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Introduction | Subjects Covered | Finding Government Information | How Arranged | Statistical Information | Suggested Federal Agencies & Publications | Suggested Illinois Agencies & Publications

Introduction

This website will focus on finding information that is created by a federal or state governmental agency. First off, I have a tendency to use the terms information, publications, and documents interchangeably. In this context they all mean the same thing -- stuff put out by the government. The UIS Library has a large print and microfiche collection of both federal and State of Illinois publications on Level 2, and they are kept separate from the rest of the book collection. The UIS Library receives around 30% of what the federal government distributes to libraries. We can pick and choose which agencies we want to receive publications from, and we concentrate in those subject areas we teach as well as those subjects that would be of use to the general public. And while UIS has only been around since 1970, we have a good historical collection as well as current. For State of Illinois documents, we receive everything that is disseminated.

The point of distributing government publications to libraries is to "Keep America Informed," meaning that as citizens in a democratic society, we have a right to access the information gathered at taxpayer expense. And we also need to know what they are doing in D.C. and state capitals, both in the sense of oversight and accountability, as well as we are required to know what the laws of the land are.

Subjects Covered

The federal government is one of the largest publishers in the world. According to the Government Printing Office (GPO) Fact Sheet, they distributed over 30.5 million print copies and another 372 million files were downloaded from their servers in 2002. They have around 9,000 different titles for sale.

The different agencies publish information on every subject imaginable. However, most of the publications are going to be related to law, legislation, public policy, economics, statistics, and the sciences. 

Some general types of information:

• Law & Legislation -- The federal government publishes pretty much everything that goes on publicly in Congress, from proposed Bills to Committee Hearings to Committee Reports to the Public Laws. What goes on on the House or Senate Floor is published in the Congressional Record. For more information on finding law and legislation, please see Find Federal Laws & Legislation or Find State of Illinois Laws & Legislation.
• Analysis of Legislation -- Various legislative and executive branch agencies will do reports on legislation or public policy issues and those are published. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) publishes tons of reports analyzing issues, usually related to fiscal matters. The Congressional Budget Office also does some analysis of policies, as well as budget forecasting. And the individual agencies will have reports on policy matters relating to them.
• Scientific Research -- Department of Justice and others all have scientists on staff who do research, and the agencies will publish their findings. These publications are supposed to be objective, scholarly sources of information.
• Consumer Information -- Various agencies will publish pamphlets or brochures aimed at the general public, such as the DEA or the FBI.
• Statistics -- Statistics play a big role in government information. See below for more information.
• How Wonderful We Are -- The agencies also publish information about who they are, what they do, and how they spend their budget. Each federal agency is required to write up an annual report that is sent to the President and Congress.

Finding Government Information

Brookens Library has both federal and State of Illinois government publications. Both the federal and state agencies have a lot of their recent publications online on the individual agency's websites. For the federal government, recent usually means starting around 1995. For the state, it's only the past few years. Our physical collection is shelved on Level 2, arranged by agency, and can be found when doing a search in PrairieCat.

• DOC = federal documents
• DOC.IL = Illinois documents

Whether you want federal or state publications depends on your issue. In general, the federal government will concern itself with national-level issues, while the state will have more local-level focus. (This becomes trickier when you are trying to figure out if the federal or state agency has the statistics you need...)

Suggestions

If you want recent information on your issue, try a search engine. But be prepared to be specific!

• FirstGov - official portal for the US Government; since no search engine covers every website, try Google's Unclesam as well.
• Find-It Illinois: Illinois Government Information - is a search engine specifically for state of Illinois websites, or you can try FirstGov and narrow to Illinois or another state.
• If you already know what agency would have info on your topic, then go to that agency and use their search box, or browse under headings such as publications, data, library, etc. See Suggested Agencies for links to relevant agencies.

If you want to get a sense of what's available, try using PrairieCat. (If you only care about Illinois, just add illinois as a keyword to your search.)

If you want to do a historical search, or do a more comprehensive search for federal publications, try GPO Index (1976-present; for older, try the Monthly Catalog, back to 19th century DOC GP 3.8, Level 2). If FirstSearch says we do not have the document, try searching the I-Share Catalog and remote request it.  Or the State Library is 95% likely to have a copy. (They get everything are are required to keep them all, while we only carries around 30% of what is disseminated, and we can discard publications we consider not worth keeping after we've had it for 5 years.)

If you want publications from other states, they would have to be Interlibrary Loaned (ILL'd). Most large academic libraries collect their state publications and catalog them, so they may be found in WorldCat.

If you are only interested in sources done or indexed by Department of Justice, try:

• National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database - Contains summaries of more than 160,000 criminal justice publications, including Federal, State, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research. May also search a database of 1500 full text reports.

