Finding government publications
This guide outlines ways of tracking down both Parliamentary and Non-Parliamentary government publications.
For details of our collections of these materials see the following pages:
What are Government publications?
Government publications include:
- all items published by TSO (The Stationery Office), formerly HMSO
- items made available for sale or free of charge by government departments and organisations
- items produced by other bodies linked financially or representationally to those departments.
One can only guess what the total output may be. Suggestions range from 30,000 to 50,000 separate items each year of which TSO publishes 8-9,000.The total figure could double if local government publications were taken into consideration. The listing and recording of these publications has improved, but is still not comprehensive.
The majority of government publications can now be found on the Internet. Some are only available electronically, mainly on the UK Parliament or government department/organisation websites.
- Links to central and local government are listed on Directgov
Finding Parliamentary Papers and Bills
For details of our collections see our Parliamentary publications page.
To find out what has been published use the following sources.
Recent publications (1980-)
- Search the UKOP database
Early publications (1688-1979)
- consult the annual lists and subject indexes in the sessional volumes in our Parliamentary Papers collection
- check the annual lists and subject indexes in the monthly and annual catalogues of Government Publications, 1894-
4th Floor Reference--301.016 - use other subject indexes available at
4th Floor Reference--328.424
Finding non-Parliamentary publications
The following sources list and index these publications.
- TSO Daily List
Daily list of government publications, going back to 2001 - UKOP
1980- electronic database of the Catalogue of British Official Publications, continuing the coverage and updated daily - Catalogue of British official publications not published by the Stationery Office
1980-2002 - covers over 500 government departments and official organisations
4th Floor Reference—301.016
- Government Publications
1894- monthly and annual catalogues from HMSO and TSO
4th Floor Reference—301.016
Further information
For more information about older government publications, published before the onset of the Internet, the following works could be helpful:
- Auger, C. Information sources in grey literature,1994
4th Floor Reference--025.179-AUG - Butcher, D. Official publications in Britain,1991
5th Floor Reference--015.42-BUT - Nurcombe, V. (ed.) Information sources in official publications, 1997
4th Floor Reference--015-INF