Government Documents
Government Documents are an excellent resource to access primary sources for your research.
Government documents are published on behalf of government agencies, Congress, the president or the judiciary. They can be anything from a teacher’s education database to images and data sent from the James Webb Space Telescope. Examples of government documents include:
- Fact Sheets
- Research Reports
- Handbooks
- Manuals
- Presidential Papers
- Budgets
- Maps and Atlases
- Pamphlets
- Statistics
Resources
- Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (GPO’s online catalog)
- GovInfo (free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government)
- Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP)
- FDLP Partnerships
- State Agency Databases
- Statistics and Data for Topics in Government Information
- TRAIL: Texas Records and Information Locator
- Texas State Agency Databases (Publicly searchable databases from agencies of the State of Texas)
These resources will continue to be available to ASU students after graduation.
Access Additional Free Databases
Government Documents are part of the Research Support Unit of the Porter Henderson Library. Much of the collection exists online and may be found by searching RamCat on the library’s homepage. The print collections are housed in the basement.
The Library has been a selective depository for the Federal Depository Library Program since 1964 and a member of the Texas State Publications Depository Program since 1963. Budget cuts to the Texas State Library & Archives ended the state publication program in July 2011.
This library is a congressionally designated depository for U.S. Government documents. Public access to the government documents collection is guaranteed by public law. (Title 44 United States Code).