The Missouri Legislative Library has compiled the following directory of free online resources for public policy research. Category areas below include Academic Papers and Grey Literature, Legislation Tracking, Data and Statistics, Directories, Historical Research, and Legal Research.                                                             

The Legislative Library recommends the following free online resources for locating additional public policy academic publishing and grey literature. 

• Education Resources Information Center (Eric)
  ERIC is an online library of education research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

• PubMed Central
  PubMed Central® (PMC) is a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM)

• PubAg
  SEARCH is the USDA National Agricultural Library’s main search tool. It provides simple, one-stop access to more than 8 million records covering all aspects of agriculture and related disciplines.

• Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER)
  FRASER is a digital library of U.S. economic, financial, and banking history—particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System.

• Democracy’s Library
  Democracy's Library brings together more than 700 collections from over 50 government organizations, archived by the Internet Archive since 2006.

• EconBiz
  EconBiz is an academic search portal for journals, working papers, and conferences in business studies and economics.

• WorldWideScience
  WorldWideScience.org is a global science search engine designed to accelerate scientific discovery and progress by accelerating the sharing of scientific knowledge.

• FindPolicy
  Search across leading think tanks in a policy area. Search engines within FindPolicy include: Climate, Economy, Development, Foreign Policy, and general Public Policy. There are also country-level and regional searches.

The Legislative Library recommends the following free online resources for bill tracking in the Missouri Legislature and other statewide legislatures. 

• Missouri House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking
• LegiScan
• ProPublica Represent
• FastDemocracy
• OpenStates by Plural

The Legislative Library recommends the following free online resources for statistical research.

• U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts
  The QuickFacts data access tool provides users with easy access to basic population, business, and geography statistics for all states and counties, and for cities and towns with more than 5,000 people.

• Census Reporter
  Census Reporter is an independent project to make data from the American Community Survey (ACS) easier to use. 

• Missouri Census Data Center
  The Missouri Census Data Center (MCDC) is a cooperative program among state agencies in Missouri and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Its purpose is to enhance awareness of and access to public data, especially Census Bureau products.

• USAFacts
  Non-partisan, not-for-profit resource of numbers and trends in government spending using government data from over 70 sources.

• Pew Research Center
  A nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.

• State Elections Websites (usa.gov)
• Open Think Tank Directory
• Missouri Ethics Commission Registered Lobbyist Search
• Missouri Society of Association Executives Lobbyist Directory
• Lobbying Registrations (ProPublica)
• St. Louis Area Public Officials Directory (East-West Gateway Council of Governments)

• Revised Statutes of Missouri 1825 - Present
• Missouri Session Laws 1824 - Present
• House and Senate Journals 1820 - Present
• Official Manual of the State of Missouri 1878 - Present
• Constitution of the State of Missouri 1820
• Constitution of the State of Missouri 1865
• Constitution of the State of Missouri 1875
• Constitution of the State of Missouri 1945
• Missouri Digital Newspapers

• NOLO Legal Encyclopedia
  Thousands of free articles on everyday legal topics.

• FindLaw
  Are you facing a legal issue, or just looking for more information about a specific legal topic? FindLaw's Learn About the Law section is the perfect starting point. Learn About the Law features informational articles about a wide variety of legal topics, as well as specific information about subjects such as how to hire an attorney and understanding your state's unique laws.

• Wex Legal Dictionary and Encyclopedia
  Wex is a free legal dictionary and encyclopedia sponsored and hosted by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School.

• Cornell University Law School Introduction to Basic Legal Citation
  A guide to both the standard and state-specific formats for citing the most widely referenced types of U.S. legal material

• The Indigo Book
  The Indigo Book is a resource for legal citations in standard legal documents. 

• Caselaw Access Project
  The Caselaw Access Project (“CAP”) expands public access to U.S. law. Our goal is to make all published U.S. court decisions freely available to the public online in a consistent format, digitized from the collection of the Harvard Law School Library.

• CourtListener
  CourtListener is a free legal research website containing millions of legal opinions from federal and state courts. With CourtListener, lawyers, journalists, academics, and the public can research an important case, stay up to date with case law as it develops, or do deep analysis using our raw data.