U.S. Government Documents in the Library
Unpublished Federal documents are acquired, organized, and stored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). The NARA, as the name suggests, is an archive, and organizes documents, like other archives, by provenance. In the case of the NARA, provenance generally means originating agency.
Published Federal documents are distributed to libraries through the Federal Depository Library Program, and can be identified using the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications and also through library catalogs. These documents are published by the Government Printing Office (GPO), which is the largest publisher in the world.
For more help finding government documents, contact the Government Documents Librarian, Sanga Sung.
Major Collections
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American State PapersU.S. congressional materials, 1789 through 1838. Generally regarded as the unofficial predecessor to the United States Congressional Serial Set, though the two overlap chronologically somewhat.
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United States Congressional Serial SetA collection of Congressional "Reports" and "Documents". A Congressional Report is an official report to the House of Representatives or the Senate, issued by a House or Senate committee, usually related to legislation about to be considered by Congress. Congressional Documents, on the other hand, are typically reports to Congress by Executive Branch departments, but can also include documents received by Congress from other sources. Congress began publishing the Serial Set in 1817. The predecessor to the Serial Set was the National State Papers of the United States, also known as the American State Papers. The American State Papers cover the years 1789-1817, and then were published alongside the Serial Set until 1838. The Serial Set and the American State Papers are also available through ProQuest Congressional. ProQuest Congressional's version of the Serial Set includes the most recent volumes, whereas the version linked above (Readex) ends with the volumes for the 96th Congress in 1980.
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United States Congressional Record and Its Predecessors Permanent Digital Collection, 1789-presentIn ProQuest Congressional (for best results, choose the "Congressional Record Only" search tab). The Congressional Record, which began publication in 1873, is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. Its predecessors were the Annals of Congress (1789-1824), the Register of Debates (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873). The Hein Online Congressional Documents Library has a slightly more-extensive collection: the Journals of the Continental Congress (1774-1789), the Annals of the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1825-1837), the Congressional Globe (1833-1873), the Congressional Record (1873-present), and the Congressional Record Daily (1980-present, updated daily). Part of ProQuest Congressional: navigate to "Advanced Search" and select the file "Congressional Record".
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United States Bills and Laws, 1789-presentAll public and private bills and resolutions of the United States Congress. Previously called "Digital U.S. Bills and Resolutions". Part of ProQuest Congressional. Navigate to "Advanced Search" and select file "Bills and Laws".
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United States Congressional ResearchPart of ProQuest Congressional. Combines two separate files: CRS Reports, 1916-present; and Committee Prints, 1830-present. CRS Reports are produced by the Congressional Research Service, an official arm of the United States Congress, in response to requests from Congress. Committee Prints are studies and reports produced for specific Congressional committees. Both CRS Reports and Committee Prints are used to support Congressmen and Congresswomen in their legislative work. Part of ProQuest Congressional. Navigate to "Advanced Search" and select file "CRS Reports".
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United States Congressional Hearings Digital Collection, 1824-presentBoth the published and unpublished hearings, which includes transcripts of spoken testimony, written statements of witnesses, reports, exhibits, correspondence, or other material submitted by interested parties. Hearings are held by Congressional committees as a way of collecting the information needed to inform decision making. Part of ProQuest Congressional. Navigate to "Advanced Search" and select the file "Hearings".
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Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations, 1789-presentExecutive orders and proclamations are legal instruments, and as such carry the force of law. Part of ProQuest Congressional. Navigate to "Advanced Search" and select file "Presidential Materials".
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Executive Branch Documents, 1789-1939Issued in two modules, the first module covers United States Executive Branch publications from 1789 to 1932 (not already printed in the U.S. Serial Set). The second module extends coverage to 1939. Part of ProQuest Congressional. Navigate to "Advanced Search" and select file "Executive Branch".
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United States Supreme Court Library (HeinOnline)Centerpiece of this collection is a complete run of the United States Reports, which is the official, published version of all Supreme Court rulings. Expect a lag of several years between a ruling and its final, published form. After the Court rules on a case, the ruling is issued (within several days) as a numbered "Slip Opinion." These slip opinions are eventually compiled and published as Preliminary Prints prior to their final publication in the U.S. Reports. The Hein Supreme Court Library also includes a large collection of books and periodicals on the Court and its rulings.
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Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978Almost 150,000 Supreme Court cases are featured, the majority consisting of those for which the Court did not give a full opinion. Digitized from the holdings of the Jenkins Memorial Law Library, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the the Library of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
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Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600-1926Unofficially published accounts of trials; official trial documents, briefs and arguments; and official records of legislative proceedings, administrative proceedings and arbitrations that document Anglo-American trials, with coverage of the British Empire. Digitized from the collections at Harvard University, Yale University, and the Bar of the City of New York.
