Laws, congressional hearings and reports, domestic and foreign policy documents, and statistical series are among the most commonly used categories of government documents. U.S. government documents are official publications of the United States government.
Below are examples of government agencies.
Government document collections can be found in libraries across the United States. In addition to Reed College, Portland State University and Multnomah County Library’s central branch, as well as several Orbis Cascade Alliance (Summit) libraries are particularly good sources of historical government documents in our region. Unfortunately, only small portions of these collections have been cataloged, so a search in the Reed catalog or in Summit will find only a fraction of the government documents that are available.
These specialized indexes and guides can be used to identify specific government documents. Contact a librarian for help in using them and in locating the public documents you need.
These links are to key data resources available from the federal government. When looking for reports, regulatory documents, or department-specific data you'll want to conduct additional searches at the department website.