Government Documents: Beyond.gov

Social Explorer provides quick and easy access to current and historical census data and demographic information.

StatsAmerica is a service of the Indiana Business Research Center (IBRC) at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, which is ranked among the nation's top business schools. With support from the Economic Development. The goal of StatsAmerica is to provide actionable data for economic developers to use in site requests, developing metrics, grant writing and strategic planning.

The National Association of Counties (NACo) unites America’s 3,069 county governments.  Founded in 1935, NACo brings county officials together to advocate with a collective voice on national policy, exchange ideas and build new leadership skills, pursue transformational county solutions, enrich the public’s understanding of county government, and exercise exemplary leadership in public service.

Measuring Worth

There are two missions of this site. The first is to make available to the public the highest quality and most reliable historical data on important economic aggregates, with particular emphasis on "nominal (current-price) measures, as well as real (constant-price) measures. The data presented here on the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, have been created using the highest standards of the fields of economics and history, and they were rigorously refereed by the most distinguished researchers in the fields. The second is to provide carefully designed compartors (using these data) that explain the many issues involved in making value comparison over time.

GovTrack.us, a project of Civic Impulse, LLC now in its 11th year, is one of the worldʼs most visited government transparency websites. The site helps ordinary citizens find and track bills in the U.S.
Congress and understand their representatives’ legislative record.

Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents ("the world's largest nongovernmental collection" according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets.

Open Secrets' mission is to nform citizens about how money in politics affects their lives, empower voters and activists by providing unbiased information, and advocate for a transparent and responsive government.

The Sunlight Foundation describes their mission as "a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that uses the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency, and provides new tools and resources for media and citizens, alike. We are committed to improving access to government information by making it available online, indeed redefining “public” information as meaning “online,” and by creating new tools and websites to enable individuals and communities to better access that information and put it to use."

The Policy Agendas Project collects and organizes data from various archived sources to trace changes in the national policy agenda and public policy outcomes since the Second World War. Read about the development of the project here, or explore the site to download current datasets, use our Trends Analysis tool, and learn about how Policy Agendas data are used in teaching and research.

The Congressional Bills Project is a relational database of over 400,000 public and private bills introduced in the U.S. House and Senate since 1947. The dataset is primarily intended for use scholars and students of legislative politics.

In addition, this site serves as a repository for related information, including resources and research papers that may be of interest to scholars. New visitors want to take a look at the Trends in Legislative Activity page.

The Supreme Court Database is the definitive source for researchers, students, journalists, and citizens interested in the U.S. Supreme Court. The Database contains over two hundred pieces of information about each case decided by the Court between the 1946 and 2014 terms. Examples include the identity of the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed, the parties to the suit, the legal provisions considered in the case, and the votes of the Justices.

From the Dirksen Center: Today the Congressional Timeline arrays more than 550 of the nation's laws on a double-banded timeline beginning in 1933 to the present. In addition to the major laws passed by Congress, now at your fingertips are the partisan composition of each Congress, along with the presidential administration and the congressional leaders; the session dates of each Congress; measures of legislative productivity, such as the number of bills introduced and passed; information about women and African-Americans serving in Congress; and examples of documents, photos, audio clips, transcripts, videos, and lesson plans all related to legislation.   

Searching for patents can be very difficult. Google has made this difficult and cumbersome task very easy in their patent search which does not require the download of any additional tools.