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HeinOnlineMajor collection of government documents, including documents of the states, federal U.S. documents (statutory law, administrative law, case law), documents of foreign countries, international law, and more. Also includes a large collection of legal periodicals.
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LLMC (Law Library Microform Consortium) Digital LibraryHistorical record of statutory, administrative, and case law for U.S. federal government, states, and territories.
Government Documents: Executive Branch: Justice Department
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FBI Records: The VaultA large collection of the files and records most recently requested by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Examples: Weather Underground, Black Panther Party, Dorothy Day, Mississippi Burning, Elijah Muhammad, and more. Suspected communists and socialists were frequently investigated.
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Amerasia Affair, China, and Postwar Anti-Communist FervorTRIAL. FBI documents on the investigation that led to the arrest of six people in 1945 on suspicion of espionage. Part of Archives Unbound.
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America in Protest: Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations, The Vietnam Veterans Against the WarTRIAL. FBI records on the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Digitized from the microfilm set America in Protest, Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations, Part 1: Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 1968-1975. Part of Archives Unbound.
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American Indian Movement and Native American Radicalism1968-1979 . FBI Files on the American Indian Movement and Wounded Knee. Digitized from the 26 reel microfilm collection, FBI Files on the American Indian Movement and Wounded Knee. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Black Liberation Army and the Program of Armed StruggleTRIAL. FBI records on the Black Liberation Army (BLA), from the period 1970-1983. Part of Archives Unbound.
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FBI File on the American Churchwomen Killed in El Salvador, December 1980U.S. State Department, FBI, and El Salvadoran government memoranda, correspondence, specimen analyses, photographs of weapons, field reports, newspaper clippings, witness statements, and polygraph examination reports, as well as information requests made by the victims' families to both the U.S. and El Salvadoran governments. Part of Latin America and the Caribbean History.
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FBI Surveillance of James Forman and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 1961-1976TRIAL. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960sTRIAL. Digitized from the following microfilm sets: COINTELPRO: The Counterintelligence Program of the FBI; FBI File on Abbie Hoffman; FBI file on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina; FBI File on Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; FBI File on the Fire Bombing and Shooting at Kent State University; FBI Files on Malcolm X; FBI File: MIBURN (Mississippi Burning); FBI File on Muslim Mosque, Inc.; FBI File on the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU); FBI File on the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weatherman Underground Organization; FBI File on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and FBI Investigation File on Communist Infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984TRIAL. Digitized from the microfilm sets FBI File on A. Philip Randolph; FBI File on Adam Clayton Powell; COINTELPRO: Black Nationalist Hate Groups; FBI File on the Atlanta Child Murders (ATKID); FBI File on the Black Panther Party, North Carolina; FBI File on the Committee for Public Justice; FBI file on Elijah Muhammad; FBI File on the Highlander Folk School; FBI File on the KKK Murder of Viola Liuzzo; FBI File on Malcolm X; FBI File: MIBURN (Mississippi Burning); FBI File on the Moorish Science Temple of America; FBI File on the Murder of Lemuel Penn; FBI File on Muslim Mosque, Inc.; FBI File on the NAACP; FBI File on the National Negro Congress; FBI File on the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU); FBI File on Paul Robeson; FBI File on the Reverend Jesse Jackson; FBI File on Roy Wilkins; FBI File on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; FBI File on Thurgood Marshall; FBI File on W.E.B. Du Bois; FBI Investigation File on Communist Infiltration of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; FBI Surveillance File: Malcolm X; and FBI Investigation File on Marcus Garvey. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Federal Surveillance of the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño1941-1982. F.B.I. records. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Freedom Riders in the South, 1961TRIAL. Records from the FBI. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Grassroots Civil Rights & Social Activism: FBI Files on Benjamin J. Davis, Jr, 1941-1990TRIAL. Davis was an African American leader in the Communist Party. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Greensboro Massacre, 1979: Shootout between the American Nazis and the Communist Workers PartyTRIAL. Records from the FBI, ATF, and the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Hindu Conspiracy Cases: Activities of the Indian Independence Movement in the U.S., 1908-1933Records from the United States National Archives and Records Administration documenting efforts to revoke the citizenship of Indians naturalized as U.S. citizens, and to exclude Indians from admission to the United States. Digitized from NARA microfilm publication M1868: "Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney General records produced herein primarily concern the United States government's prosecution of [Indian] nationalists in the "Hindu Conspiracy Case" for violations of the Espionage Act (40 Stat. 217-231)." Part of Archives Unbound.
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James Meredith, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Integration of the University of Mississippi, 1961-1962TRIAL. FBI records on James Meredith. Includes selections from Meredith's correspondence from the period. Part of Archives Unbound.
Government Documents: Executive Branch: Foreign Relations
Listed here are documents of the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and any other arm of the Executive Branch involved in the conduct of foreign relations including war.
