Why Pay for it TWICE?? How to Access Federal Materials in the Public Domain James M. Donovan, J.D., Ph.D. Faculty and Access Services Librarian University of Georgia Law Library

The Universe of Government Documents The United States Government Printing Office is the world’s largest publisher GPO receives income from individual sales, but it also receives taxpayer funds to cover congressional printing and to pay for online access to government documents through programs like the Federal Depository Library Program. GPO is ALREADY using tax money to make its material freely available to YOU!

Plus, because most materials published by the government are not copyrighted, commercial distributors are able to obtain these publications at no cost to them, but then charge you a steep fee to see the information!

The challenge: How can you make the system work FOR you? How can you find what you need – what you have ALREADY paid for through taxes – without paying for it again?

“Omnibus” Aggregators Offer “one-stop” shopping: collecting the treasures of federal documents into one place –Links vs. documents –Unspecialized –Breadth not depth Check the date page was last updated

Omnibus Aggregators 1. GPO ACCESS Maintained by GPO Official Free to use Best place to begin

Omnibus Aggregators 2. FirstGov FIRSTGOV.GOV Maintained by the General Services Administration Shaped by user feedback Portal to 51+ million federal and state government webpages Spanish version available

Omnibus Aggregators 3. Elegus

Omnibus Aggregators Clusty GOV.CLUSTY.COM Maintained by Vivisimo Organizes results into folders grouping similar items together that allows: Quick overview of the main themes that relate to the query; Find results that are buried in the ranked list and would otherwise be missed. Discover unexpected results and relationships NEW

LEGISLATIVE MATERIALS

Legislative Aggregators 4. Legal Information Institute [LII] WWW4.LAW.CORNELL.EDU Maintained by Cornell Law School “Leading ‘law-not-com’ provider of legal information Resource listings for approximately 100 areas of law Online style manual

Legislative Aggregators 5. THOMAS THOMAS.LOC.GOV Maintained by Library of Congress Named for Thomas Jefferson Access to Bills, Resolutions, Treaties, US Code, Congressional Record

U.S. Code Office of the Law Revision Counsel [#6] - source for the printed official version of the US Code. This is the most authoritative source. GPO Access [#7] - contains archived versions of Code from 1994 with annual supplements and 2000 Cornell LII [#4] - easily searched, hyperlinks among code sections.

The challenge is not to find the text of a U.S. Code section, but to find language that is CURRENT! Updating your search results

First Check Table of Amendments for Public Laws

So there were THREE amendments to this statute section in 2004…… You’re not done yet!!

And repeat the process for each P.L., and each session of Congress, to arrive at the most current language. Whew!

Tracking Federal Legislation 13. GovTrack Track Current Legislation After free registration, daily or weekly alerts of developments in pre-assigned subject areas, member of Congress, or specific bills

Tracking Federal Legislation 9. U.S. Senate Track Current Legislation After free registration, daily or weekly alerts of developments in pre-assigned subject areas, member of Congress, or specific bills

Tracking Federal Legislation 14. Congressional Research Service Reports CRS Reports specially commissioned by members of Congress and not widely distributed Typically must be obtained from your Congressperson $100 million spent on this research by the LoC

Legislative Histories 15. U. Mich. Documents Center Originally a teaching guide for students Includes both links to resources, and instructions on how to compile a legislative history Some links are not open to the public

EXECUTIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE MATERIALS

Presidential Documents 19. American Presidency Project Maintained at University of California, Santa Barbara Access to almost 58,000 presidency-related documents Free access to the Public Papers of the President

Regulations 20. Code of Federal Regulations Maintained at several sites, including GPO ACCESS Includes superseded volumes from 1996 Formats in both text and PDF

Note the Revision Date!!

Regulations 23. Federal Register Maintained at GPO ACCESS Includes volumes from 1994 (Vol. 59) Formats in both text and PDF Averages 71,614 pages per year of new and proposed regulations!!

“20 CFR ”

NEW LANGUAGE!

Regulations e-CFR Maintained at GPO ACCESS Currently in beta testing Immediately reflects changes in the CFR made in the Federal Register

Regulations 22. Regulations.gov “One-stop-shopping” for administrative regulations

Forms 28. Forms.gov “One-stop-shopping” for administrative forms

JUDICIAL MATERIALS

Judicial Aggregators 29. FindLaw LP.FINDLAW.COM Now a Thomson [WESTLAW] service The “highest trafficked legal Web site” Wide variety of legal resources, including judicial materials

Judicial Aggregators 30. LexisOne Free searching of state and federal court opinions within last five years Links to legal dictionaries and state bar sites Access to Shepard’s for a daily “all you can shepardize” fee

Federal Case Law Meta-Indexes Judicial Aggregators

U.S. Supreme Court 34. U.S. Supreme Court Homepage Established in 2000 Slips available on day of release PDFs of bound United States Reports volumes from 1991

U.S. Supreme Court 38. Curiae Project CURIAE.LAW.YALE.EDU Maintained by Yale Law School Library Selected Supreme Court records and briefs

U.S. Supreme Court 40. OYEZ Project Supported by several entities, including Northwestern University, NSF, and FindLaw Audio files of all oral arguments since 1995 Earlier years included selectively Podcast options available Offers a virtual tour of the Supreme Court Building

Federal Circuit Courts Cornell’s LII includes search engine that allows simultaneous searching of other sites for decisions available on the web (#41); FindLaw aggregates links and searches its own database of opinions since 2000 (#42); LexisOne allows searching aggregate searching of all circuits, last five years only; Each circuit has its own official website (listed at #43). Available documents varies across the jurisdictions: some include unpublished as well as published opinions.

Federal District Courts NO site allows simultaneous searching across all the federal district courts; Many districts have official websites that can be found on FindLaw and the US Courts Federal Judiciary site.

Judicial Miscellany 49. Court Forms Makes available approximately 60,000 forms Offers both free and fee-based premium levels Forms for federal, state, and even some municipal courts

HAPPY SEARCHING!