Government Documents Center

Notre Dame has been a depository for U.S. Government publications since 1883. The present Documents Center collection on the lower level of Hesburgh Library has over 800,000 publications received since January 1, 1968. These materials are arranged by Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification, and cover a broad spectrum of subjects. Access to governmental information at the local, state, federal,and international levels are freely available online. For more information, contact: Hesburgh Library Reference Desk: 631-6258 or 631-6259

Federal Information

  • USA.gov is the U.S. government's official web portal, USA.gov makes it easy for the public to get U.S. government information and services on the web.
  • FDsys provides online access to federal documents and publications released by the government printing office.
  • Google U.S. Government Documents searches Google for U.S. Government Documents

State Government Information

  • The official State of Indiana website provides government and other information about the state of Indiana.
  • The State of Michigan website provides Michigan government information.
  • Stats Indiana provides data from more than 100 federal and state agencies, along with commercial or private data sources. STATS Indiana is the statistical data utility for the State of Indiana, developed and maintained since 1985 by the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University's Kelly School of Business.

Tribal Government Information

City Government Information

Foreign Governments

International Organizations

Human Rights Information

 Other

  • CIA World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities. Includes maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.
  • GIS  information on local, state, and national mapping.
  • The Richard O'Melia Collection is a special collection of U.S. Congressional Investigations of Communism and Subversive Activities, 1918-1956.
  • United States Patent and Trademark Office provides access to issued patents' full-text (since 1976) and full-page image (since 1790).
  • European Patent Office provides data on 50 million patents from 71 countries worldwide as of February 2005. Esp@cenet also provides full-text searching of US patents from 1920 - present.
  • Japan Patent Office - Industrial Property Digital Library (IPDL) provides public access to IP Gazettes of the JPO, including patents, applications and specifications.

"This library is a congressionally designated depository for U.S. Government documents. Public access to the government documents collection is guaranteed by public law. (Title 44 United States Code)"