• Search Cornell

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has begun the monumental task of providing online access to the documents of the Federal government via the Internet. As of April, 1997, you can search the full-text of the Federal Register; the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR); the Budget of the U.S.; the Congressional Record; Congressional bills, documents, and reports; Public Laws; the United States Code (USC) and dozens of other full-text files. Most of these files are available from 1994 forward.

GPO provides a Web searching interface that is powerful, easy to use, and consistent across all the files. Proceed to the GPO database selection page (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces002.html) and highlight the file you wish to search from the list. (Holding down the shift key allows you to highlight multiple contiguous files for simultaneous searching). Then enter the search terms in the searching box. The search engine provides phrase and Boolean searching. Phrases must be in quotation marks (""). The operators ADJ (adjacent), AND, OR and NOT can be used, but must be capital letters. For example: "environmental protection agency" AND superfund. Word roots can be searched using an asterisk ( * ) following the word stem. For example: legislat* will retrieve both legislation and legislative.

Oddly, GPO Access will always return at least two hits for any search you perform. One is a query report that tells you how long the search took; the other is a database description. So you must receive at least three hits to have a link to the document you are seeking. Search results are ranked by relevance. In general, it is best to use search terms that are as specific as possible. Helpful searching hints are available on the Web site (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces003.html).

You often have the choice of viewing the document you found in plain text or in Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF preserves the original fonts and layout of the document; documents in PDF format can be easily viewed by setting up Acrobat Reader as a helper application in your Web browser. Acrobat Reader is free from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html. Laser printers will produce copies of PDF-formatted documents that are nearly indistinguishable from the print version.

Avoid searching GPO Access in the afternoon when the load on the GPO server is heavy and the response time is often very slow. An excellent, and sometimes faster, alternative for searching the Congressional databases is Thomas, an Web site from the Library of Congress (http://thomas.loc.gov/).

Another important file available from GPO is the Monthly Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/dpos/adpos400.html), an extensive catalog that, in its printed form, has long been a staple for identifying and locating Federal documents. The Monthly Catalog uses the same Web search interface as other GPO databases and contains detailed citations for documents cataloged since January 1994.

If you have reason to search and copy portions of government documents, GPO Access deserves a spot in your Bookmark list. For more information on using GPO Access on the Web, contact us at okuref@cornell.edu or stop by the reference desk in Olin Library.

Michael Engle

Revised February 13, 1998

Olin*Kroch*Uris Reference Division
Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
URL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/gpo.html

Olin and Uris Libraries, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
Information and reference: 607-255-4144, okuref@cornell.edu
Circulation: (Olin) 607-255-4245, (Uris) 607-255-3537, okucirc@cornell.edu