Did you know that your local library is a government documents repository?
The Quincy Public Library was designated a government documents repository for the State of Illinois & has been for several years. There are 18 government documents repositories within the State of Illinois - one is the State Library of Illinois, 15 are universities throughout the state, & 2 are public libraries (Quincy & Chicago).
In an effort to be transparent in governing, the State of Illinois published a variety of the documents it creates & disperses them amongst the library depositories within the state, for public use. As a result, the Quincy Public Library gets Blue Books, Legislative Digests, Executive Orders, & a plethora of documents & information from the state. The library then catalogs these items & makes them easily accessible in the Illinois room.
Whatever we do not have, we do have multiple options to help you gain access to the government documents.
Firstly, we have a working relationship with the State Library of Illinois & we can help put you in contact someone there to help find what you are looking for.
Secondly, there is the digital option. The state legislature has digitized the Legislative Digest & it is available online. The Illinois Secretary of State's website has a whole mess of Illinois Registers (rules for governmental agencies) that have been digitized & are available, as well as all sorts of information & documents available on the Recorder of Deeds section of the Illinois Secretary of State's website. The Quincy Public Library can set you up with a computer in the library & you can peruse these resources on site. If that doesn't work for you, the links are provided below for you to look at in the comfort of your own home.
Legislative Digest: LRB Digest Indices
Recorder of Deeds: Recorder
Illinois Register: Illinois Register
State of Illinois materials are not the only government documents that the Quincy Public Library collects. We also have a collection of the Quincy City Council's minutes. The public is welcome to look through the physical copies of the minutes whenever you are in the library. The Quincy City Council's minutes are also digitized & available online, as are the minutes of most of the meetings. Like the digitized state documents, you are more than welcome to use computers in the Quincy Public Library to go through this stuff but a link is also provided below, if you prefer to read the minutes & watch the videos in the comfort of your own home.
City Council Meeting Archive | Quincy, IL
The United States government also makes use of government documents, online access, & public depositories. Unfortunately, the Quincy Public Library is not a depository for federal government documents. That does not mean we do not have access, however. The National Archives & the Library of Congress both have rather large online footprints (as information services go) & they both have information & services available online. This is on top of the Presidential Library system, which is managed by the National Archives. Also, several Federal Agencies have websites & online resources. The CIA has a factbook website, for example, & can help you learn about other countries. The Census is online & you can view the most up-to-date information of your community, as gathered by the census. (Reminder: The Census is taken every 10 years but the census itself is released every 72 years.) What the Quincy Public Library can do in this situation is: Set you up with a computer in the library to go through online materials, do a little digging to help find information, provide websites and/or contact information for the agencies in question.
