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Category: THOMAS

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New End of Year Congress.gov Enhancements: Quick Search, Congressional Record Index, and More

Posted by: Andrew Weber

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 …

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Now over 1,000,000 Items to Search on Congress.gov: Communications and More Added

Posted by: Andrew Weber

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 …

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New Features Added to Congress.gov Based On Your Feedback

Posted by: Robert Brammer

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 …

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THOMAS to Congress.gov: Gap Analysis and User Testing

Posted by: Andrew Weber

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 …

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Congress.gov Continues…

Posted by: Andrew Weber

So far, 2015 has been a great year for Congress.gov.  First, we launched email alerts in February. Then, we added treaty documents and more in March.  With today’s update, improvements have been made to search (results, command line and advanced), alerts, browse, and accessibility. The Federalist Papers have remained a perennially popular item on THOMAS with …

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Treaties, Text, and Timely Updates – Congress.gov Spring Cleaning

Posted by: Andrew Weber

Since introducing Congress.gov in September 2012, we have continued to add the databases from THOMAS to the new system.  We launched with legislation, followed soon thereafter by the Congressional Record, Committee Reports, and nominations.  Today, we are releasing treaty documents.  You can select “All Sources” and search across all of these data sets at once, something …

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Legislation Email Alerts on Congress.gov

Posted by: Andrew Weber

Moving from a 20-year-old system to our new, modern Congress.gov platform has many advantages. One of these is that, starting today, email alerts are available on Congress.gov.  There are three different types of alerts in this initial release: Member of Congress, legislation, and the Congressional Record.  Bill and member alerts were an often-requested feature on …

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Twenty Years of THOMAS

Posted by: Andrew Weber

Even though we are working to retire THOMAS, I thought we should celebrate the fact that it has now been online for twenty years!  THOMAS was a pioneer when it was launched on January 5, 1995.  It was even noteworthy that THOMAS was “available 24 hours a day.”  I have been at the Library of …