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Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUSA)1861-. Documentary history of U.S. foreign policy, organized by presidential administration. More recent volumes only available in print. Some individual volumes are cataloged separately in the Library's online catalog, e.g., Foreign relations of the United States, 1952-1954 Vol. X, Iran, 1951-1954 (327.73055 UN32F Education Library). Publication usually delayed about twenty years.
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Digital National Security ArchiveDeclassified government documents that cover U.S. policy decisions from post World War II through the 21st century.
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National Security Archive Electronic Briefing BooksDeclassified records drawn from the archives at George Washington University.
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CIA Electronic Reading RoomCollection of Central Intelligence Agency documents commonly requested by FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, historically significant CIA special collections, and CIA documents more than 25 years old.
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Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1995Cold War era open source intelligence. The JPRS was originally a unit of the Department of Commerce, but in the late 1960s was transferred to the CIA where it became part of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). The bulk of the collection comprises translations of technical reports from around the world, with an emphasis on publications of Communist and Third World nations. In addition to technical reports, the collection includes translated television and radio transcripts, translated newspaper and periodical articles, translated government documents, translated speeches, and translated books. Topics range from science, economics, the military, sociology and the environment to specific events like conferences, congresses, and symposia. For more information on the JPRS, see David Y. Allen's article, "Buried Treasure: The Translations of the Joint Publications Research Service" in Government Publications Review, March/April 1982.
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Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily ReportsCovering the period September 4, 1941 through 1996. The FBIS is a branch of the United States government that has operated variously under the Federal Communications Commission, the War Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Its purpose is to produce “open source intelligence” reports for the U.S. government. The agency monitors radio broadcasts, newspapers, and other publicly available news sources from around the world, and then transcribes and translates this news so that it may be used to inform American foreign policy. Sometimes news is translated in its entirety; sometimes it is summarized. In addition to news, the FBIS staff translate speeches, interviews, and other types of information sources. n addition to keyword searching, the collection also supports browsing by major historical events.
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JFK’s Foreign Affairs and International Crises, 1961-1963TRIAL. Digitized from the microfilm sets John F. Kennedy and Foreign Affairs, 1961-1963, Part 1: National Security Files, Section 1: Subject File; John F. Kennedy and Foreign Affairs, 1961-1963, Part 1: National Security Files, Section 2: Regional Security File; and John F. Kennedy and Foreign Affairs, 1961-1963, Part 1: National Security Files, Section 3: Departments and Agencies. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Other American States, 1910-1949Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Central America, 1911-1929Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Central America, 1911-1929 and Between Central America and Other States, 1910-1929Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Foreign Relations between Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944Digitized from the microfilm set, Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Foreign Relations Between the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944TRIAL. Digitized from the microfilm set, Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Latin America and the Caribbean States, 1930-1944. Part of Archives Unbound.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Affairs, U.S. and Bolivia, 1945-1959Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Brazil, 1945-1959Part of Latin America and Caribbean history.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Cuba, 1910-1929Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Guatemala, 1945-1959Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Haiti, 1910-1929Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Haiti, 1945-1959Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and Panama, 1910-1929Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, 1945-1959Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to Political Relations Between the United States and Nicaragua, 1910-1929Part of Latin America and Caribbean History.
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Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files, 1960-1969: Europe and Latin AmericaThe European files principally cover Germany and the Soviet Union. The Latin American files cover Cuba, Mexico, and Panama. Part of ProQuest History Vault.
Smaller Collections
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American Presidency ProjectA selected collection of the most important documents from collections of presidential papers. Includes: Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Washington through Taft; the Public Papers of the Presidents, Hoover to Obama; the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Carter through George W. Bush; the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, Obama. Project of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
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American Indian Law CollectionTreaties, federal statutes and regulations, federal case law, tribal codes, constitutions, and jurisprudence, much of it historical. Includes rare compilations edited by Felix S. Cohen that have never before been accessible online. Part of HeinOnline.
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American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899The actual documents listed in Steven Johnson's bibliography Guide to American Indian documents in the Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1899, a major reference work in the field of American Indian studies.
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Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal Government RecordsOnline access to 37 previously-microfilmed archival collections, including East St. Louis Riot of 1917; Martin Luther King Jr. FBI Files, Parts I and II; Black Workers in the Era of the Great Migration, 1916-1929; Several series of records on civil rights during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Bush administrations; and more.
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CQ Voting and Elections Collection1789-present. See also the two Electing the President collections in Archives Unbound for party platforms and other information.
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Electing the President: Proceedings of the Democratic National Conventions, 1832-1988TRIAL. Part of Archives Unbound. See also CQ voting and Elections Collection for statistical data and other information dating back to 1789.
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Electing the President: Proceedings of the Republican National Conventions, 1856-1988TRIAL. Part of Archives Unbound. See also CQ voting and Elections Collection for statistical data and other information dating back to 1789.