Guide purpose
This guide is intended to help users discover and access publications, data, and statistical programs produced governments. It is divided into three parts:
- State of California
- The United States Federal Government
- and International Governments and Organizations.
For additions data sources used by social scientists, see the Social Science Data subject guide.
If you need assistance with the discovery or evaluation of government information or data, please feel free to contact me. I will do what can to help, or put you in contact with someone who can.
A note about Government Information: Governments produce vast amounts of publicly available information and data that can be used by the public, as well as, researchers and students working in in a multitude of fields. As part of UC Davis' commitment to research, transparency, and accountability, the UC Davis Library has long served as an access point for government information, whether distributed on paper and accessible in our print collections, or accessible online directly from government agencies.
Many governments today aim to increase discoverability by offering sophisticated search engines and portals, such as California's https://data.ca.gov/ that search across their departments and agencies. It is helpful, however, to get to know the departments and agencies that are, often legally, responsible for producing and distributing data and statistics, as well as their methods and required publication schedules. This knowledge can help the researcher better understand data sources, and better evaluate the results found when searching comprehensive government data search engines or portals.