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Government Publisher

    Government publications are printed with taxpayer money. They can be extremely useful for researchers because they are considered to be overall impartial and unbiased. (There are flagrant exceptions to this rule, particularly in past years, so pay close attention to the purpose of the document, especially when doing historical research.) U.S. Congressional Hearings can be extremely valuable because of the testimony by experts that can be found therein--these also provide many different points of view. A growing number of government publications are available only on the Web.

    Many (but not all) U.S. federal documents are printed in Washington D.C. The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) is the major publisher. Sometimes the source itself will identify the publisher as "GPO."

    State and local (city/county) government also publish materials:
    Colorado Dept. of Human Services, Office of Self-Sufficiency, Division of Aging and Adult Services

    Some state documents have vague publishers' names such as: The Commission. Look at the title page or catalog record to garner other clues; the corporate author gives a more specific idea:
    State of Colorado, Commission on Government Productivity

    Example local government publisher:
    The City of Fort Collins

    Occasionally there are sources with a publisher such as "The City" and the researcher needs to look at the city or place of publication to know which city. For example:
    Fort Collins, Colo. : The City

    There may be a division of the city that publishes:
    City of Fort Collins, Natural Resources Division

    The variety of government publications can be astounding--and extremely useful for some researchers. Books that relate directly to governmental issues (city annual reports, etc.) that are published by commercial publishers should be cited accordingly.

    Publisher: Who published the book

    back to How to Evaluate Books

How to do Research

Content: Naomi Lederer