Gov docs for your research!

Government documents can often be very useful for research. These aren't the peer reviewed journal articles, or magazines, newspapers and books people often think of when doing their research. Instead these are statistical surveys, reports, and much more. Many people are probably familiar with the census, but the federal government counts and reports and studies much more than just that. For example, for criminal justice purposes, consider using the FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the other resources at the National Criminal Justice Center site. The various state governments do quite a bit too. Our guides to U.S.  and N.Y. documents will help you discover the wide range of materials available.

In the old days our government documents collection took up most of the south end of the main floor in the library; Pat Jewell, a long time staff person, is shown here standing by the census records in the 1990s. Nowadays it is pretty much all online though!