The U.S. Government publishes a vast amount of information each year. The various branches, departments, bureaus, etc., each have their own sets of information related to their mission. Using the tips below can help you navigate through and find what you're looking for more easily.
This guide is focused on finding federal government documents. For websites and databases for the State of North Dakota, go to North Dakota State Information by Subject.
The federal collection is organized according to the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) Number. SuDoc numbers begin with a capital letter or letters representing a government department or agency. (A - Agriculture Dept., C - Commerce Dept., ED - Education Dept., etc.)
The numbers that follow these letters represent the office of a particular department. For instance, all Forest Bureau publications will be given a number beginning with A 13. The numbers after the decimal point represent second and subsequent level offices.
In general, documents are shelved in alphabetical and numerical order.
C 3.24/8:
IN 23 C 3.25:
AF 48 NAS 1.2:
FR 76 NS 5: 100
This is not a decimal system. Numbers between punctuation are treated as individual whole numbers
D 1.2: EX 83
D 1.16: TO 75
D 1.23: NA 42
D 1.23/2: CR 76
and numbers precede letters.
C 61.12: 89-7
C 61.12: AM 32
Use the Advanced Search option and select Government Documents. When you select Government Documents you will have the option to narrow down your search by select all, federal or state documents.
The agencies listed below are a major portion of our collection.
A: Agriculture/ USDA. This will include the Forest Service, soil surveys, extension service and the Census of Agriculture.
D: The Department of Defense. This section includes the Army, Air Force and Navy. There are also large series of military histories, technical manuals, and reports. Materials from before the establishment of the Department of Defense in 1945 will be under W (War Department) and N (Navy).
E: The Department of Energy.
ED: Education Department
EP: Environmental protection Agency
HE: Health and Human Services Department
HH: Housing and Urban Development Department
HS: Homeland Security, includes ICE, FEMA.
I: Interior Department, includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, and the US Geological Survey
VA: Veterans Affairs Department
If you need the most current information, the agency website may be your best option. You can also search a government site in Google by using these terms for better results:
Site:.gov Adding this will search all .gov sites
If you know the agency website, you can include part of the url. Example: site:.cdc.gov will search all websites ending in cdc.gov.
Or go directly to any of the sites below!
GPO’s GovInfo provides free online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
US government resource for data, tools, and resources for research, application development, data visualizations design, etc.
Access data and digital content from the US Census Bureau.
Citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. May link to selected full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites.
