Now that the 111th Congress is officially over, we can start preparing for the 112th! Since the election in November, the House and Senate were busy putting the final touches on several pieces of legislation. This is commonly referred to as a lame-duck session. So what is a lame-duck session? When Congress is in […]
This has been an exciting year working on THOMAS. We started enhancing the site in January on its fifteenth anniversary, expanded some of the improvements in June, and revamped it more during the summer recess. There’s been some nice press too. Our goal at the start of the year was to roll out four sets […]
While I frequently mention THOMAS, I should point out that other parts of our website also feature legislative information, especially historic information. We have one of the most complete collections of U.S. Congressional documents in their original format. A Century of Lawmaking For a New Nation provides access to U.S. congressional documents and debates from […]
You might remember hearing about an “amendment in the nature of a substitute,” sometimes referred to as a “vehicle bill,” during the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). An amendment in the nature of a substitute is an amendment that would strike out the entire text of a bill after […]
This has been a great year for watching Congress online! C-SPAN launched their Video Library . It is an incredible resource that contains: …[e]very C-SPAN program aired since 1987, now totaling over 160,000 hours, …in the C-SPAN Archives and [is] immediately accessible through the database and electronic archival systems developed and maintained by the C-SPAN […]
Discussions about how public sector agencies, courts, and parliaments can best make use of online technology to provide information in different ways and engage with people have been building momentum worldwide for a few years. In fact, earlier this month there was a big Gov 2.0 Summit held here in Washington, DC. Clare recently blogged […]
Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is observed each year on September 17 to commemorate the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787 and “recognize all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become citizens.” Both the Law Library and the Library of Congress have many resources for researching the Constitution. The Law […]
We’ve been busy the last few weeks prepping and enhancing THOMAS for this week. I’ve enjoyed watching the message spread about the changes to THOMAS. I was fortunate enough to be able to do my first radio interview discussing our enhancements from this year for the DorobekInsider on Federal News Radio. (How many places besides […]
Over the past couple months I, along with the great THOMAS team here at the Library of Congress, have been working hard on the latest set of enhancements. Thankfully, we’ve been able to finish them before Congress returns from August recess. User feedback is continuing to drive our newest update. We collect feedback through OpinionLab […]
As you can see from my previous post on researching Al Capone’s jury, some of the questions that come through “Ask A Librarian” can be quite fascinating. Some on their face appear simple, but upon further research, reveal hidden depths. A recent question involved a private law from the 71st Congress (1929-1931).* Private laws affect […]