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Research Using Government Documents

The Value of the Government Documents 

Murray Weidenbaum

Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Economics

In 1966-67, I was a most intensive user of the government documents collection of the Olin Library. I literally mined the congressional hearings and committee reports, especially those by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, as I was writing a monograph on the impact of the Vietnam War on the United States. The subject was too fresh to appear in any scholarly publication.

Even before the final product was published by a research center of Georgetown University, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee published my study as a centerpiece of a two-volume compendium on the subject. My little monograph also generated a week-long hearing by the Committee, during which I testified extensively.

The results of the research performed in Olin subsequently were widely disseminated in scholarly journals as well as popular magazines.

I am personally indebted to the richness of the collection of government documents in Olin. I have had many further opportunities to use the materials, but not to the extent or with the impact of the 1966-67 period.



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