Government Information: California Government Resources

The Book of the States contains essential and hard-to-find information from each state and territory in easy-to-read summaries, tables and charts. Published since 1935, The Book of the States provides information, answers and comparisons about all U.S. states and territories.

The California Ballot Measures Database is a comprehensive, searchable source of information on California ballot propositions and initiatives from 1911 to the present. It includes the full text of individual ballot propositions, accompanying information contained in the ballot pamphlets, related legal and legislative history, and pdfs of the full ballot pamphlets. For ballot initiatives, it contains the full text of the individual initiatives, accompanying material relating to their filing & qualification, related legal and legislative history, and pdfs of related official documents.

Register to vote, access voter information guides, check your voter status, and more.

The Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley collects budgets and financial reports, planning documents, and ordinance codes from cities and counties across California. Under state law the Library is a depository for these publications.

A list of applications and datasets available through the State of California's webpages, searchable by keyword or listed by department.

The California Roster, also known as the Cal Roster, is a listing of California's public officeholders, including our United States government officials, the Constitutional officers, members of the State Senate and Assembly, the Judicial branch, county officials, and incorporated city and town officials.

The California School Directory (Directory) contains information about California public schools, private schools (including nonpublic nonsectarian schools), school districts, and county offices of education. Users can search by county, district, or school name, County-District-School (CDS) code, status, city, zip, type (school, district), or sector (public, private).

The California State Agency Databases guide was created by GODORT (Government Documents Round Table) of the ALA (American Library Association). It is an annotated list of databases produced by the State of California. Databases are listed by subject.

This webpage provides information about the California State Documents Collection and Depository Library Program as well as links to participating libraries.

The California State Library is the central reference and research library for state government and the Legislature. The library collection includes more than 4 million titles, 6,000 maps, and 250,000 photographs. It has an extensive collection of documents from and about the State of California and is one of the major genealogical reference libraries on the West Coast. It also holds significant collections from Mexico, the United Kingdom and Europe, with manuscripts dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries. The State Library is both a State and Federal Depository Library, providing free and open access to government information, and is a U.S. Patent and Trademark Resource Center. It is home to the Bernard E. Witkin State Law Library and the Braille and Talking Book Library. It also directs state and federal funds to support local public libraries and statewide library programs and services.

California State Publications (CSP) is a monthly listing of official publications received by the State Library from California governmental agencies. Published since 1947, each issue included three parts: an introductory section, a register (consisting of the catalog records produced for new state publications for that month), and an index. The print version ceased publication with vol. 57, no. 5 (May 2003); CSP was issued in PDF format from vol. 57, no. 6 (June 2003) through vol. 72, no. 12 (December 2018). The PDF version was discontinued as of the end of 2018; the monthly listings of new state publications can now only be retrieved via the State Library’s main catalog.

An A-Z list of California government services, which can be sorted, searched by keyword, and limited by broad categories and service types.

You can also search for California government documents on Google by adding site:ca.gov (site colon ca dot gov) to your search terms. For example, search for “renewable energy policy site:ca.gov” in the Google search bar. What this does is it searches for this term under the ca.gov domain which will search State of California webpages. You can also limit searches to a specific department or agency website, such as site:energy.ca.gov (site colon energy dot ca dot gov) to find only results from the California Energy Commission.

Thousands of government documents have been digitized and are available via the HathiTrust Digital Library, which is a co-managed digital library of archived materials converted from the print collections of the member institutions.

The Online Archive of California (OAC) provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary source collections maintained by more than 300 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California.

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Advancing Access to Justice Special Committee (2021-2022) compiled information for law librarians, legal information professionals, and members of the public to easily locate free online primary legal materials. This site covers legal materials for U.S. states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, U.S. Federal Government, and Canada.

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. The PPIC aims to improve public policy in California through non-partisan research. Researchers can access a variety of publications and reports spanning a variety of topics.

RAND State Statistics is a data portal that contains statistics on the Nation and California including crime, demographics, economics, education, government, health, income, poverty, and social services. The US collection contains nearly 200 Social Science databases covering all 50 U.S. states. The CA collection contains these U.S. databases, plus about 80 detailed databases on California.

An A-Z list of all State of California departments and agencies.

Created by Pew Research Center, Stateline provides reporting and analysis on topics and trends in state policy.

The State of California portal (CA.gov) connects users to state information, agencies, and services.