Government information is a rich and vital primary information resource for researchers across the academic disciplines. The Stanford Libraries takes pride in its collections of government information from US Government agencies, CA state agencies and intergovernmental- and non-governmental organizations like the United Nations and its community of organizations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and many others. Note that Stanford has been a US Depository since 1895!
Over the past several years, much headway has been made on digital access to government information, making it much easier for Stanford faculty, students, researchers and staff to gain access to this rich information environment. This headway has come from both commercial information providers like LexisNexis as well as non-profit/government organizations like the Federal Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and the Stanford Libraries.
Below are a few new US government databases and digital resources that are now available to the Stanford community. For additional digital government information available to Stanford, see Intergovernmental and Nongovernmental Digital Resources and Data and Statistical E-Resources in this issue.
All these databases are available via the Stanford Libraries' databases page.
Congressional Research Digital Collection
Over the past year, Stanford Library has purchased the Congressional Research Digital Collection (CRDC) for LexisNexis Congressional Publications database, making this database even more comprehensive in coverage of historical and contemporary Congressional publications.
The CRDC includes 3 modules:
- Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports,
- Committee Prints, and
- Miscellaneous Congressional Publications.
These three modules are searchable from the main interface, and are indexed together with the other modules (House and Senate reports and documents, Hearings, legislative histories), making it quick and easy to access this rich treasure trove of Congressional information.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports (1916 - Present): The Congressional Research Service (CRS) was established within the Library of Congress to provide members, committees, and congressional staff with nonpartisan and objective research and analysis on all public policy issues. However, CRS Reports were never made public or distributed to Federal Depository Libraries. (Stanford has been a depository since 1895.) Some were sold by private publishers and LexisNexis sold a small percentage in their microfiche collection, CRS Major Studies and Issue Briefs. Because of this historical anomaly, these valuable reports were difficult to find until now.
Currently, the CRS research divisions are: American Law; Domestic Social Policy; Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade; Government and Finance; Knowledge Services; and Resources, Science and Industry. Many CRS reports are updated at varying intervals, so it is always important to note the exact date of issuance rather than just the title and the year of publication. CRS Reports are a valuable resource for PWR students through faculty and researchers in a wide range of subject areas.
Note: Since the advent of the Web, many researchers, libraries and non-profit organizations have attempted to make CRS Reports more accessible. Because of these efforts, digital CRS Reports are also freely available online at: OpenCRS and the University of North Texas CRS digital archive. They have also been harvested and collected by the Stanford Libraries.
Committee Prints and Miscellaneous Congressional Publications (1830 - Present): The official committee prints publication category began when committees started to issue printed versions of their own internal working papers.
Today, committee prints can contain anything relevant to the legislative and oversight functions of Congress and include a wide variety of publications approved and issued by committees or portions of committees, such as Committee rules and calendars, Compilations of laws, Transcripts of markup sessions or other proceedings, research materials published on official committee Web sites, majority and minority staff reports, certain joint committee reports and newsletters, Legislative descriptions and analyses, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe newsletters, certain special commission reports, CBO reports, and OTA reports.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports (1947 - 1974)"
FBIS was created by the US Intelligence community to monitor, translate and disseminate openly available foreign mass media transmitted by radio, TV and print. FBIS is translated into English from more than 50 languages.
The Stanford Libraries currently has access to FBIS from 1974-1996 via Readex/Newsbank. Over the next year, Readex will be loading newly digitized FBIS content to extend this resource back to FBIS' beginning in 1947.
Note: In 1996, FBIS changed its name to the World News Connection for which Stanford Libraries also has a subscription.
Department of Energy's Information Bridge (1991 - Present)
The Information Bridge is a freely available database that provides access to over 210,000 full-text documents and bibliographic citations of Department of Energy (DOE) research report literature in physics, chemistry, materials, biology, environmental cleanup, energy technologies, and other topics. The Information Bridge includes the full-text and bibliographic records of DOE-sponsored report literature produced by the DOE and DOE contractor research and development community. Users can also embed the Information Bridge widget in their blogs or Web sites.
Science Accelerator
Science Accelerator provides a federated search across the scientific resources developed and maintained by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) including the collected resources of the Department of Energy (DOE). Science Accelerator searches across DOE and Federal R&D accomplishments and project summaries, patents, the Energy Citations Database, the Energy Science and Technology Software Center, Energy Files, Information Bridge and OSTI's Science Conference Proceedings database.
Please contact James Jacobs ( jrjacobs@stanford.edu) for questions, reference needs, comments or collection suggestions.
