Government Resources

Links for government resources are arranged in three catagories:
1) Federal, 2) Washington State, & 3) Local

Federal

The U.S. Government created laws and programs for the dissemination of its publications beginning in early 19th century. Today, the Government's program involves over 1,300 depository libraries committed to free access to government information. Depository libraries have protected the public's right to know by collecting, organizing, and assisting users with government information. The closest and largest collection in our area resides at the Washington State Library (WSL) in Tumwater http://www.secstate.wa.gov/library/ . WSL provides no-fee access to hundreds of thousands of federal and state documents. In addition, another 20 public and academic libraries support government documents collections around the state.

Over the last decade many government documents have been published exclusively on the Web. Librarians in depository libraries are trying so solve multiple access problems associated with electronic publishing. These include archiving, which involves an effort to ensure reliable and permanent access to materials, and ìWeb scrubbingî involving the unpredictable removal of information.

The most useful finding aids for federal documents are:

Fed Stats. http://www.fedstats.gov/

Get access to statistics collected and published by more than 100 Federal agencies. Browse by topic or agency, or search using AND and OR Boolean operators; sub-expressions can be grouped using parenthesis. Use ? to truncate.

United States Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information. Energy, Science, & Technology Information Resource. http://www.osti.gov/index.html

The Office of Scientific and Technical Information acts as a database aggregator of interest to the scientific research community, academia, industry and the public. Search multiple collections simultaneously in the areas of chemistry, physics, energy, computer science, environmental science, engineering, mathematics, biology, medicine, and biotechnology, Use AND OR Boolean operators, and * to truncate terms. This site is most suitable for advanced undergraduates.

United States General Services Administration. Office of Citizen Services and Communications. USA.gov: Government made easy. 2007. http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml

Launched in September 2000, USA.gov is the U.S. Government's portal to 51 million pages of government information. USA.gov indexes Web sites but does not index print publications. Advanced search features allow you to use Boolean AND, OR, and NOT, however AND and OR may not be used in combination with each other--a definite drawback. Search in titles or full text, and you may limit retrieval to a particular URL, Phrase searching is also possible.

United States Government Printing Office. Catalog of U.S. Government Publications 1994- http://catalog.gpo.gov/

The Catalog is an index to both print and electronic publications created by Federal agencies. Coverage began in January 1994. To limit a search to items available online, add http to your search statement, e.g. forests AND http . Use Boolean operators AND OR and NOT, and use * to truncate terms. Advanced search features include a keyword or title search. Searching for authors and agency names can be executed as a keyword search.

University of Michigan Documents Center. Federal Government Resources on the Web. 2003. http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/federal.html

The Documents Center does and exemplary job of organizing materials and also provides a Google-driven search engine. Their ìWhat's Newî and ìDocuments in the Newsî sections both provide plenty of fodder for research topics.

Washington State

Washington Department of Information Services. Access Washington. 2005. http://access.wa.gov/

Access Washington provides a state agency directory as well as links to local government agencies. This is a great site for doing business with the state. Use it for such things as starting a business, obtaining licenses and permits, and paying taxes.

Washington State Legislature. n.d. http://www1.leg.wa.gov/Legislature/

View legislative calendars, track bills, or read current state laws and agency rules.

Washington State Library. Find-It! Washington . 2002. http://find-it.wa.gov/

WSL’s database has 500,000 records from Washington State, County, City and Regional government bodies. WSL uses Google technology for their search engine. AND is the default Boolean operator; enclose phrases in quotes. “Advanced” search features includes text boxes for searching all words, searching exact phrases, searching for some words, and excluding words. Truncation is automatic.

Washington State Library. Library Catalog . 2002. http://www.secstate.wa.gov/library/catalog.aspx

WSL's Library Catalog appears to index print documents only. The keyword search looks for terms within the title and subject fields. The title and subject searches are useful only if you know the title of a particular item, or the Library of Congress subject heading. Both state and Federal documents may be searched. Boolean AND, OR, and NOT are supported, and * will truncate terms, but unfortunately, the Catalog lacks any help to aid the searcher.

Local

City of Bremerton. City of Bremerton 2003. http://www.ci.bremerton.wa.us/

City of Poulsbo. City of Poulsbo 1998. http://cityofpoulsbo.com/

City of Shelton City of Shelton, Washington . 2004? http://ci.shelton.wa.us/

Kitsap County. Kitsap County, Washington.2004? http://www.kitsapgov.com/

Mason County. Mason County: Government Information and Services . 2004? http://www.co.mason.wa.us/

rev. 7 Feb. 2007 km