Introducing the New ProQuest Government Documents Subscription

In the current evolving information landscape, academic libraries face a significant challenge: government websites frequently change or remove content, restricting access to critical primary sources that researchers, faculty and students rely on. With a long history of offering access to government documents, ProQuest, part of Clarivate, introduces a new online solution entitled ProQuest Government Documents, which brings together authoritative U.S. and U.K. resources from 1660 to present day.

As library budgets face continued constraints, this comprehensive subscription includes content previously only available through separate purchases, making extensive government primary sources more accessible for academic institutions of all sizes.

Extensive Coverage For Research on Countless Topics

ProQuest Government Documents offers the largest archive of U.S. and U.K. government primary sources for academic libraries, complemented by global statistics. With over 12 million documents across more than 360 years, this solution enables research on virtually any subject with a government context — from environmental policy and healthcare to international relations, economics, social justice and thousands of other topics.

This supports a full spectrum of academic research and learning across disciplines. Legal researchers can examine legislative intent, policy analysts can track regulatory changes and historians can study policy evolution through original source documents — all with confidence that these materials remain accessible.

Supporting Research and Learning at Every Level

ProQuest Government Documents provides focused research and learning features that meet users wherever they are in their academic journeys.

• • Over 800 topic pages, which gather relevant government documents on high interest topics and include helpful timelines, offer guided entry points for students new to government and policy research.
  • More than 150,000 compiled legislative, regulatory and U.S. Supreme Court case histories support guided legal and historical research.
  • Interactive policy timelines visualize how issues have evolved through legislation, regulation and court decisions across decades.

Five Specialized Government Collections in One Subscription

While available as one comprehensive subscription, ProQuest Government Documents includes five specialized collections, and libraries can also choose to subscribe to one or more based on their specific needs.

• • U.K. Government Collection: Enables research on Britain's governance evolution through Parliamentary papers, debates and petitions (1660-present).
  • U.S. Congressional Collection: Supports legislative process analysis and tracking of policy development through Congressional hearings, Serial Set and related materials (1789-present).
  • U.S. Government Insight Collection: Reveals relationships between lawmaking, implementation and interpretation through integrated document histories (1790-present).
  • U.S. Executive Branch Policy Documents Collection: Chronicles federal implementation of Congressional mandates through agency reports, regulatory records and policy statements on high-interest topics (1789-present).
  • Statistical Collection: Enables data-driven research with U.S. and global statistics from government and research institutions (1878-present).

Building on the ProQuest Government Document Legacy

ProQuest has been at the forefront of publishing and adding value to government content for decades through ongoing partnerships with government agencies, libraries and archives.

Each collection is developed with input from a trusted board of faculty and librarian advisors, ensuring resources address common use cases and inspire imaginative assignments such as:

• • Political science researchers analyzing voting patterns on civil rights legislation across Congressional sessions while correlating with demographic shifts.
  • Climate change researchers examining environmental regulation implementation across federal agencies while correlating findings with longitudinal emissions data.
  • Political science faculty teaching undergraduates how to evaluate government sources through curated topic pages.
  • Law students preparing moot court briefs by tracing Supreme Court precedents alongside corresponding legislative histories and amicus curiae submissions.

Skilled editorial staff meticulously organize these materials with specialized search tools and research aids that align with how scholars conduct government research, while digitization practices ensure accuracy and authenticity for legal and historical research where precision matters.

“Clarivate works with a panel of subject experts to identify and develop content, and the brief essays included in the topic pages are well-written summaries. Overall, these are high-quality products that add value to the raw material contained within.”
— Ellie Dworak, Associate Professor and Research Data Librarian, Boise State University, in her review of Trends & Policy (part of ProQuest Government Documents subscription), The Charleston Advisor, April 2024

Growing Content and Evolving Research Tools

ProQuest Government Documents continually evolves with daily content updates and new research tools. The addition of Congressional hearings to ProQuest TDM Studio provides text and data mining capabilities for materials from 1824 to present, revealing insights across legislative processes. PowerNotes in the Congressional Collection simplifies how researchers track, organize and capture information during their research process. Coming later this year, AI-powered ProQuest Research Assistant will help users craft better searches, analyze documents more effectively, quickly assess content relevance and receive guidance on research topics.

Learn more and request a free trial of ProQuest Government Documents.