Online Resources - GC & Beyond
- Census.govVast repository of current and historical information on the U.S., including population, the economy, housing, foreign trade, business statistics, geography and maps, government statistics, and more.
- U.S. Census of Population: 1950: A Collection in HathiTrustReleased by the National Archives (NARA) on April 1, 2022, the U.S. Census of Population from 1950 encompasses 6.4 million pages digitized from 6,373 microfilm census rolls. The HathiTrust Federal Documents Advisory Committee curated a complete collection of digitized published reports from the 1950 census of population that can inform research within the primary source materials provided by NARA. Read more about the collection.
- Congress.govThe official website for U.S. federal legislative information from the Library of Congress.
- Congressional Documents Online (Rutgers)A full-text archive of selected documents of the U.S. Congress from the collection of the Rutgers - Camden School of Law. Hearings and Committee Prints included in this online collection date from the 1970's to 1999. Additional hearings and documents harvested from the GPO websites from 2000 forward are also included as well.
- Congressional Hearing TranscriptsTips from the Library of Congress on finding testimony before Congress.
- Democracy's LibraryDemocracy's Library brings together more than 700 collections from over 50 government organizations, archived by the Internet Archive since 2006. This growing collection contains more than half a million documents from local, regional, and national governments.
- Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) Research GuidesResearch guides on government resources from the FDLP covering a wide variety of subjects with source lists and search tips. The site also includes links to guides contributed by other government agencies and academic libraries. Topics include a weekly round-up of government information, social work resources, and government issued comics, prints, and posters.
- Foreign Relations of the United States"Presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity. Produced by the State Department's Office of the Historian, the series began in 1861 and now comprises more than 450 individual volumes. The volumes published over the last two decades increasingly contain declassified records from all the foreign affairs agencies."
- FRASER"FRASER is a digital library of U.S. economic, financial, and banking history—particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System."
- GovInfoA service of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) providing free public access to official publications from the Federal Government.
- Infoshare This link opens in a new window
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Population statistics, immigration trends, socio-economic indicators, birth and death data, hospitalizations, local trade data, and other demographic information about New York City drawn from city, state, and federal sources. Profile or compare areas across the city and state, or use the raw data to create customized tables. - Law Library Microfilm Consortium This link opens in a new window
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LLMC Digital includes thousands of digitized historical legal and government documents, including federal, state, and territorial governments of the U.S., and government publications from Canada, the U.K., Germany, and other countries. It also includes collections of Indigenous law, international law, and multi-jurisdictional special focus collections, such as Roman law, Islamic law, and Canon law. These materials should be of particular interest to researchers in history, political science, and sociology.
- NYC Data - Baruch Research Guide"Learn where to access statistical data for the neighborhoods and boroughs of New York City."
- PAIS Index - International and Archive This link opens in a new window
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Bibliographic citations from international sources including journals, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more, covering public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general from 1915 to the present.
- Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 1929-1932, 1945-2013"Compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, the PPP began in 1957. ... Each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events. In instances when the release date differs from the date of the document itself, that fact is shown in the textnote." Read more about the online edition. Print volumes are available at the New York Public Library.
- Reclaim The RecordsA not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and journalists that works to identify important genealogical record sets that are not online anywhere and not broadly available to the public. They use state Freedom of Information laws to force government agencies and archives to make these records available to the public. Since their founding in 2015, they have won the release of tens of millions of records, which they have digitized and uploaded to the Internet Archive and other Open Data websites.
- U.S. Declassified Documents Online This link opens in a new window
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Declassified executive branch documents from presidential libraries and executive agencies consisting of intelligence studies, policy papers, diplomatic correspondence, cabinet meeting minutes, briefing materials, and domestic surveillance and military reports. This digital collection began as the Declassified Documents Reference System (DDRS) on microfiche and fills a gap in post-World War II domestic and foreign policy studies.
Government Document Research Guides
Following are research guides from a variety of sources that will help you find federal, state, and local government information in print, on microfilm, and online.
Encyclopedia of United States Foreign Relations
Encyclopedia of U. S. Foreign Relations by Call Number: GC Reference E 183.7 .E53 1997ISBN: 0195110552Publication Date: 1997-03-13
Government Data & Statistics
Governments at every level -- Federal, State, County and City -- collect reams of data. See the Statistics & Data tab in this research guide for additional sources of government information.
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications "is the finding tool for federal publications that includes descriptive information for historical and current publications as well as direct links to the full document, when available. Users can search by authoring agency, title, subject, and general keywords, or click on "Advanced Search" for more options."
Public Records
Federal, state, and local government records, including birth certificates, marriage and divorce certificates, death certificates, and census records are invaluable for genealogical and historical research into the lives of individuals and families. Following are resources to help you get started:
Reclaim The Records is a not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and open government advocates who sue government agencies and archives to obtain access to public records. Reclaim The Records digitizes everything they win and posts it online for free for all to use without restrictions. They have so far made available indexes to birth, marriage, and death indexes in several states, including New York and New Jersey. And they have multiple outstanding FOIA requests for nationwide records and state-level records across the U.S.
Everyone Counts: Using the Census in Genealogy Research - A very helpful research guide from the New York Public Library. Also see the NYPL's guide on Conducting Genealogical Research Using Newspapers for further search strategies.