How to identify and find government agencies:
The Agency Approach to Finding Government Information demonstrates a Three-Step "Agency Approach" to finding government information on the Internet.
First: Identify which government agency would be likely to publish the type of information you are looking for.
- For instance, if you wanted crop information--how about the
Agriculture Department? The Department of Education is likely to issue
data and information about teaching. The Justice Department would be a
good agency for criminal justice resources. The Internal Revenue agency
is a good starting place for tax stuff. And for employment information
and statistics, the Labor Department is top of the list.
- You can browse through a list of government agencies to pick out agencies that might issue the information you want.
- The more research you do in government documents, the more you will
become familiar with the agencies and their publishing programs.
Second: Go to that agency's Web home page.
- A lot of agencies have very easy urls: usda.gov----usdoj.gov----irs.gov----dol.gov
- If you cann't guess what the agency url is, go to Google or any other internet search engine and type in the agency name
Third: Mine that agency's Web pages for information you are looking for.
- Much of the information on agency websites is NOT easily found on search engines--it's buried in the deep web.
- Agency home pages have search engines, A-Z lists, and directories to help users plum the depths of their content.
