First Tip: Search a country name as author

  1. Go directly to the library catalog:
  2. Enter the name of the country and use the pull-down menu to select [Author] or [Author-Browse (A-Z) Sorted by name]. The country is the "author," in this case. This will find publications published by various departments or agencies of the country.
  3. Under "Limit Your Search," select journal (to find annual publications of the government), or microform, or archival.

Second Tip: Use secondary sources

Use a secondary source (journal article, book, etc.) to identify the title of a document series and search by title.

Once you have the document series title, you can ...

  • Search the Cornell library catalog by title
  • Search Worldcat (a union catalog of library holdings, worldwide) by title. Note: Print document collections generally won't circulate. Look for the "microform" format to find sets that might be available via Interlibrary Loan.

Third tip: Add "document" to a keyword search

Add the term document to a general keyword search.

This isn't fail-proof, but can often reveal some interesting finds.

great britain colonies document

Fourth tip: Use a Google "site" search

Find a government body and note the abbreviation for the body and country. Use this information in a site search of the web.

Note: The term "site" is followed by a colon, then a period before the terms in they url, e.g., site:.bundestag.de

The construction of the site url may look a bit different from country-to-country. You'll need to explore.