Library, Experiment Station Record, Experiment Station Reports, World War Two Newsmaps
History, culture, education, housing
- Digital Collections, Library of Congress. "Free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience"
- ERIC (via EBSCO), ERIC (via U.S. Dept. of Education), an education database that provides access to much full-text
- Publications, Department of Housing and Urban Development. "HUD User makes available printed and electronic copies of published HUD research. Primarily sponsored by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, these reports, executive summaries, case studies, and guidebooks span the fields of housing and urban development and are available as free downloads."
Law, legislation
- Digital Collections, Library of Congress. "Free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience".
- govinfo, includes Congressional Bills, Congressional Documents, Congressional Hearings, Congressional Record, Congressional Reports, Public Laws, United States Statutes at Large, United States Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, Compilation of Presidential Documents, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Supreme Court Decisions (FLITE) Bulk Data, and more.
- FindLaw, online legal information.
- Nexis Uni is especially strong in legal materials.
- Westlaw is especially strong in legal materials.
Military
Science and technology
- Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), Department of Defense. "Government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information".
- National Transportation Library
- NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) provides "access to aerospace-related citations, full-text online documents, images, and videos. The types of information included are: conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos – scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA".
- National Technical Reports Library (NTRL), National Technical Information Service (NTIS).
- NOAA Central Library, including access to materials in NOAA's library, collection pages, and institutional repository.
- National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "The system includes EPA publications, with more than 7,000 hardcopy titles in stock and more than 35,000 digital titles. The searches look at a full text index of the electronic documents and an index of the metadata records for both the hardcopy and digital titles."
- Official Publications of the Headquarters, United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). "Official USACE Engineering Regulations (ERs), Engineering Circulars (ECs), Engineering Manuals (EMs) and other official public documents originating from HQ, USACE".
- osti.gov, Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI). "Science, technology, and engineering research information funded by DOE."
- science.gov searches over 45 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies, offering 200 million pages of authoritative U.S. government science information including research and development results.
- TRAIL - Technical Report Archive & Image Library, an initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with CRL, etc., focusing on reports issued prior to 1975.
- TreeSearch, U.S. Forest Service. "public domain publications by Research and Development scientists in the US Forest Service".
- TRID (Transportation Research Information Service). "TRID is a newly integrated database that combines the records from TRB's Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database and the OECD's Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) Database. TRID provides access to over 940,000 records of transportation research worldwide."
- USFWS National Digital Library, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library is a searchable collection of selected images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and video, most of which are in the public domain. Those not in the public domain are intended for personal, private use."
- USGS Publications Warehouse
"The Pubs Warehouse provides access to over 170,000 publications written by USGS [United States Geological Survey] scientists over the century-plus history of the bureau."
Statistics
- data.census.gov, statistical data from the Census Bureau, including the Census, American Community Survey, Economic Census, etc.
- Census Bureau Publications
- data.gov, "machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government".
- govinfo, includes Economic Indicators, Economic Report of the President, Budget of the United States Government, and more.
- FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research), Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. "FRASER is a digital library of U.S. economic, financial, and banking history—particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System."
- Historical Statistics of the United States.
Comprehensive, searchable collection of statistics, including 37,000+ data sets that can be downloaded. A historical supplement to the Statistical Abstract of the United States. A great place to start looking for data. Footnotes to tables lead you to more detailed or more current data. The introduction to each section provides a helpful summary of major sources. Previous editions are available from the Census Bureau, HathiTrust, and elsewhere online and in print.
- NOAA Data Discovery Portal, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
- Social Explorer, demographic statistics, maps, etc.
Other sources
These services include a significant number of government publications, although they do not specialize in them.
