NDSU is a regional depository for U.S. government documents published by the Government Publishing Office (GPO) along with the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.  The documents that NDSU receives pertain directly to our programs and include publications from the USDA, Departments of Defense, Education, and Energy, EPA, FEMA, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, NARA, and the VA in addition to others. These publications may be in print, microfiche, and/or electronic forms, and come in a variety of formats. 

NDSU is also a depository for the state of North Dakota. We receive documents published by government agencies including annual reports, strategic plans, audits, meeting minutes, newsletters and magazines, brochures, handbooks, maps, statistics, public university catalogs and student newspapers, Cooperative Extension publications, and research results. Many of these publications are in print and electronic format.

See below for a list of popular online government resources and links to various research guides, or contact the reference desk for assistance in locating government information.

The Government Information Librarian is available for research consultations and assistance in finding government information.

Popular Online Government Resources

  • govinfo.gov
    govinfo is a service of GPO to provide free public access to the full text of official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government. When you search the content available on govinfo, you will be able to download the full text of publications but you won’t see records for documents that are not stored on govinfo.
  • Census.gov
    Provides access to census and survey data about the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas. Older census data is available through National Historical GIS and the Indiana University CD-ROM project.
  • MetaLib
    This is the finding tool for locating content in multiple government collections including the National Archives, the Library of Congress, Pubmed, Agricola and others.
  • Congress.gov
    Federal legislation information presented by the Library of Congress using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, and the Government Printing Office.
  • Science.gov
    Science.gov searches over 60 databases to provide users with access to authoritative federal science information including research and development results.
  • National Technical Reports Library

Locating Government Publications through NDSU Libraries

  • Finding Government Information in the Library
    Information about how to find government publications within the Library and online, as well as information about the U.S. Documents call numbers system, locating maps and other navigational images, and how to cite government information.

Research Guides

Collection Highlights

Other Federal Depository Libraries

Other North Dakota FDLP libraries include: North Dakota Supreme Court Law Library, Sitting Bull College Library,  State Historical Society of North Dakota, Allen Memorial Library Valley City State University, and Gordon B. Olson Library Minot State University. For more information on these and other FDLP libraries see the FDLP Directory.