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CGP on GitHub

General Information

The CGP on GitHub is a repository of cataloging/metadata resources extracted from the bibliographic records of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP). The CGP is the U.S. Government Publishing Office's (GPO) finding tool for publications of the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, and other entities of the U.S. Federal Government. The CGP records comprise the National Collection of U.S. Government Public Information and contain descriptive and subject information to enable the discovery of these resources. Many CGP records provide PURL (persistent uniform resource locator) links to the online versions of publications. For more information, please visit the CGP help pages.

Repository Updates

Library Technical Services (LTS) has moved two collections to the new repository, Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) Records Maintenance Files:

Collections List

The twelve collections in the repository have been created based on various criteria, such as issuing agencies, publication formats, and topical and chronological coverage. All collections contain one or more of these resources:

  • MARC record files
    • MARC UTF-8
    • MARC XML
    • MARC-8
  • CSV files of multiple major metadata elements of the records
  • PDFs of multiple major metadata elements of the records and the titles linked to the PURLs and the CGP record numbers link to the records
  • Record display pages of several major metadata elements and the titles linked to the PURLs and the CGP numbers linked to the records

To download the files, use the "Code" button in the right-hand section of this page and select "Download ZIP." The ZIP file contains all of the files in the repository.

Name No. of Records Last Update Record Formats Cataloging Dates
1950 Census 22 1/24/2023 Online All
Artificial Intelligence Subject-Based Resources 171 10/31/2023 Online All
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian (AIANNH) Subject-Based Resources 261 10/31/2023 Online 6-9/2023
Congressional Research Service Reports 8,795 10/31/2023 Online All
COVID-19 and Coronavirus Resources 977 10/31/2023 Online All
Department of Transportation Resources 2,092 10/31/2023 Online All
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Subject-Based Resources 26 10/31/2023 All 6-9/2023
House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Collection 42 1/12/2023 Online All
Law Library of Congress Reports Collection 3,278 10/31/2023 Online All
Legal Publications Collection 140 12/29/2023 Online and Tangible All
National Institue of Standards and Technology (NIST) Collection 8,897 11/2020 Online 2016
Online FDLP Basic Collection 23 3/2021 Online All
Total Number of Records 24,584

Retired Collections

LTS has retired these collections:

  • CGP MARC Record Sets
  • CGP Records with Updated PURLs
  • Online Version Records without Item Numbers

Please check the list to see if the collections are available in another repository.

Name No. of Records Current Repository Record Formats Cataloging Dates
CGP MARC Record Sets 22,176 Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) Records Maintenance Files All Previous six months
CGP Records with Updated PURLs 170,501 None Online Up to 10/31/2020
Online Version Records without Item Numbers 4,959 Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) Records Maintenance Files Online All

Repository History and Versions

GitHub uses a versioning system to provide access to the iterations of a repository. This enables a user to return to the state of a repository before the various changes ("commits" in GitHub terminology) that were made to it.

To see a list of versions of the repository as a whole, follow these steps:

  • Click or tap on "commits" in the top right-hand section of the page
    • Image shows pointer to 'commits' link in upper right-hand of main file list
  • On the "Commits" page, choose the date of the version to be retrieved and then click or tap the "Browse the repository at this point in the history" link.
    • Image shows pointer to "Browse the repository at this point in the history" link
  • The resources in the repository on that date will be available for viewing and downloading.

To see a list of versions of a particular collection, follow these steps:

  • Click or tap on the name of a collection in the Collections List.
  • Click or tap on "History" in the top right-hand corner of the collection page.
    • Image shows the "History" link on
  • On the "History" page, choose the date of the version to be retrieved.
  • Click or tap on the "Browse the repository at this point in the history" icon.
    • Image shows pointer to "Browse the repository at this point in the history" link
  • The main page of the repository on that date will be displayed.
  • The resources in the repository on that date will be available for viewing and downloading.

Other LSCM Repositories

LSCM develops and maintains other repositories:

Contact Information

Library Services & Content Management (LSCM) of the U.S. Government Publishing Office created this repository. Library Technical Services (LTS), a department of LSCM, creates and maintains the collections in the repository.

Please send your feedback and questions about our repository and records to LTS by submitting an inquiry in the Cataloging/Metadata (Policy and Records) category via askGPO.