U.S. Government Publications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison : Historical Gov Pubs

Hathi Trust

• Digital library created through a partnership of major research institutions and libraries.
• Many of the scans of government documents come from Google. Hathi Trust allows the public to view more of these documents in full text than Google does.
• Provides free, public access to the full text of many federal and state government publications.

Google Books

• Contains the text of many U.S. and state government documents.
  • Can search the full text of documents Google has scanned. This can help you identify documents of interest.
  • Because of Google's policies related to copyright, full text is generally available only for documents published before 1923.
• Searches for specific titles are most effective.
• You can search regular Google for government document digitization projects done by other institutions.

Not all government publications are available online for free.  Many are still only available in print.  Some are available in print and online formats.

Because the UW-Madison libraries are a regional depository library, nearly all depository titles can be found somewhere on the UW-Madison campus. The first step in finding any federal government publication at UW-Madison is to search UW-Madison's online library catalog.  Nearly all U.S. government publications published since 1976, and a number of those published before 1976, are included in the catalog.

If you can't find the historical government publication you're looking for, please ask a librarian for assistance!

As part of the Federal Depository Library Program, the UW-Madison Libraries make U.S. government publications available to the public at no fee.

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