Each Executive Branch department has a different area of interest. However, the agencies share some common features to keep in mind. Each Cabinet-level department has sub-agencies and sub-departments with their own missions. Each department produces a range of government information publications: regulations, annual reports, statistics, reports and pamphlets for the general public, etc.

Looking at the anatomy of one agency, the Department of the Interior, may give a clearer understanding of what you may find within a given agency.

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the fifteen Cabinet Departments that make up the Executive branch under the direction of the President.  The DOI itself is the parent organization to a number of sub-agencies and bureaus, which produce documents of interest to everyone from environmental scientists, geologists, and biologists to anthropologists, sociologists, and historians to engineers, farmers, people of Native American descent, and recreational hikers.