LibGuides: Subject Guides for Websites: FEDERAL DOCUMENTS

FEDERAL DOCUMENTS (Government & Law)

The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, & Diplomacy
• https://avalon.law.yale.edu/
• Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale University
• .edu
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Provides access to digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. Includes documents from ancient history to the present. May search by keywords, or browse by time periods or alphabetically by title of document collection.
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
• http://catalog.gpo.gov/F
• U.S. Government Printing Office
• .gov
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Provides an index of government publications issued by the GPO since January 1976. Includes descriptive records for historical and current publications and provides direct links to those that are available online. Also offers the option to find a nearby Federal Depository Library.
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Annual Edition
• http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR
• U.S. Government Printing Office
• .gov
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The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) annual edition is a codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the Federal Government.
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR)
• http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/ECFR?page=browse
• Office of the Federal Register (OFR), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
• .gov
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The e-CFR is a currently updated version of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). It is not an official legal edition of the CFR. The e-CFR is an editorial compilation of CFR material and Federal Register amendments. The OFR updates the material in the e-CFR on a daily basis.
Federal Digital System - FDsys
• http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/home.action
• U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO)
• .gov
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Provides free online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Allows advanced search features, retrieval by citation, and browsing by collections such as: Budget of the US Government, Code of Federal Regulations, Public and Private Laws, Congressional Bills, etc.
Federal Register
• http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=FR
• US Government Printing Office
• .gov
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The Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents.
Historical Documents - Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)
• https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments
• Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs
United States Department of State
• .gov
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The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.
Government Documents A-to-Z Digitization Project
• http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/ATOZ/
• UNT Digital Library, University of North Texas
• .edu
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Offers access to digitized pre-1960 government documents. The project is being done alphabetically, starting with the call number A, which includes agricultural documents. It also contains vintage War Department field manuals and technical manuals, Has a total of 62,515 unique items.
LLSDC Legislative Source Book
• http://www.llsdc.org/sourcebook/
• Law Librarians Society of Washington, D.C. (LLSDC)
• .org
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Provides includes links to Internet and online sources of legislative and regulatory information, links to House and Senate documents and hearings, and legislative telephone numbers.
Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports
• https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/
• Federation of American Scientists; maintained by Steven Aftergood
• .org
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Provides access to Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that are already in the public domain. The Congressional Research Service is a publically funded "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events.
Oyez - U.S. Supreme Court Media
• http://www.oyez.org/
• Hosted by Chicago-Kent College of Law
• .org
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Provides a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since October 1955, provides information on all justices, offers a virtual reality tour of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices, and provides links to latest stories from OyezToday.
The Public Library of Law - PLOL
• http://www.plol.org
• Fastcase (an American company)
• .org
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Provides free access to cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals, cases from all 50 states back to 1997, Federal statutory law and codes from all 50 states, regulations, court rules, constitutions, etc. Also provides links to paid content on Fastcase, the creator and sponsor of the PLoL.

Last update: 8/11/2021

Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a variation of Google. It is designed specifically for scholarly literature searches.

Advantages

It’s free to use.
It has a simple, familiar interface that works much like regular Google.
It finds scholarly books, articles, and conference papers from a wide range of disciplines.

Disadvantages

Coverage is not comprehensive. It is a good first place to start researching a paper, but not comprehensive enough to be the only place you look.
Criteria used for selecting “scholarly” materials is not given. Search results can be a mixture of articles and books as well as unpublished manuscripts, course syllabi, and high school term papers, so you must critically evaluate what you find.
Results are not always full-text or free like regular Google. Often the link for an article will take you to the publishers website where the full article is available only if you buy it.