UC Search, UC Berkeley's public catalog, is very helpful in finding United States government information at UCB. The best search strategy is to use UC Search's Advanced Search link. Once at the Advanced Search screen, change the first drop-down to Author/Creator and enter United States in the box next to contains:
Leave the remaining drop-downs as any field and enter your search terms in those boxes (think of broad search terms for this step). You may also change the second drop-down to Author/Creator and add the name of a particular agency or department to find publications from that agency. You can also have options to limit by date, and after your search you can limit by specific library location.
Many, but not all, of the online government titles in UC Search can be accessed by anyone. If you need a tangible title, note its physical location, call number, and status--UC Berkeley has over twenty libraries on campus and you wouldn't want to be in one library when the title you want is in another building.
The Catalog of Government Publications is run by the Government Publishing Office. The catalog will work, but it will not be updated after the shutdown begins. Also, some of the PURL links in the catalog (purl.gpo.gov) may not work during the shutdown.
During a government shutdown, federal agency websites may not be updated, or worse, be taken offline entirely. If the website is taken offline, try searching the url in the Wayback Machine, provided by the Internet Archive. Once in the site, enter a URL and if the site was archived, you can explore it. Keep in mind that the Wayback Machine on average archives 2-4 links into the site, does not archive databases or most videos, and search boxes on the archived site will not work.