Happy Third Birthday to In Custodia Legis

It was three years ago that I added blogger to my professional credentials when I posted, What exactly is In Custodia Legis?  In the last three years we have expanded from a team of five bloggers (Kelly, Kurt, Clare, Christine, and me) to a team of fourteen (Barbara, Robert, Kelly, Jeanine, Kurt, Nathan, Clare, Tina, Hanibal, Ruth, Francisco, Donna, Margaret, and me).  In these three years, we have posted more than 780 entries.

One goal of our blog is to make the Law Library of Congress more accessible to you.  We encourage comments, we share things we learn during the course of our jobs, and we provide updates on our products.  Some posts are interesting things we see in the news that have a legal angle, some are interviews with staff, many are about the Law Library, and others are photos from here and law libraries around the world.  Some are a bit more off beat than others.

I enjoy helping to bring Congress and the public together.  The blog has been an excellent platform to reach both when I discuss THOMAS or Congress.gov.  I’ve been in meetings with Congressional staffers that have had printouts of my blog posts.  I’ve seen Members of Congress tweet links to our posts to their followers.

During its three years, In Custodia Legis has had over half a million page views.  We grew by 40% from our first to our second year and jumped 55% from our second to third year.  This means we have had more than twice as much traffic in year three than year one.

It is rather incredible to think back to a time before the Law Library of Congress had a blog.  We now share our history, resources, and staff with a much larger community.

We’ve had several posts that have stayed popular over the years.  Here are the top ten most viewed posts since we started:

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2. The Inspiring Story of Nelson Mandela
3. Nuts in front of the Madison Building – Pic of the Week
4. The Articles of Confederation: The First Constitution of the United States
5. The History of the Mexican Constitution
6. Slavery in the French Colonies: Le Code Noir (the Black Code) of 1685
7. Cinco de Mayo is Not Mexican Independence Day?
8. Frequent Reference Question: How Many Federal Laws Are There?
9. There’s a Congressional App for That
10. Top Law Library of Congress Web Pages

Thanks for reading!  What has been your favorite post?