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Federal Government Documents Tutorial Home 1. The Universe of Federal Government Information 5. The NCSU Libraries on-line catalog 7. Monthly Catalog cumulative indexes 9. CIS 10. Other Congressional Sources 14. Web sites |
Federal Government Documents TutorialOther Congressional SourcesCongressional Serial Set The Congressional Serial Set is a major historical collection of material printed for the House and Senate as they conduct the business of Congress. The bulk of the publications contained in the Serial Set are reports and documents from congressional committees. Reports are issued by committees as they release proposed legislation for consideration by their parent body, the full House or Senate. Documents can really be considered to be any miscellaneous publication that Congress sees fit to have printed. The printed Serial Set sits at the upper end of the SuDoc call number sequence, in the second floor stack ranges nearest Hillsborough Street in the D.H. Hill Library. They carry their own sequence number (1-13,000+), and are simply filed in numerical order. The CIS company has produced an index to the Serial Set, the CIS U.S. Serial Set Index. It works exactly as do the CIS titles described above, and is shelved with other CIS titles in the Reference - U.S. Docs area on the second floor, north bookstacks overlooking Hillsborough Street. LexisNexis Congressional LexisNexis Congressional includes (under the "Publications" link) texts of congressional reports (from 1989, 101st Congress, to present) and documents (from 1995, 104th Congress, to present). GPO Access The printed version of the Congressional Serial Set is no longer being sent to depository libraries. Since 1995 (the 104th Congress), the individual reports and documents from the Serial Set volumes, along with a number of other document titles published by federal government agencies, have been made available in electronic form from GPO Access. Thomas The Library of Congress maintains the website, Thomas, that includes committee reports since 1995. American Memory Another Library of Congress website, American Memory, contains a large amount of legislative resources from the 1770s to 1875 in a section titled A Century of Lawmaking for the New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates. Congressional Index The Congressional Index differs from the tools discussed above. It's published by Commerce Clearinghouse, not CIS. It is a paper, loose-leaf service with weekly updates "designed to aid research on the status and history of legislation and other matters in Congress. It provides current reporting and an historical reference on the activities of each Congress." It is shelved temporarily with the majority of the reference collection in 6th floor tower stacks of the D.H. Hill Library. Its call number is KF49 .C6. The Congressional Index is usually found in two annual volumes. "Volume 1 covers activities common to both houses of Congress, including Presidential action. It also contains material specific to the Senate. Volume 2 reports on activities of the House of Representatives and actions taken by the Senate on House measures." The volumes have these sections: Subject Index A great deal of the data in the Congressional Index, from the 103d Congress (1993-94) forward, is also available from Thomas and GPO Access. The loose-leaf Congressional Index is the most current paper product containing information about U.S. legislative action. |
