This is a guest post by the Law Librarian of Congress, Aslihan Bulut.
Dear In Custodia Legis readers and Law Library of Congress patrons, colleagues, and friends:
As the holiday season unfolds, I would like to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each of you who has supported and visited our library throughout the year. It has been a year of growth, connection, and wonderful achievements, and we are very proud and grateful for the continued support we receive.
We cannot thank you enough for your continued engagement, your interest in our resources, and the vibrant community we have built together. Whether you have been visiting the Law Library in person or exploring our digital offerings, your support makes all the difference. We are truly honored to serve you.
As we reflect on 2025, we are reminded of the incredible power of libraries to bring people together, inspire lifelong learning, and provide access to the stories and information that shape our lives. It is your curiosity and enthusiasm that keep us motivated to create even more content, programs, and services to help you on your journey.
For the Law Library of Congress’s team, this year was marked by significant progress across multiple fronts. Our commitment to enhancing access to legal information, expanding our digital collections, and providing unparalleled support to researchers, lawmakers, and the public has never been stronger.
In 2025, the Law Library’s amazing team successfully handled multiple ongoing projects, proposed and implemented new initiatives, and processed a very high number of research requests from all three government branches and legal reference requests from our public patrons. The expertise of our foreign law specialists was actively sought by Congressional staff and the intelligence community. We continued to host in-person and virtual classes, trainings, and events, and to engage our user communities and partners so they could learn more about our collections and services. Providing free access to the U.S. legal materials remains in our focus, as it benefits not only American citizens but also the global public by serving as a model of transparency and democratic governance. And here are just some of the key achievements that shaped our year.
Expanding Public Services and Research Support
In fiscal year 2025, the Law Library’s Public Services Division (PSD) answered a total of 10,475 reference and research inquiries, demonstrating our continued role as a vital resource for legal research. Among these, we responded to 821 inquiries from Congress and legislative branch agencies, 255 from various federal executive departments, and 70 from the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts. Our team of reference law librarians remains deeply committed to serving the diverse needs of legal professionals, policymakers, and citizens alike. The Foreign, Comparative, and International Law (FCIL) divisions also provided 1,053 in-depth research responses to users worldwide, including 313 responses to Members of Congress. This division’s work continues to be essential in supporting U.S. legal professionals and international legal scholars with expert research on foreign and international law.
Digital Advancements: Leading the Way in Transparency
The Law Library made remarkable strides in enhancing access to legal resources by digitizing important collections that were previously difficult or costly to access. This year, we digitized 19,026 volumes, 101,380 documents, 16,778 gazette issues, and 95 reports, totaling over 125,000 PDFs and 1.7 million pages. Among the major undertakings:
- U.S. Congressional Serial Set: The fifth and final year of our project to digitize the U.S. Congressional Serial Set was completed, resulting in the digitization of all 15,607 volumes, with 71,033 documents now available on loc.gov. This monumental effort, undertaken in collaboration with the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), will forever change how researchers, lawmakers, and citizens access this critical legislative history.
- U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs (SCRB): We also launched a full-scale digitization of the SCRB collection, inventorying 16,602 volumes (61% of the total collection). This is part of a decade-long effort to ensure comprehensive access to these foundational documents.
- Foreign Legal Gazettes: As part of our ongoing preservation efforts, we digitized 16,778 issues from 89 titles, significantly expanding the Foreign Legal Gazettes collection. This initiative included over 1.7 million pages, making critical international legal materials more accessible to a global audience.
Enhancing Collection Discoverability and Access
The Law Library also took substantial steps to improve the discoverability of its collections. We completed the classification of 3,984 titles previously under the obsolete LAW shelving system into the Library of Congress Classification System, ensuring more streamlined access and future-proofing our holdings. Additionally, we continued the compact shelving replacement project in the Law Stacks, completing the final phase in Quad D, which will improve the organization and accessibility of our physical collections for years to come.
Educational Outreach and Public Engagement
Our commitment to education and public engagement remained strong, with the Law Library hosting 124 instructional programs that reached 5,246 attendees. These sessions covered a wide range of topics, including legal research, legislative processes, and international law, serving legal professionals, students, and the general public. In addition, we welcomed 721 attendees from 34 visiting delegations representing organizations and institutions from both the United States and abroad. These engagements foster both U.S. and global connections and enhance the collaborative role the Law Library plays in the legal community.
Strengthening Online Resources and Access
Our online presence continued to thrive in fiscal year 2025:
- In Custodia Legis blog published 149 posts, expanding access to items in our collection, highlighting staff through interviews, and announcing upcoming events.
- The Global Legal Monitor published 266 articles on global legal developments, expanding on the developments to provide clarity on complex topics.
- Congress.gov, the authoritative resource for U.S. federal legislative information, has added new enhancements to make the site more user-friendly.
- Our dedicated staff also hosted five instructional webinars for the public on how to navigate Congress.gov, helping users make the most of these vital resources.
Signature Events and Community Engagement
This year’s Signature Events highlighted the Law Library’s role in fostering important conversations around law and justice. We were proud to host the Supreme Court Fellows Lecture featuring Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and a Human Rights Day event focused on accessibility laws worldwide, with Rep. Debbie Dingell as a guest speaker. These events attracted over 1,000 attendees and showcased our ongoing commitment to fostering dialogue on legal issues that matter to people everywhere.
Continuing Partnerships and Collaboration
Our 50 State Outreach Project continued to build strong relationships with state law libraries across the nation. This initiative facilitates collaboration and the sharing of resources between the Law Library and state law librarians. In fiscal 2025, we hosted representatives from Maine, Montana, Alaska, Connecticut, and Texas, with more states planned for fiscal 2026. Furthermore, our Guggenheim Scholars Program continued to support groundbreaking research at the intersection of law, technology, and criminal justice. This year’s scholar, Professor Branden Blankenship from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, focused on legal frameworks that promote thriving cities as a strategy for violence prevention, contributing important insights to the field.
Looking Ahead
As we close fiscal 2025, we reflect with gratitude on these many milestones, all made possible by the dedication of our staff and the ongoing support of our patrons, partners, and stakeholders. Looking forward to fiscal 2026, we are excited to continue building on these successes, expanding our digital offerings, and providing even greater access to the legal resources that are vital to the functioning of democracy and the rule of law. Thank you for being part of our journey, and we look forward to another year of service, growth, and innovation.
From all of us here at the Law Library, we wish you a joyful holiday season filled with peace, love, and, of course, plenty of good law books and digital collections! Thank you for being a part of our story—here’s to even more exciting chapters ahead in the New Year.
Warmest wishes,
Aslihan Bulut
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