Today’s blog post is a guest post by Emily Frazier, a legislative data specialist in the office of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Emily has previously published Modernizing Congressional Data – Statute Compilations are a Gift to Researchers for In Custodia Legis.
We are excited to announce that slip law texts in BETA USLM format are now available in Congress.gov. The United States Legislative Markup (USLM) XML schema is a human- and machine-friendly way to structure legislative texts, including law texts. Slip laws in USLM are a modern, web-optimized format that is a great improvement from the plain text rendition previously shown as the default on Congress.gov. The side-by-side comparison in the featured image shows how USLM offers a more scalable text for different window sizes and can display marginal notes in the correct layout. Note that USLM is available in BETA, and that PDF continues to provide a complete and accurate display of legislation and law texts.
Slip laws in USLM are XML documents, which means they are comprised of structured data that can be interpreted by computers. That structured data is interoperable across systems, and can be used for enhancements like creating hyperlinks from textual references to resources like the U.S. Code or the Federal Register. These embedded references to other resources are one of the keys to making legislative information discoverable. USLM is displayed on Congress.gov using a stylesheet, which applies formatting and styling to produce a text that is easy to read and use, whether you are browsing from a computer, cell phone, or tablet.
The USLM standard is the product of years-long collaboration across the legislative branch. The U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, the Library of Congress, and the Government Publishing Office (GPO) collaborate on data modernization initiatives, including projects to modernize digital publishing workflows and make more documents available in USLM XML format. Slip laws are just one set of texts made available in BETA along the USLM roadmap.
BETA USLM is available in Congress.gov for bills that became public or private laws between the 113th Congress (2013-2014) and today. After new bills are signed into law, slip law texts, including USLM renditions, are published on GPO’s GovInfo site and ingested into Congress.gov.
Happy searching!
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