FINDING CONGRESSIONAL INFORMATION USING

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FINDING CONGRESSIONAL INFORMATION USING

• GPO ACCESS (Government Printing
• 
  Office)
• THOMAS (Library of Congress)
• Barbara Costello
• Documents Librarian/Assistant Professor
• duPont-Ball Library
• Stetson University
• November 3, 2000

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WHAT IS GPO ACCESS?

• A service of the U.S. Government Printing Office
  providing free public access to electronic
  information products produced by the Federal
  Government
• An award winning WWW site
• 1999 American Association of Law Libraries
• 1998 Best Feds on the Web

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FACTS ABOUT GPO ACCESS

• Established by Public Law 103-40, the Government
  Printing Office Electronic Information Access
  Enhancement Act of 1993
• Contains 1500 databases available through over 80
  applications
• Contains more than 109,000 electronic titles and
  points to more than 73,000 others
• As of March 2000, 29,000,000 retrievals a month

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THE OBJECTIVES OF GPO ACCESS

• Improve access to official Federal government
  information in electronic format
• Provide well-designed, easy to use, publicly
  available online services
• Provide official and complete federal information
• Provide Finding Aids that assist users in
  searching and browsing for government-wide
  information
• Ensure permanent public access

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WHAT CONGRESSIONAL INFORMATION IS IN GPO ACCESS?

• Text of Congressional Bills
• History of Bills
• Public Laws
• Congressional Record
• Congressional Record Index

• Congressional Calendars
• Congressional Directory
• Congressional Documents
• Congressional Reports

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CONGRESSIONAL BILLS

• From 103rd Congress, 1993-94 - to date
• Search by
• Subject
• Bill Number

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PUBLIC LAWS

• From 104th Congress to date
• Search by
• Subject
• Public Law Number
• Statute At Large Citation
• U.S. Code Citation
• Bill Number

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HISTORY OF BILLS

• From 1983 to date
• Search by
• Subject
• Sponsor/Co-Sponsor
• Bill Number
• Report Number
• Public Law Number

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD

• From V.40, 1994 to date
• Search by
• Subject
• Bill Number
• Roll-Call Vote
• Page Number

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD INDEX

• From 1983 to date
• Search by
• Subject
• Senator or Representative
• Prominent Individuals Title
• Bill Number

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CONGRESSIONAL CALENDARS

• Daily House and Senate Calendars for current
  session
• Final Calendar for earlier Congresses beginning
  with the 104th
• Search by
• Subject
• Bill Number
• Popular Title
• Bills in Conference

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CONGRESSIONAL DIRECTORY

• From the 104th Congress to date
• Search by
• Members name
• Committee
• State
• District
• Agency name

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HOW DO I GET TO GPO ACCESS?
http//www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/index.html
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WHO OR WHAT IS THOMAS?

• THOMAS is
• Named for the third President of the U.S., whose
  collection of books formed the core of the
  Library of Congress
• A comprehensive federal legislative information
  site
• A collection of databases first brought onto the
  WWW at the inception of the 104th Congress in
  January 1995
• The creation of and is maintained by the Library
  of Congress

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WHAT DATABASES ARE AVAILABLE IN THOMAS?
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House Floor This Week

• Coverage Current Congress
• Bills that are expected to be passed under
  suspension of the rules, or expected to receive
  floor action
• Browse by date

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HOUSE FLOOR NOW

• Coverage Current Congress, Current Legislative
  Day
• Floor actions occurring in the House are listed
  in reverse chronological order
• Browse reverse chronological list

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QUICK SEARCH OF TEXT OF BILLS

• Coverage Current Congress
• Searches text of legislation for current Congress
• Search by word/phrase
• bill number

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BILL SUMMARY STATUS

• Coverage 93rd Congress, 1973 to date
• Information about bills and amendments
• Search by
• word/phrase
• subject (index) term
• bill/amendment number
• stage in the legislative process
• date of introduction
• sponsor/co-sponsor
• committee

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BILL TEXT

• Coverage 101st Congress, 1989 to date.
• Full-text of all GPO-supplied versions of bills
• Search by
• word/phrase
• bill number
• Browse by
• bill number
• bill type

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MAJOR LEGISLATION

• Coverage 104th Congress, 1995 to date
• Selected bills/amendments deemed significant by
  legislative analysts in the Congressional
  Research Service of the LOC
• Browse by
• topic
• short/popular titles
• bill/amendment numbers
• bills enacted into law

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PUBLIC LAWS BY LAW NUMBER

• Coverage 93rd Congress, 1973 to date
• Bill summary and status records for each bill
  that became law
• Listings in law number order and bill number
  sequence
• Some records have links to Text and PDF versions
  of the Public Law

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VOTES HOUSE AND SENATE ROLL CALL VOTES

• Senate
• Coverage 101st Congress, 1st Session, 1989 to
  date
• Yea-and-nay votes in the Senate listed in reverse
  chronological order by roll call vote number

• House of Representatives
• Coverage 101st Congress, 2nd Session, 1990 to
  date
• Recorded votes in the House listed in reverse
  chronological order by roll call vote number

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD TEXT

• Coverage 101st Congress, 1989 to date
• Full text of the daily edition of the
  Congressional Record
• Search by
• word/phrase
• member of Congress
• date
• sections or the entire Record

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CONGRESSIONAL RECORD INDEX

• Coverage 103rd Congress, 2nd Session, 1994 to
  date
• Index to the daily edition of the Congressional
  Record
• Search by
• index term
• Browse by
• index term in alphabetical ranges
• Page numbers for index terms and bill numbers
  link to the full text Congressional Record file

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RESUMES OF CONGRESSIONAL ACTIVITY

• Coverage 91st Congress, 1969 to date
• Congressional workload statistics for each
  Congressional Session, including
• Days and number of hours in session
• Number of measures introduced
• Number of bills enacted into law
• Disposition of executive nominations
• Yea-and-nay and recorded votes
• Browse tabular data

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Committee Reports

• Coverage 104th Congress, 1995 to date.
• Full text of House and Senate Committee Reports
  printed by GPO
• Search by
• word/phrase
• report number
• bill number
• committee

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Committee Home Pages

• Coverage Current Congress
• Links to House and Senate Committee pages
  residing on House and Senate servers
• Browse House and Senate pages by Committee name
• Search House Committee pages by word/phrase
• House Committee site has selected hearing
  transcripts

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HOW DO I GET TO THOMAS?
http//thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas2.html