Library Guides: Government Information: Federal/U.S.

Federal / U.S. Government Information

Access to top Federal resources

General U.S. Government-Wide Web Sites

GovInfo This link opens in a new window
Provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Replaces GPO Access as the U.S. Government Printing Office's official system of record as well as GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys).

usa.gov
USA.gov is your online guide to government information and services.

Congressional Branch

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Abstracting and indexing of all government publications with full text for Congressional Hearings 1824 to present. Plus bill tracking and legislative histories, member profiles, research, and CIS index.

Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. This is a replacement for Thomas.
U.S. Senate
The framers of the Constitution created the United States Senate to protect the rights of individual states and to safeguard minority opinion in a federal system designed to give greater power to the national government. Equal representation in the Senate has provided all of the states, and their senators, the opportunity to exert great influence over national issues.
U.S. House of Representatives
The number of voting representatives in the House of Representatives is fixed by law at no more than 435, proportionally representing the population of the 50 states. Also referred to as a congressman or congresswoman, each representative is elected to a two-year term serving the people of a specific congressional district.

Executive Branch

GovInfo This link opens in a new window
Provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. Replaces GPO Access as the U.S. Government Printing Office's official system of record as well as GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys).

MetaLib
Government Publishing Office's federated search engine that searches multiple U.S. Federal government databases
White House
President George Washington selected the site for the White House in 1791. The "People's House" has been home to the U.S. Presidents since 1800.
A-Z Index of U.S. Government Agencies
Link from usa.gov provides a list of all Federal agencies.

Judicial Branch

Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and such number of Associate Justices as may be fixed by Congress. The number of Associate Justices is currently fixed at eight.
U.S. Courts
The U.S. Courts were created under Article III of the Constitution to administer justice fairly and impartially, within the jurisdiction established by the Constitution and Congress.

Help Using U.S. Collection at Mines

The Library Catalog contains records for approximately 75% of the federal government publications collections at the Arthur Lakes Library and should be used first to locate these items.
Prospector (regional catalog) can also be used to find additional government publications that may or may not be in the Arthur Lakes Library - those not in the Library can be requested through Prospector.

Library Catalog - Colorado School of Mines This link opens in a new window
The Library Catalog contains records for approximately 75% of the federal government publications collections at the Arthur Lakes Library and should be used first to locate these items.
Browse our virtual discovery collections:
Mines Authors
Diversity Collection
Sustainability Collection
Course Readings Collection
Prospector This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Prospector (regional catalog) can also be used to find additional government publications that may or may not be in the Arthur Lakes Library - those not in the Library can be requested through Prospector.

How to Locate Physical U.S. Government Publications at Mines

The Government Publications collections are located on the 1st Floor of the Arthur Lakes Library.

Library Floor Map

The Federal/U.S. print collection uses the SuDoc classification system. This system is designed to place together all of those publications published by the same federal government agency. The initial letter or letters of the call number signify the government agency responsible for publishing that document. All letters and combinations of letters are used except for the letter Z. The letters X and Y are used for Congressional publications.

I =Department of the Interior

The numbers following the letter(s) indicate the sub-agency within the larger agency.

Sub-agencies within the Department of the Interior

I 19. = U.S. Geological Survey
I 28. = Bureau of Mines
I 29. = National Park Service

A period follows these numbers. THIS IS NOT A DECIMAL POINT. The number following the period needs to be read as a WHOLE NUMBER. This whole number designates the type of publication.

Selected types of publications within the U.S. Geological Survey

I 19.1: = U.S. Geological Survey Annual Reports
I 19.3: = U.S. Geological Survey Bulletins
I 19.16: = U.S. Geological Survey Professional Papers
I 19.76: = U.S. Geological Survey Open Files Reports

Sometimes there are related series to already existing series. In order to have these related series filed together, a slash is used to indicate the relationship.

Selected U.S. Geological Survey related publications

I 19.3: = U.S. Geological Survey Bulletins
I 19.3/3: = U.S. Geological Survey. Water Resources Bulletins

Following the colon, there can be letters and numbers which usually indicate the title of the document or a designation for a year (1989=989 in this system).

Filing of U.S. government publications

The key phrase when looking for U.S. government publications in our collection is the "nothing before something" rule. For example, Interior publications (I) would file before International Trade Commission publications (ITC). Another crucial item is that the period is NOT A DECIMAL POINT and the numbers following the period need to be read a whole numbers. Finally, when looking for publications which differ in their classification number after the colon, the rule is DATE before LETTER before NUMBER before WORD. However, this does not apply to parts, volumes, sections, or revisions of the same publication. Below is a list of properly ordered U.S. government publications.

I 1.98:T 68
I 1.98:T 68/decision
I 1.98:T 68/draft
I 19.1:989
I 19.1:991
I 19.2:M 86
I 19.2:M 86/980
I 19.2:M 86/2
I 19.2:M 86/2/990
I 19.3:1134
I 19.3/3:657
I 19.14:990
I 19.14/4:987/5
I 19.14/4:987/7