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The purpose of this guide is to provide access to government agencies and publications of use to researchers at CSUSM and our local community.
The most important things to know about government-created resources are:
CSUSM provides information on all government-created publications received, regardless of format, in our catalog. This includes State of California and some regional (San Diego County) and international (United Nations) materials and materials in electronic, microform, paper, and CD-ROM format as well as maps.
The usual search is to use keywords known to be in the document's title or by the issuing agency name. Other searches are by SuDoc classification or by subject heading. CSUSM applies the Library of Congress subject heading terms to all materials included in our catalog. To limit your search results only to Federal government publications, use the catalog's ADVANCED SEARCH and limit the location to US GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS.
CSUSM is a smaller depository (collects approximately 15% of all government documents issued) and has been collecting since 1994. We select materials that support our courses, so may refer users to larger regional depositories (SDSU and UCSD) for older materials and those areas we do not collect. Many agencies still issue material in print format, sometimes with an electronic version available as well. The electronic is considered an authorized version as long as it is hosted at the issuing agency's web site. CSUSM provides a link to the electronic version when available.
Note: Older documents (pre-1970's) are frequently not included in many libraries' catalogs as they were manually processed prior to the introduction of electronic library catalogs. This is where being a determined researcher (and asking the librarian for help) is important. Knowing the following will help you quickly access the resources you need:
Useful Subject Terms
If you haven't used the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to locate materials in a library catalog, you should try it! Libraries use specific subject headings to consistently identify the content of works in the collection. All materials about a particular topic, regardless of the wording used in the document or issuing agency, will get the same subject heading. Using the proper subject heading focuses your search and saves you having to think of every variation that a topic could be known by. As you search the catalog, note the blue Subject hyperlinks for appropriate subject headings or refer to the print LCSH volumes at the Research Help Desk.Searching Congressional Materials
Congress, as the legislative (rule-making) branch of government, is separate from the judicial (rule-enforcing) and Executive (the President and government departments and bureaus). While many Congressional materials are indexed in the electronic resources below, it is important to note that Congress holds hearings and creates laws on all topics.THOMAS (free on the internet) as well as the CSUSM Research Databases LexisNexis Congressional, US Congressional Serial Set and American State Papers will be especially useful in searching this body of information. For older materials, you may wish to refer to the CIS US Serial Set Index at REF Z1223 .Z9 C65 1975 as this covers materials from 1789-1969. We also own a limited amount of the Serial Set (full text of House and Senate reports and documents) at call number Y 1.1/2 (some is in the microfiche collection and some is located in the paper GovDocs collection.)
The Clinton Administration made the decision to use the Internet to increase the public's access to federal information. Because of this move to electronic, many agencies have stopped publishing paper documents, but there has been some delay in developing access tools or even guidelines as to what should be provided on a site or where sites should be hosted. Searching becomes more difficult as some agencies publish on their own servers (.org) rather than government servers (.gov is in the domain name) and the military branches use .mil domains. Materials can be in HTML, PDF or DOC formats and sometimes require special software. A few government sources are password-protected, such as STAT-USA. Please see the librarian for help.
Search Engines
- Select the appropriate search engine. If you are looking for materials published pre-1970, be aware very few materials have been digitized prior to this date and frequently are not held in government web sites, but at selective or regional depositories in print.
- Use the correct terminology for the time period. An example of terminology change is that used for Americans of African descent. The original term was Negroes which changed to Afro-Americans, African-Americans and Blacks over time.
GPO Access
The GPO (Government Printing Office) has the responsibility to publish and distribute all Federal government publications. This is not always the reality, as agencies do not always choose to publish through GPO, but this search engine provides fairly extensive access to print records and is now adding web sites. There are different 'libraries' and information may be in several of them, so be sure to search all possibilities.USA.gov
Search engine for US government sites, including .mil sites, but does not include print resources records that may be found in GPO Access.Google US Government Search
A more focused version of Google, this search engine indexes sites created by Federal through city-level agencies. Materials indexed by FindLaw.com are included in the results due to this commercial services' extensive coverage of laws and regulations.THOMAS
Search engine provided by the Library of Congress to bills, laws, Congressional hearings, and more published since 1976. You need to know in which Congress your material is likely to have occurred to start your search. The law's identification number is coded with that information.Lexis Nexis Academic (CSUSM)
Click on the LEGAL RESEARCH link to search for Federal and State law and legislative histories.Lexis Nexis Congressional (CSUSM)
Research database for searching laws, regulations and rulings from the Supreme Court and a number of lower courts.U.S. Congressional Serial Set / American State Papers / Serial Set Maps (CSUSM) provide full text documents of Congressional business and more from 1789 through 1980. May be searched separately or in a group.
As stated earlier, any agency may publish material on a topic and the material will be listed under the agency, rather than by subject as is done with non-governmental publications. The pages accessed from the links below will provide you with lists by disciplines of which agencies may have publications of use to your research.
Agencies by CSUSM Discipline
Lists of departments, agencies and bureaus that are likely to have materials of interest to the CSUSM researcher.Agencies by Hierarchy
This link shows where Federal agencies are placed within the judicial, administrative and legislative branches of government.California and San Diego Agencies
Links to State and regional government websites for California and smaller regional agencies.International and NGOs
Search engines for non-US governments and agencies such as the United Nations which are extra-governmental bodies.
As you write your paper, you'll need to cite passages and ideas from the sources you've found. Government materials require special formats, especially the legal materials. Refer to the appropriate manual (APA, MLA, Chicago) or ask at the Reference Help Desk to see The Complete Guide to Citing Government Information Resources: A Manual for Social Science & Business Research. Click here for a web page of links on citing Government Documents materials.
We'd like to hear from you!
Email us or call (760) 750-4348