How Arranged

One major difference with the federal and State of Illinois collections vs. the book collection -- they are arranged by the agency responsible for the publication, not by subject. So all the FBI publications are together on the shelves. Federal documents begin with DOC, then the call number, which is called SuDoc. State of Illinois documents begin with DOC.IL, then the call number. It's a different call number scheme than used with the books and journals. The letter(s) at the beginning stands for the main agency that wrote the document. Then the number right after the letter(s) tells you what office, branch, or bureau within the agency is responsible for it. Then there's a period, followed by more numbers, which tells you either the type of document it is, or what series the document is a part of. Then there's a colon, and the letters/numbers after the colon either stand for the date of the publication, the issue number, or the general subject of the document.

• List of major federal agencies call numbers & websites
• List of major State of Illinois agencies call numbers & websites

So let's say I have the following SuDoc number (made up) -- J 36.8:P 94/2/2002.

J stands for Department of Justice. J 36 would be the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services itself. The .8 tells me that this is a handbook or guide. (.1 is always used for annual reports. .2 is for general publications. Then eventually each series gets its own number.) Then after the colon is P 94 -- this tells us that the subject starts with a p, the /2 tells us that this is the 4th document given that exact call number, and /2002 tells us this is the 2002 edition of this document.

Statistical Information

General | Demographic or Population | Criminal Justice

The government compiles statistics on virtually everything, from agriculture to weather. Federal statistics on average either cover the nation as a whole, or break it up into regions, or the 50 states. State government agencies are the most likely source for county or city level data. The major exceptions to this rule are the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which do collect information down to the county and city level.

Each agency is responsible for collecting and disseminating statistics. There is no Department of Statistics. If you need statistical information, the first question to ask yourself is what agency would collect my data? Most of the time it is obvious. If you wanted statistics on reported income, you would go to an IRS publication. Sometimes it is not obvious. If you were looking for divorce statistics, you need to consult data from theNational Center for Health Statistics.

For more information see Find Federal Statistics or Find State of Illinois Statistics.

General

• FedStats - Federal government's centralized source for finding statistics online. Browse an A to Z subject list, or perform a keyword search; also provides links to the agencies' websites.
• Illinois Statistical Abstract (1997-present) [REF HC107.I3 I63, 1987-present] - General compilation of statistics, compiled by the Bureau of Economic & Business Research, and now the Institute of Government & Public Affairs, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• LexisNexis Statistical - Large database for finding statistical information. Also available in print as American Statistics Index [Doc Index Z7554.U5 A46 1974-1999]. Click Power Tables to search 25,000 statistical tables on a variety of topics. Click Abstracts to search sources of statistical information published since 1970 (if available online, a URL is provided, and cited data available in microfiche). Click Links for other suggested sources of statistical information online.
• Statistical Abstract of the United States [also DOC C 3.134: 1924-present] -  First place to look for statistics; published annually by Census Bureau with over 1500 tables of statistics gathered from all agencies and other organizations. Source at the bottom of each table, so if you cannot find exactly the information sought, at least you should be able to find out what agency will collect that particular data.

Demographic or Population Data

If you need to quickly look up figures, try:

• State & County (and City!) QuickFacts - down to cities (of populations of 25,000+), can download data in spreadsheet format (scroll down to the bottom of the table)
• "Enter a Street Address" - can generate tables from an address; remember that the smallest geographic unit you can get the social and economic characteristics is a Census Tract

If you need data for some other geography or a more complex search, you'll have to use American FactFinder Data Sets.

For more information, see Find Census Data.

Criminal Justice Statistics

• Bureau of Justice Statistics - Main agency that collects and disseminates statistics for the Department of Justice. Has a variety of data on their website.
• Crime in Illinois - annual report from the State Police; includes statistics
• Latest Federal Government Statistics: Crime - Quick access to the latest violent crime rates, national correctional populations, etc.
• Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online - Data from more than 100 sources about all aspects of criminal justice in the United States, which are displayed in over 600 tables. Updated regularly. 
• Uniform Crime Reports - Federal Bureau of Investigation's compilation of statistical data, including the annual Crime in the United States, a cooperative statistical effort of over 17,000 city, county, and state law enforcement agencies, Hate Crime Statistics, and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted.

Suggested Federal Government Agencies & Publications

Agencies | Databases | Publications | Statistics

Note: Some links are using the Government Printing Office's PURLs, or Persistent Uniform Resource Locators, rather than direct links to the federal agencies. This improves the links accuracy, in case the publication was moved to a different URL. However, it does take an extra few seconds to retrieve the website.

Federal Agencies

The federal agencies' websites are good starting points when looking for general information on a relevant topic, or when looking for specific information that you know the agency handles. Virtually all of the websites have a site index or a search engine, if you have difficulty navigating the site.

Databases

Selected Publications

Statistics

Suggested Illinois Government Agencies & Publications

Agencies, Board & Commissions | Publications & Statistics

Agencies, Boards & Commissions

The state agencies' websites are good starting points when looking for general information on a relevant topic, or when looking for specific information that you know the agency handles. Most of the websites have a site index or a search engine, if you have difficulty navigating the site.

Selected Publications & Statistics