The United States Government Publishing Office is an agency of the legislative branch of the United States Federal government. The office produces and distributes information products and services for all three branches of the Federal Government, including U.S. passports for the Department of State as well as the official publications of the Supreme Court, the Congress, the Executive Office of the President, executive departments, and independent agencies.
A work of the United States government is defined by the United States copyright law, as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties". Under section 105 of the Copyright Act of 1976, such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law and are therefore in the public domain.
The Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, is the United States federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased or uncirculated information and documents controlled by the U.S. government upon request. The act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and includes nine exemptions that define categories of information not subject to disclosure. The act was intended to make U.S. government agencies' functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the president to address them. The FOIA has been changed repeatedly by both the legislative and executive branches.
The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on federal holidays. The final rules promulgated by a federal agency and published in the Federal Register are ultimately reorganized by topic or subject matter and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is updated quarterly.
Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their publications to a repository, usually a library. The number of copies required varies from country to country. Typically, the national library is the primary repository of these copies. In some countries there is also a legal deposit requirement placed on the government, and it is required to send copies of documents to publicly accessible libraries.
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Index is updated daily online and published monthly. At the end of a session of Congress, the daily editions are compiled in bound volumes constituting the permanent edition. Chapter 9 of Title 44 of the United States Code authorizes publication of the Congressional Record.
The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) is a government program created to make U.S. federal government publications available to the public at no cost. As of April 2021, there are 1,114 depository libraries in the United States and its territories. A "government publication" is defined in the U.S. Code as "informational matter which is published as an individual document at Government expense, or as required by law".
The United States Statutes at Large, commonly referred to as the Statutes at Large and abbreviated Stat., are an official record of Acts of Congress and concurrent resolutions passed by the United States Congress.
A law library is a special library used by law students, lawyers, judges and their law clerks, historians, and other scholars of legal history in order to research the law. Law libraries are also used by people who draft or advocate for new laws, e.g. legislators and others who work in state government, local government, and legislative counsel offices or the U.S. Office of Law Revision Counsel and lobbying professionals. Self-represented, or pro se, litigants also use law libraries.
The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central reference and research library for state government and the Legislature. The California State Library advises, consults with and provides technical assistance to California's public libraries. It directs state and federal funds to support local public libraries and statewide library programs, including Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grants. The California State Library's mission is to serve as "...the state’s information hub, preserving California’s cultural heritage and connecting people, libraries and government to the resources and tools they need to succeed and to build a strong California." With the exception of the Sutro Library in the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University, the other three branches are located in Sacramento, California, at 914 Capitol Mall, 900 N Street and at the State Capitol.
The United States Congressional Serial Set began in 1817 as the official collection of reports and documents of the United States Congress. The collection was published in a "serial" fashion, hence its name. It has been described as the "nation's most treasured publication" and beloved by librarians as "part of their most valued holdings."
A United States congressional hearing is the principal formal method by which United States congressional committees collect and analyze information in the early stages of legislative policymaking. Whether confirmation hearings, legislative, oversight, investigative, or a combination of these, all hearings share common elements of preparation and conduct. Hearings usually include oral testimony from witnesses and questioning of the witnesses by members of Congress. George B. Galloway termed congressional hearings a goldmine of information for all the public problems of the United States. A leading authority on U.S. government publications has referred to the published hearings as "the most important publications originating within Congress." The Senate Library in a similar vein noted "Hearings are among the most important publications originating in Congress."
Title 44 of the United States Code outlines the role of public printing and documents in the United States Code.
The Energy Citations Database (ECD) was created in 2001 in order to make scientific literature citations, and electronic documents, publicly accessible from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and its predecessor agencies, at no cost to the user. This database also contains all the unclassified materials from Energy Research Abstracts. Classified materials are not available to the public. ECD does include the unclassified, unlimited distribution scientific and technical reports from the Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Energy Research and Development Administration. The database is usually updated twice per week.
The Government Documents Program is a part of the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The Libraries receives government publications from all levels of government, and from many areas around the world. The staff performs both technical and public service functions in an effort to make this resource of government information available to both the University of Florida community and the public at large; staff also have prepared LibGuides on various topics to assist patrons.
The copyright status of works produced by the governments of states, territories, and municipalities in the United States varies. Copyright law is federal in the United States. Federal law expressly denies U.S. copyright protection to two types of government works: works of the U.S. federal government itself, and all edicts of any government regardless of level or whether or not foreign. Other than addressing these "edicts of government", U.S. federal law does not address copyrights of U.S. state and local government.
The Printing Act of 1895 was a law designed to centralize in the United States Government Printing Office the printing, binding, and distribution of U.S. Government documents. The Act revised public printing laws and established the roles of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and the Government Printing Office (GPO) in distributing government information. The act also assigned leadership of the program to the Superintendent of Public Documents, who would be under the control of the GPO,
The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER) is a digital archive begun in 2004 by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to safeguard, preserve and provide easy access to the United States' economic history, particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System, through digitization of documents related to the U.S. financial system.
Federal Airport Act of 1946 is United States statute establishing a federal program for the development of civil aviation airports within the continental United States. The Act of Congress authorized federal grants to progressively evolve civil aviation bases. The public law mandates a national airport plan encompassing airport classifications as defined by the Civil Aeronautics Administration.
Superintendent of Documents Classification, commonly called as SuDocs or SuDoc, is a system of library classification developed and maintained by the United States Government Publishing Office. Unlike Library of Congress Classification, Dewey Decimal Classification, or Universal Decimal Classification, SuDocs is not a universal system. Rather, it is intended for use only with publications of the Federal Government of the United States. Also, SuDocs does not organize materials by subject, but by the agency that created those materials, making it a provenance-based or archival classification system.
