In our quest to retire THOMAS, we have made many enhancements to Congress.gov this year. Our first big announcement was the addition of email alerts, which notify users of the status of legislation, new issues of the Congressional Record, and when Members of Congress sponsor and cosponsor legislation. That development was soon followed by the addition of treaty documents and better …
I recently re-read one of my favorite childhood books, Karen by Marie Killilea. The book recounts the struggles of the author’s daughter who was born with cerebral palsy and her challenges to lead a normal life. The author also mentions Frances Giden Berko who had cerebral palsy as well and this caught my attention because …
This has been a great year as we continue our push to develop and refine Congress.gov. There were email alerts added in February, treaties and better default text in March, the Federalist Papers and more browse options in May, and accessibility and user requested features in July. With this October update, Senate Executive Communications from …
On September 24, 2015, Pope Francis delivered a speech before a joint meeting of Congress. I thought it would be interesting to provide some information about joint sessions and meetings of Congress–what they are, how they occur and where one can find historical information about joint sessions. The Senate website defines a joint session as …
Thursday, September 17th is Constitution Day and on this date we commemorate the signing of the Constitution. This day also recognizes those who have become citizens of the United States by coming of age or by naturalization. The Law Library frequently celebrates this auspicious day with a lecture or scholarly debate. Over the years we …
Web traffic tends to slowdown in the summer. The weather gets nice and people leave their computers and devices behind. It’s easy to miss a post or two while busy on vacation or recess. Thankfully, we keep track of our metrics and can share what has been popular over the last three months. While down compared …
Since the unveiling of Congress.gov in September of 2012, we have been constantly adding new features with each release, and many of the features in this release are based directly on your feedback. Accessibility We want to make Congress.gov more accessible, and our new feature, “Listen,” helps us deliver on this goal. Listen appears on …
Now that we are midway through the year I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at our metrics at this point. What In Custodia Legis blog posts have been popular? What Law Library of Congress reports? What legislation? The mix of the top ten new blog posts highlights both our foreign and …
With each release of Congress.gov, THOMAS is one step closer to retiring to Monticello. Tina has recently joined the Congress.gov team and has been working on a gap analysis between the two systems. She is identifying items such as the Senate Executive Communications and Congressional Record Index that exist only on THOMAS as things to …
