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Government Information Guide

Welcome

Please be aware that many of the items in our Government Documents collection are historical in nature. These historical items cannot be relied upon to provide accurate or current advice regarding any laws, policies, or procedures.

Featured Government Documents: Cookbooks

Governments of all sizes produce cookbooks. These generally have three purposes:

  • to promote local products or culture
  • to support officially sanctioned views on health and nutrition
  • to serve as guides to feeding specific populations, such as schoolchildren, soldiers, or prisoners

The first of these tends to produce the strangest recipes, as they involve unexpected uses of ingredients that the government wants to promote. These also often follow the trends of the time.

There are, of course, other reasons that government agencies produce cookbooks. Sometimes these are produced as a way to build community and improve morale by having employees submit their favorite recipes. Other times, cookbooks are created to guide cooks through difficult scenarios, like times of rationing, camp cooking, or cooking during natural disasters. We have attempted to provide a sample of all kinds of cookbooks in both print and digital format.

Books on Display on the Second Floor Desk:

Further readings and online government cookbooks:

Resources for Immigrants

NEIU Libraries has a number of resources for immigrants that can be checked out. Some of these are located on the large desk on the second floor. Additionally, there are many great resources from the United States Government that can assist with immigration and naturalization.

In the News

image of a cicada

Here come the cicadas!

Information about this year's double cicada brood from the USDA's Forest Service.

Image from Wikimedia Commons user Pmjacoby.

Pride Flag

FDLP LibGuides: LGBTQIA+

Guides to LGBTQIA+ resources and information from other Federal Depository Libraries

Air Quality map

AirNow

Concerned about air quality? AirNow.gov has you covered. Complete with maps and lists of primary pollutants in our air, this site provides all the information you need regarding how air quality is affecting your health.

Smithsonian Open Access

Looking for amazing free images? Smithsonian Open Access is a new venture by the Smithsonian institution that provides millions of free-to-use images taken from the collections of the Smithsonian museums.

Image of a Coronavirus

DPLA releases The Covid Archive as a free e-book

The Covid Archive is a digital finding aid for the digital archive of government documents related to the response of U.S. federal and state governments to the Covid 19 pandemic.

The finding aid provides an index to more than 3,000 government documents related to the pandemic response that were identified by the Covid Tracking Project and digitally preserved by DPLA. To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive archive of documents related to the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States.

Individual Census Report form from the 1950 Census

1950 Census

The 1950 census records were released by the U.S. National Archives on April 1, 2022. This website provides full access to the 1950 census images, including population schedules, enumeration district maps, and enumeration district descriptions.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

President Biden Nominates Ketanji Brown Jackson to Serve on the U.S. Supreme Court

Information from the White House on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court.

Riveter at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, California., 1940-1945

Women's History Month resources from the National Archives

The National Archives celebrates Women’s History Month, recognizing the great contributions that women have made to our nation. Learn about the history of women in the United States by exploring their stories through letters, photographs, film, and other primary sources.

Novelty UFO building

UFO Documents Index - NSA|CSS

Various UFO-related documents made available by the National Security Agency Central Security Service.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington, August 28, 1963.

FDLP LibGuides: African American History and the Civil Rights Movement

Guides to African American history and the Civil Rights movement from other Federal Depository Libraries

Finding Government Documents at NEIU

Government documents are located on the 2nd floor of the Ronald Williams Library and are indicated by with the prefix DOC.

Federal publications are organized under the Superintendent of Documents classification scheme (SuDocs) which categorizes documents based on the publishing department or agency and the individual item number.  

For example: 

DOC.CSA 1.10:SU6 Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds in Summary.  The first part of the call number (DOC.) indicates that this document is located on the 2nd floor.  The CSA represents the publishing agency (in this instance the Community Services Administration) and the final part represents the indivdiual item.

Publications of the State of Illinois are indicated by the prefix DOC.IL and are organized under the Nakata-Strange classificaiton scheme, which also categorizes documents based on the publishing department or agency and the individual item number.

Publications of the City of Chicago and of Cook County are indicated by the prefix DOC.CHI. and are organized under the Library of Congress classification system like most of the other books in the library.

Online Search Engines

Special Thanks

This subject guide was designed for NEIU by Anthony Sigismondi, MLIS as part of the practicum program at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science.