How to Search for Government Documents
Most government documents, whether federal, state, or international, are in the library catalog. The catalog should be the first place you start.
- Call numbers that have slashes or colons are U.S. government documents classified by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) classification system and can be found on the 2nd floor of Clapp Library, toward the fountain. For example: HE 20.3152:M 84/2/950-80.
- Documents with locations that say Clapp Micro are microfiche and are housed on the 1st floor of Clapp Library in the long room with the microfilm, behind the open reserves area.
- Call numbers that say C.E. or U.N. Sales XIII 2003 1 are international documents and can be found on the 2nd floor of Clapp, next to the fountain windows.
If you don't find what you want in the Wellesley Library Catalog try the following sources. Resources in each row are roughly equivalent. Access to "Resources for the Wellesley College Community only" is through the Wellesley College Network; you must be on-campus to use them.
Resources for the Wellesley
College Community only |
Resources anyone can
use |
WorldCat for all government documents cataloged worldwide |
open WorldCat Catalog of U.S. Government Publications for print and electronic publications created by the Federal government. When available, links are provided to the full-text of these publications. Coverage begins with January 1976. New records are added daily. Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications. Clapp Docs Z1223 .A18 1895- (and various indexes) |
| Access UN for U.N. documents and reports, 1945 +
|
UNBISnet for U.N. documents and reports, 1979+ |
LexisNexis Congressional for U.S. bills, laws, regulations and some Congressional hearing testimony from 1988 onward LexisNexis Academic for federal and state court cases, the U.S. Code and state codes, and federal regulations, international legal materials and European Union cases and regulations |
GPO Access - full text of legislative, judicial, and executive agency documents Thomas (Library of Congress) for U.S. bills and laws Research Guides by Subject: Legal Resources - some databases only for Wellesley College users. |
Lexis Nexis Statistical for statistics produced by U.S. government agencies, international agencies, and private sources |
Research Guides by Subject: Statistics FedStats - gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. gov't agencies. |
| Virtual Federal Documents Collection - topical arrangement of links to U.S. government databases, educational and consumer information. | |
Google US Government - searches .gov and .mil Web sites. USA.gov - searches for federal, state, and local government information; consumer oriented. GovEngine.com - browsable directory of links to official federal, state, and local government sites. |