This is a guest post by Tammie Nelson, project manager for Congress.gov. Tammie reflects on her time at the Library of Congress as she prepares to depart to begin work on a PhD in information studies at the University of Maryland iSchool. My first Library of Congress office was in the Madison Building. Eight quotations from our …
Congress.gov’s release 3.4 was deployed on Monday, June 26th. With this new release, you may have noticed a change in your search results. This is because the default search operator on the global and advanced search form is now AND instead of OR. For example, if you searched national park from the homepage, Congress.gov used to return …
With the recent update to Congress.gov, you can now download your search results in a comma-separated value (CSV) file. This is a feature that I have heard users request almost as long as they have requested email alerts for legislation. We have limited the number of search results that you can download from a single …
Spring is a beautiful time of year in Washington, D.C. The temperature warms up; the cherry blossoms are out; and we frequently have an update of Congress.gov to share. In 2015 we added treaties and web-friendly bill text, and in 2016 we expanded the quick search feature. Today there is another round of enhancements to …
The following is a guest post by Natalie Buda Smith, user experience team supervisor at the Library of Congress. In recent blog posts, we shared how we continuously conduct usability testing and regularly release enhancements to make Congress.gov easier to use and search. We also use data analytics to understand website traffic, by monitoring visits, …
Once again, the National Archives and the Law Library of Congress are hosting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon. The focus will be on congressional committees and hearings. It will be held at the Library of Congress on Friday, April 7 from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. There are a limited number of spots available. Register now and learn …
The following is a guest post by Jill MacNeice, an information architect at the Library of Congress. We are constantly working to improve Congress.gov, and regularly conduct usability testing on the site as part of this effort. We recently looked at the variety of ways in which you search the site. Congress.gov has many searches, …
I frequently suspect that my nearest and dearest sometimes heave a sigh when they see me coming. Although I can always be relied upon to provide some delectable baked goods, I can also be relied upon to hijack the conversation and natter on about some obscure date in history or some arcane legislative procedure. And …
A little more than a year ago, I wrote about our national bird, the eagle. The eagle appears on the United States Great Seal and the post briefly discussed the design process for that seal under the Continental Congress. The process spanned over 6 years, involved three separate, specially appointed congressional committees, and an …