LibGuides: Finding Congressional Documents on the Open Web: House & Senate Docs, Reports

House and Senate Documents and Reports: Finding Aids and Indexes

1976 - present: Congressional Serial Set Catalog
From GPO.gov. This catalog contains records for House and Senate Reports, House and Senate Documents, Senate Executive Reports and Documents, and Senate Treaty Documents. The records date from July 1976 and are complete from the 95th Congress (1977-1978) to the present. Links are provided to publications when they are available online.
Numerical Lists of Documents and Reports
From GPO.gov. The Numerical List of Documents and Reports lists numerically, with a brief title, all of the Senate and House Documents and Reports issued during a Session of Congress. The Numerical List also indicates the specific volume of the Congressional Serial Set in which each Document and Report is bound. No alphabetical or subject indexing is contained in this publication. 1957 (85th Congress) to present.

House and Senate Reports

"Congressional reports originate from congressional committees and deal with proposed legislation and issues under investigation." - FDsys.gov

1995-present: House and Senate Reports
From FDsys.gov.

Journals of Congress

1789-1875: House Journal
From the Library of Congress A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation.
"The Journal should be seen as the minutes of floor action. It notes the matters considered by the House and the votes and other actions taken. It does not record the actual debates, which can be consulted through the "Link to date-related documents" in the full text transcription of the Journal."- loc.gov
1789-1875: Senate Journal
From the Library of Congress A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation.
"The Journal should be seen as the minutes of floor action. It notes the matters considered by the House and the votes and other actions taken. It does not record the actual debates, which can be consulted through the "Link to date-related documents" in the full text transcription of the Journal."- loc.gov
1789-1875: Senate Executive Journal
From the Library of Congress A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation.
"From its inaugural session, in addition to its legislative journal, the Senate has maintained a separate record of its executive proceedings that relate to its functions of confirming presidential nominees and consenting to the making of treaties." - loc.gov
1789-1791: Maclay's Journal
From the Library of Congress A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation.
"William Maclay was one of the first two senators from Pennsylvania. He drew a two-year term in the allotment of term lengths for the 1st Congress and was not reelected. A man of strong, not to say acerbic, opinions, Maclay soon felt himself swimming against the stream. Within two months of the opening of the first session, he had begun to keep a diary, which he continued almost daily for the three sessions of the 1st Congress. Because Senate sessions were closed to the public until 1795, his is one of the few accounts of Senate floor activity in the early Congresses." - loc.gov

Serial Set

1833-1917 (incomplete): Serial Set

"The Serial Set contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports. The reports are usually from congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. The documents include all other papers ordered printed by the House or Senate. Documents cover a wide variety of topics and may include reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, executive-branch materials were also published in the Serial Set." - loc.gov

Finding Congressional Documents on the Open Web

House and Senate Documents and Reports: Finding Aids and Indexes

House and Senate Reports

Journals of Congress

Serial Set

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