Federal government websites back online

Good news! The federal government shutdown came to an end with the October 16th passage of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2014 followed by the President signing the bill into law on October 17th.

How does this affect you? The end of the government shutdown means that most federal websites are now back online. To find information published by government agencies, try:

• USA.gov directory for quick access to websites published by government agencies 
• McIntyre Library's Statistics Research Guide for resources useful for finding statistics and data
• McIntyre Library's Statistics Databases for even more resources

Since October 1st, you may have noticed that many federal government agency websites have been unavailable due to the "lapse in appropriations." While not all websites published by the federal government have been down, many sites useful to researchers and students have been shuttered, including American FactFinder, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many more. Because these websites have been inaccessible, many UW-Eau Claire students have struggled to find reliable current data about the population, economy, and crime, among other topics.

Questions about using government information and documents in your research? Contact Robin Miller, Research & Instruction/Government Publications Librarian at McIntyre Library.