A number of Federal agencies provide access to their own publications in their own catalogs or search systems. Many are actively digitizing historical and current publications and making available online versions. Searching agency catalogs may be necessary to locate titles not retrieved by search engines.
The official online guide to Federal government information and services includes an A-Z index of departments and agencies. The entries provide brief descriptions and website links.
The home of the U.S. Government’s open data
Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more.
Govinfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch. Successor to GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) in 2018, Govinfo provides public access to government information submitted by Congress and Federal agencies on a site committed to preservation, authentication, and permanent public access to selected government information in a trusted repository.
In addition to providing an advanced, metadata-powered search experience, govinfo also includes a content management system and a standards-compliant preservation repository; see https://www.govinfo.gov/about
“Science.gov is a gateway to U.S. government science information. The portal offers free access to research and development (R&D) results and scientific and technical information from scientific organizations across 13 federal agencies.
Science.gov makes it possible for users to search over 60 databases, over 2,200 websites, and over 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information in many formats, including full-text documents, citations, scientific data supporting federally funded research, and multimedia.”-- https://www.science.gov/about.html
DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center)
“DTIC's mission is 'to aggregate and fuse science and technology data to rapidly, accurately and reliably deliver the knowledge needed to develop the next generation of technologies to support our Warfighters and help ensure national security.'
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) has served the information needs of the defense community for more than 75 years.” -- https://discover.dtic.mil/about/
ERDC: Professional Library Services
Professional Library Services Technical publications from the Army Corps of Engineers' Engineer Research and Development Center. Includes ERDC Digital Reports and allows for searching by limiting to one or more of these units: Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL); Cold Regions Engineering and Research Laboratory (CRREL); Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL); Environmental Laboratory (EL); Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory (GSL); Information Technology Laboratory (ITL); and the Topographic Engineering Center (TEC).
Catalog of U.S. Government Publication (CGP)
“The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) is the search tool for print and electronic titles of the National Bibliography of U.S. Government Publications. The National Bibliography is made up of publications from across the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the U.S. Government.
In this resource you will find bibliographic information about publications and links to digital publications when available. It is important to remember the CGP is a bibliography, not a document repository. The CGP will only provide links to full-text resources that are the official, authoritative copy of an electronic resource." -- CGP About page.
As of March 2022, the CGP features:
The CGP offers multiple searching options and features including advanced, expert, and browse modes; date, format, and language limits; specialized catalog filters, such as for ebooks, electronic titles, serials, and archived websites; and reports of new titles in several categories, for example electronic versions, ebooks, serials, and integrating resources.
This directory provides links to the catalogs of Federal Depository Libraries. The directory is searchable by many criteria, including by state, keyword, depository type, library type, and library size.
An online directory of libraries on the Web created by library technology consultant and expert Marshall Breeding. "Library Technology Guides provides comprehensive and objective information surrounding the many different types of technology products and services used by libraries. It covers the organizations that develop and support library-oriented software and systems. The site offers extensive databases and document repositories to assist libraries as they consider new systems and is an essential resource for professionals in the field to stay current with new developments and trends."--https://librarytechnology.org/
The site contains the libraries.org database of the catalogs and systems used by thousands of libraries across the world.
HathiTrust Registry of U.S. Federal Government Documents, https://www.hathitrust.org/usdoc
Library of Congress Digital Collections
National Agricultural Library Digital Collections
“The National Agricultural Library Digital Collections (NALDC) offers an easy access to collection materials available in digital format. The NALDC offers rich searching, browsing and retrieval of digital materials and collections, and provides reliable, long-term online access to selected publications. NALDC includes historical publications, U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) research, and more.”-- https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/naldc/about.xhtml
National Library of Medicine Digital Collections
“Digital Collections is the National Library of Medicine's free online repository of biomedical resources including books, still images, videos, and maps. All of the content in Digital Collections is freely available worldwide and, unless otherwise indicated, in the public domain. Digital Collections provides unique access to NLM's rich resources.”-- https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/
National Ocean Service Bathymetric & Fishing Maps
Maps are available for download as scanned images. While the preview files open readily, some of the full size map files are very large and are zipped to assist in downloading.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
The National Marine Fisheries Service Scientific Publications Office offers Publication & Reference Links.
National Park Service, NPGallery
“The NPGallery Digital Asset Management System is an enterprise system for managing NPS digital media including photos, documents, drawings, audio, video, maps, and GIS images. With both public and NPS-only web portals, NPGallery supports parks and programs with digital asset hosting and delivery services. NPGallery supports web services, support for embedded metadata, and integrated geospatial capabilities.”-- https://npgallery.nps.gov/About/
National Technical Report Library (NTRL)
"The NTRL fills a recognized void in access to a large collection of historical and current government technical reports that exists in many academic, public, government, and corporate libraries. Search 3 million+ titles with links to over 800,000 full text in PDF."--https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/aboutus.xhtml
National Transportation Safety Board
NTSB reports include safety studies and special reports and accident investigations that can be browsed by topic: Aviation; Hazardous Materials; Highway; Marine; Pipeline; and Railroad.
Since January 17, 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency's National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP) includes EPA's National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS) database, with more than 26,000 digital titles available for download at no charge. Site includes an explanation of EPA's Publication Numbering System.
NTRS: NASA Technical Report Server
Provides access to aerospace-related citations, full-text online documents, and images and videos. The types of information include: conference papers, journal articles, meeting papers, patents, research reports, images, movies, and technical videos – scientific and technical information (STI) created or funded by NASA. Includes the NACA Collection, NASA Collection, and NIX Collection in one search interface.
SciTech Connect : DOE Scientific and Technical Information
Provides free public access to full-text documents and bibliographic citations of Department of Energy (DOE) research report literature. Contains documents produced by DOE, the DOE contractor community, and/or DOE grantees. Legacy documents are added as they become available in electronic format.
“SciTech Connect is a portal to free, publicly-available DOE-sponsored R&D results including technical reports, bibliographic citations, journal articles, conference papers, books, multimedia, software, and data information, and was developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) to increase access to science, technology, and engineering research information from DOE and its predecessor agencies.”-- https://www.osti.gov/scitech/about
Smithsonian Collections Search Center
“The Smithsonian Collections Search Center is an online catalog containing most of Smithsonian major collections from our museums, archives, libraries, and research units. There are 9.9 million catalog records relating to areas for Art & Design, History & Culture, and Science & Technology with over 1.6 million images, videos, audio files, podcasts, blog posts and electronic journals.”--http://collections.si.edu/search/about.htm
“The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) identifies, acquires, catalogs, digitizes and provides unrestricted access to U.S. government agency technical reports. TRAIL currently consists of over three dozen member institutions whose annual membership fees and volunteered staff time further the efforts of the project.”-- http://www.crl.edu/grn/trail/about-trail
Treesearch is an online system for locating and delivering publications by Research and Development scientists in the United States Forest Service.
TRIS is a bibliographic database funded by sponsors of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), primarily the state departments of transportation and selected federal transportation agencies. TRIS Online is hosted by the National Transportation Library under a cooperative agreement between the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and TRB. Users may search the National Transportation Library, its NTL Digital Repository, and the Transportation Research Thesaurus.
The Publications Warehouse of the United States Geological Survey includes: Bibliographic citations for over 100,000 publications; Full product and thematic map content for over 40,000 publications; and USGS numbered series begun in 1880.