Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top – August 2023, Part 2

Earlier this month, Andrew shared that we now have Browse pages dating back to the first Congress. Also, on the Debates of Congress section from the 1st through 18th Congresses, you can now access PDFs of the Annals of Congress.

In this release, you will now find search bar suggestions in the global search box when you search across all Congresses, or when you search the Legislation or Congressional Record collections. In addition, historical bills and resolutions, dating from 1799-1873 (6th-42 Congresses), are now available on the browse page on Congress.gov.

Enhancements 

The latest Congress.gov enhancements include:

Enhancement – Browse – Historical Congresses

• Open the Legislative Documents accordion on the Browse page for any Congress from the 6th through the 42nd to link to House or Senate historical bill texts.
  

Enhancement – Search Bar – Suggestions

• When using the search bar for All Congresses, Legislation or Congressional Record, you are presented with other slices of the collection you may wish to search.
• For example, you have the option to narrow a Congressional Record search to only the Daily Edition.
  

Congress.gov Tip

Since the Bound Congressional Record on Congress.gov now provides coverage dating back to December of 1873, I decided to take another look back at Congressional reactions to a historic event in American history, this time the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
The Titanic collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912, and sank on April 15, 1912. Kelly had previously written about the regulations and requirements that related to the safety equipment on board that contributed to the tragedy of the Titanic and Susan wrote about lawsuits that followed the disaster.

I decided to search the Bound Congressional Record, so I went to the homepage, selected the “Congressional Record” in the dropdown menu, entered the search term “Titanic,” and on the results screen, clicked “show keywords in context.” Show keywords in context displays a snippet of the text where your result appears so you can quickly decide whether or not it is relevant to you. I then selected the 62nd Congress under the “Congress” filter, since that includes 1911-1913. There were many results to choose from. I then decided to try to find one of the first reactions, so I sorted by issue date from oldest to newest. I then selected a result for April 16, 1912. Rep. Austin discussed H.Res. 496, in which the House expressed its sorrow for those who lost their lives on the Titanic.

Another approach to access this information in the Congressional Record would be to browse it by date.

Most-Viewed Bills

The most-viewed bills for the week of August 20, 2023 are as follows:

Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.