Let's face it; many different research tasks cause people to want, and in a lot of cases need, government information. Government information is on the Internet: result - happiness. Government information disappears from the Internet (or becomes nearly impossible to find, which is sort of the same thing): result - unhappiness. And then there are libraries.

Libraries, and in particular the New York Public Library, have traditionally played a major role in providing government documents and other government information to researchers. NYPL has been a Depository Library (a place where government information has been officially deposited for public use) for: 

• United States Federal Government Documents since 1884; and
• New York State Government Documents since 1956.

New York City: Although we are not a depository for New York City (for that, visit the City Hall Library), we have thirstily collected local documents and information as fully as has been feasible.

Other States and Local Jurisdictions: NYPL, primarily in the General Research Division at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, has selective holdings of older, historical, legislative materials from other states — a fabulous trove of resources available at few other institutions. SIBL has a strong collection in labor and other economic data for other states, including through our statistical databases.

International Organizations - a quick list:

• United Nations: full depository since 1946; partial depository since 1995.
• European Union: depository since the mid 1950s.
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
• International Monetary Fund
• World Bank

Other Countries: Last but not least, SIBL has substantial holdings for financial, labor, economic and general statistical material, including Central Bank publications. Holdings for legislative materials of other countries are currently part of collections in the General Research Division at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

As the title of this post states, this is only a very quick overview of government information sources. It will be the first entry in a series of explorations of government information, and in particular of the highly in demand historical legislative materials available at SIBL and other NYPL locations. So stay tuned...