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The Albert Sloman Library |
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Information Skills: Finding British Official Publications |
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British Official Publications How do I search for...? Library Quick links |
Introduction Government publications are primary sources of information for many subject areas and are comprised of documents and information produced by government departments and central government organisations. They include parliamentary publications, legislation, policy documents, statistics and reports. These documents are published either by The Stationery Office (TSO) or by the department or organisation itself. Parliamentary and Non-Parliamentary Papers It is usual to consider British Government
Publications as falling into two main groups. These are described as
Parliamentary Publications and Non-Parliamentary Publications. The
first type, also referred to as Parliamentary Papers, are those
required by Parliament in the daily conduct of its business. They
include such items as Bills, reports of debates, Acts of Parliament
and reports of Royal Commissions or Select Committees.
Non-Parliamentary publications are produced by government
departments for use outside the parliamentary context as well as
within it, and include, statistical compilations, guides to aspects
of life in Britain, and reports on research in particular fields of
study. These cover the main aspects of the work of both Houses of Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords). Traditionally the major division within Parliamentary Papers is between Command Papers and House of Commons (or Lords Papers). It is these two categories which will concern us here. Command Papers Command Papers include major government reports,
reports of Royal Commissions, statements of government policy
('White papers'), the U.K. Treaty Series and reports of tribunals of
enquiry. Command Papers are each given an individual number prefaced
by an abbreviation for the word 'command'. The numbers used run on
from one session of Parliament to another. The abbreviations used
for 'command' up to this point are:
Each number is therefore unique (e.g. CM 6785 is the Report into the London terrorist attacks on 7 July 2005, but Cmd. 6785 is the World Food Shortage 1945/1946), and is needed to identify and find each paper in the Library. House of Commons and House of Lords Sessional Papers Sessional papers include reports of some select committees, accounts, statistics and some annual reports. These papers are numbered consecutively within a parliamentary session. Hence, both number and session are needed to identify a certain paper, e.g. House of Commons Paper 285, Session 1967/68. N.B. Sometimes it is sufficient to know the House
of Commons number e.g. HC 444, 2006/07 or Command Paper number e.g.
CM 7865, to locate a paper. This is the case from session 1979/80
onwards. However, for other sessions (i.e. sessions from 1801 to
1978/79) it is essential to have the sessional volume and page
number to hand. This information can be found in the database House of Commons
Parliamentary Papers or BOPCRIS, see the
section below How to Find Parliamentary Papers. The Library Full Text Electronic Holdings From the 2006/2007 session parliamentary papers are only available in the Library in electronic format on the database Public Information Online. House of Commons, House of Lords and Command
Papers:
All the above can be found on The Library Database
Menu at
http://libwww.essex.ac.uk/databases.htm The library print holdings are kept in store, you will need to request them using the form below, quoting the parliamentary paper year and sequential number, to do this see the section below How to Find Parliamentary Papers.
The Library Microfiche Holdings The Library holds a complete set of all Parliamentary Papers on Microfiche from 1801-2001. You can request microfiche from the Current Periodicals Desk or The Enquiry Desk on Floor One, you will need to provide the year and sequential number of the paper you require to see, to do this see the section below How to Find Parliamentary Papers. In addition to Command Papers and House of Commons Papers, the Library's microfiche collection also includes House of Commons and House of Lords Bills. How to find Parliamentary Papers: Electronic Indexes The majority of parliamentary papers are not catalogued individually, therefore, the reader wishing to trace relevant material must rely instead on various indexes explained below. Parliamentary papers are usually organised by year and sequential number and to find the full text of a document in the print or microfiche collections you will need this number, you will also need to cite this number in a bibliography. The indexes below allow you to search for specific parliamentary papers or to perform a keyword search to find parliamentary papers on a particular topic, all of these indexes will also provide you with the bibliographic information for each paper, including the year and number. These indexes can also provide you with the full text in some circumstances see the section above The Library Full Text Electronic Holdings. House of Commons
Parliamentary Papers Public Information Online UKOP
All the above can be found on The Library Database
Menu at
http://libwww.essex.ac.uk/databases.htm How to find Parliamentary Papers: Printed Indexes HMSO annual catalogues The HMSO (or 'Stationery Office') catalogues have had various titles over the years but cover the period 1922-2004 and are located in the Reference room on Floor 1 at classmark Z 2009 Subject catalogue of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1801-1900. Compiled by Peter Lockton. 6v. 1988. Z 2009 This work accompanies the Chadwyck-Healey microfiche collection of
Parliamentary Papers (which the Library holds), and is valuable in
that it not only gives full references to each paper, including
session, paper number, volume and page number, but also the
microfiche filing number.
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) The Library has some volumes of the joint
Commons/Lords series of 1803-1908 in Store A at J 301.H2 and
virtually complete holdings of the twentieth-century Lords and
Commons series at J 301.J2 and J 301.K2 respectively. The older
volumes are kept in Store A. Parliamentary Debates. House of Commons. Standing Committees. Official Report The Library's holdings are complete for sessions
1960/61 to 2002/03. Bound volumes, which appear two years after the
end of the session, are in Store A at J 301.K4. Standing Committee
Debates are also available online from 1997/98 onwards at: Parliamentary Register 1774-1805; The History and Proceedings of the House of Commons 1660-1743; The History and Proceedings of the House of Lords 1660-1742 Can all be found (full text) on the database 18th & 19th Century House of Commons Papers. (see above) The U.K. Parliament web site contains information about the House of Commons and the House of Lords and their procedures and members. It also includes the full text of: selected Parliamentary Papers; Parliamentary Debates (Hansard); Standing Committee Debates; Bills; the weekly information bulletin; judgements of the House of Lords, and much more. The Official Documents web site from The Stationery Office (TSO) provides access to House of Commons Papers and Command Papers. It has selected documents from 1994 to 10 May 2005 and all documents from the 2005/06 Parliamentary session onwards. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ Contains full text legislation, selected Command papers from 2001 onwards and the Information Assets Register, which lists information resources held by the UK Government, concentrating on unpublished resources, enabling users to identify, from one single source, the information held in a wide variety of government departments, agencies and other organisations. Directgov brings together a wide range of public
service information and online services. You can browse by topics or
by audience group, or you can use our search engine to find content
directly. It also contains a very useful A-Z directory of Central
Government. |
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