Documents and Microforms Collections and Services

Brooklyn College is a selective depository receiving 43% of available government publications. Our collection strengths are: census materials and demographics; criminal justice information; economic information; education; geology; health and human nutrition; international/foreign relations; law (federal and state statutes); Congressional materials (hearings, bills); and Supreme Court decisions.

Our holdings from 1976 to the present are included in the CUNY+ online catalog.  You may search CUNY+ by author, title, subject or keyword. Paper indices are available for older materials. We have a variety of indices including: the Cumulative Title Index to US Public Documents, 1789-1976; Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog of US Government Publications, 1900-1971; CIS Serial Set Index;  CIS Index to Congressional publications from 1970 to date; and the US Government Periodicals Index. Inquire at the Documents Desk for assistance with these and other finding aids.

A small collection of reference materials and statistical works are kept behind the Documents Desk. The remainder of the collection is on open stacks in the Documents room. If you cannot locate the material you want, ask at the Documents Desk for help. A small portion of the collection will be stored off campus during the Library Renovation project, these materials will be retrieved upon request.

Documents come in a variety of formats including: paper, microfiche, CD-ROMS and World Wide Web pages.

Web access is available in the Documents room. Web printing is available for ten cents per page or users may download material if they wish.

Microfiche materials can be read and copied in the Documents room. Photocopiers for print materials are available in the room as well.

A selection of documents on CD-ROM is available via campus workstations. Click on the CD-ROM icon to get a menu of available titles. Other specialized discs are available at the Documents Desk for library use and many titles may be borrowed for home or office use.

Some materials in the collection may be borrowed. Non-reference paper and electronic materials may be borrowed by members of the Brooklyn College community and its affiliates if they have general library borrowing privileges. Ask at the Documents Desk about materials you wish to borrow materials. 

Government Information Sites on the Web

We find the following Web sites to be particularly useful for locating and sorting through the vast amounts of government information on the Web.

Federal Information

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/ GPO Access

Start at the source.  GPO Access pulls together an enormous variety of government information in one unified site. Can be used to locate individual agency pages.

http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/index.html University of Michigan Documents Center

This is a page you can trust for up-to-date, well organized, comprehensive listings of available materials.

http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/news/extgovd.html

Browse Government Resources is brought to you by the Library of Congress and features links to US Federal sites, US State sites, US Politics and a selection of international government sites.

http://www.lib.memphis.edu/gpo/mig.htm
Uncle Sam MIGRATING GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
Want to find out if your favorite government publication is now available on the Web? Use this site to find out quickly and easily.

http://www.isu.edu/~woodstep/Subjects_1.html

The Meta-Subject Index to Government Information

A massive compilation of government information on the Web arranged by subject and host site. Not all are free, or the site may be limited to the host's affiliates, but it is an excellent way of identifying sources.

http://www.fedworld.gov/ FedWorld

This NTIS site is very good at identifying sources of government information but it is one of the few sites where some areas are restricted to subscribers or require payment for documents retrieved.

http://www.fedstats.gov/ FedStats

The Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy maintains this site to provide easy access to a full range of statistics and other information produced by more than 70 federal agencies for public use. Searchable by agency or program. Regional statistics are also available.

http://www.stat-usa.gov/ STAT-USA Internet

Databases     (Available on campus workstations only)  Stat-USA, a product of US Department of Commerce, has authoritative information from the federal government for the US business, economic and trade community and for anyone doing research in those areas. Databases are grouped by US and global data. Although sponsored by the Department of Commerce, data is not limited to information collected by it.

http://thomas.loc.gov THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet

Named in honor of the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, this Library of Congress run site provides access to:

• Bills
• The Congressional Record
• Congressional Advisory Board Reports
• The Legislative Process
• Legislative Branch Internet Sites
• US Government Internet Resources

Federal Agency Links

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces1406.html

http://ciir.cs.umass.edu/ciirdemo/ua/

Unified Agenda (Semiannual Regulatory Agenda)

Laws are put into practice via regulations. Twice a year federal agencies are required to publish regulatory information they are developing or have recently completed. The Federal Register publishes this information in April and October in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. It is available from the Government Printing Office site with an index that assumes a detailed knowledge of regulatory material. The University of Massachusetts' site offers more straightforward indexing with tables of agencies and a subject searching option.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl

