What are government resources?
Government resources include any official online or print publication from a government agency. Government resources may be published by any governmental entity from city agencies to international agencies. While laws and codes may immediately come to mind when thinking about government resources, other important government resources include:
Why would I use government resources in my research?
While those involved in the law and government are certainly heavy users of government resources, government resources are useful for almost all disciplines.
Auraria Library is a Federal Depository Library, which means that it promotes access to U.S. federal documents to the public for no cost.
While Auraria Library still keeps some important and noteworthy government publications in print, most government resources are now available online. Because most government resources are available online for free, you can use a search engine, such as Google to access much of the information (see box below). However, you can also use Auraria library's catalog and search tools to find government resources as well (see links immediately below).
Government websites can sometimes be frustrating to use and occasionally it's easier to find government information by using a search engine such as Google. Use the tricks below then also add keywords to describe your topic and/or type of resource you are looking for.
Limiting by URL Domain: site:gov
With this, you can limit your search to websites that end in "gov," which are typically U.S. (federal, state, and city) government websites. You can also limit by other domains such as .edu (educational institutions) or .org (associations or organizations).
Limiting by Filetype: filetype:pdf
Many government publications are in PDF format and this allows you to limit to PDFs. You can also limit by other filetypes such as .ppt (PowerPoints), .xls (Excel), and .doc (Word documents).
Example Search: site:gov filetype:pdf education statistics