USDA Nutrient Database  Gives detailed nutritional info on thousands of foods.

http://www.odci.gov/ The CIA

http://www.census.gov/population/www/index.html US Bureau of the Census Census data available online.

http://www.fbi.gov/library/megiddo/publicmegiddo.pdf Project Megiddo Report

FBI strategic assessment of the potential for domestic terrorism in the US undertaken in anticipation of or response to the arrival of the new millennium.

http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/graphics/index.htm The Immigration and Naturalization Service

http://travel.state.gov/passport_services.html Department of State Get your passport application or renewal forms online.

http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/forms_pubs/index.html Tax Forms Online The IRS comes to you, delivering forms and publications to your fingertips from their site.

New York State Information

http://www.state.ny.us/index.html New York State Government Page

Has links to agencies and some subject specific links. Linked sites vary greatly in the level of information offered.

http://www.state.ny.us/dob/pubs/official/f_official.html The 1999-2000 NYS Executive Budget 

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/ New York State Comptroller's Home Page

Does NYS owe you money? Find out by searching the Unclaimed Funds database at this site.

http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/toc.htm New York State Department of Health

Supports a wide variety of health related links from both consumer and practitioner perspectives. Also gives addresses for obtaining birth, death, marriage and divorce records.

http://www.senate.state.ny.us/ New York State Senate Everything you need to know about our legislature. Includes full-text of bios, bills, laws and reports, calendars, schedules, and our hard-to-find state constitution.

http://www.tax.state.ny.us/Forms/default.htm State Tax Forms

New York City Information

http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/serdir/html/pubs.html City Directory Publications Full-text of numerous city publications arranged by agency.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/dsc/nyc.html Columbia University Libraries Documents Service Center

Columbia University also has a well thought out collection of government and non-governmental sites. This page in particular gathers often elusive New York City specific information on the Web. For the main Columbia Government Document Service Center page go tohttp://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/dsc/dsc.html

http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/index.html NYC Transit Authority Information on routes and schedules for NYC Transit.

http://www.cfb.nyc.ny.us/index.htm NYC Campaign Finance Board Provides voter guides and other information about the electoral process.

http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/r.htm Voter Registration

Non-Governmental Sources of Government Information

Search Engines

http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/>
Yes, Yahoo.  Their breakdown of government information is user friendly and fairly comprehensive.

http://ciir2.cs.umass.edu/Govbot/
Sponsored by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the University of Massachusetts,  GovBot boasts links to more than a million US Government and military Web sites.

http://usgovsearch.northernlight.com/publibaccess/
This is a part free/part fee for service site with good resources.

http://www.google.com/unclesam
A new search engine which features a special government information component. 

http://www.govinfo.com
Gives you the General Services Information Center toll free number: 800-688-9889 TTD/TTY 800-326-2996.

Specialized Resources

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm
The Avalon Project
Yale Law School sponsors this online archive of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.
Full-text of the government proceedings and supporting materials.

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe
Lexis-Nexis (Available on campus workstations or at home via CUNY's proxy server)  By now Lexis-Nexis should be familiar to the Brooklyn College community. Its standard legal resources: Federal Case law, the US Code, the constitution, court rules, and an array of state legal resources, are easy to find. However, hidden in the Accounting, Auditing and Tax section are the ERISA Labor Letters from the  Department of Labor, the US Treasury regulations and a long run of the IRS Bulletin. All real assets for online researchers.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
The National Security Archive Home page
An independent non-governmental research institute and library located at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Founded in 1985 NSA is the world's largest non-governmental library of declassified documents. Using the latest in computerized indexing technology they make their huge collection available to researchers and the public. Using the declassified materials as a base they add auxiliary sources both primary and secondary to make "comprehensive collections of documents on specific topics." Check out their electronic briefing books.

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/history/links/get.htm?page=links_frame.htm
The St. Martin's Press Documents Collection 
Features an excellent sampling of primary sources from American history intended to be used in conjunction with their textbook, Politics of American Government, 2nd ed. Its selection of speeches, laws, Supreme Court cases, and items of international interest make it a must-have bookmark for those historical odds and ends that never seem to be where they should be when you're asked for them including: Roe v Wade, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Contract with America and many of the Federalist papers.

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