Trending: Congressional Research Service Reports Now Available Online

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This is a guest post by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

I’m pleased to announce that, for the first time, the Library of Congress is providing Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports to the public. The reports are available online at crsreports.congress.gov. Created by experts in CRS, the reports present a legislative perspective on topics such as agriculture policy, counterterrorism operations, banking regulation, veteran’s issues and much more.

Founded over a century ago, CRS provides authoritative and confidential research and analysis for Congress’ deliberative use.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 directs the Library to also make CRS reports publicly available online. We worked closely with Congress to make sure that we had a mutual understanding of the law’s requirements and Congress’ expectations in our approach to this project.

The result is a new public website for CRS reports based on the same search functionality that Congress uses – designed to be as user friendly as possible – that allows reports to be found by common keywords. We believe the site will be intuitive for the public to use and will also be easily updated with enhancements made to the congressional site in the future.

Moving forward, all new or updated reports will be added to the website as they are made available to Congress. The Library is also working to make available the back catalog of previously published reports as expeditiously as possible. More details about this process can be found on the site’s Frequently Asked Questions page.

CRS reports supplement the official congressional information the Library provides on its congress.gov website.

In keeping with our desire to engage users with the Library and its materials, we are happy to see these reports put to the widest use possible. I hope that you find them a useful addition to the many resources available to you from the Library of Congress.

Any Questions? When Students Want to Know, They Ask a Librarian

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This is a guest post by Danna Bell of the Library’s Educational Outreach Office. It first appeared in “A Library for Kids,” the September–October issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. Why do pigeons bob their heads when they walk? Are children allowed in the Library […]

John W. Kluge Prize: Drew Gilpin Faust and the Case for the Humanities

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On Wednesday, Sept. 12, Drew Gilpin Faust – historian, former Harvard University president and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” – will accept the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The $1 million Kluge Prize, bestowed through the generosity of […]

This Day in History: Deadliest Hurricane Ever Strikes Galveston

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A little more than a year ago, Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast as a category 4 storm, bringing damaging rain and flooding. Less than a month later, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico with heavy downpours and sustained winds of 155 miles an hour – only two miles an hour shy of a category 5 […]

Pic of the Week: National Book Festival Draws Tens of Thousands

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Crowds of book lovers happily took time out last Saturday from the holiday weekend to celebrate books at the Library of Congress’ 18th National Book Festival. Held in the Washington, D.C., Convention Center, the festival featured more than 100 authors of books of all kinds – presidential histories, memoirs, graphic novels, spy thrillers, illustrated children’s […]

Talking Textiles: Marvels of Pre-Columbian America

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This is a guest post by Rosemary Ryan, an archaeological research fellow at the Library. She is a student at Towson University specializing in forensic anthropology and archaeology. Her research at the Library supports the “Exploring the Early Americas” exhibit and the Jay I. Kislak Collection, made up of more than 3,000 items related to […]

Inquiring Minds: Showcasing Library Photos on the West Coast

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Fourteen million pictures have the power to document a nation as diverse as the United States – but such a collection seems almost too vast to comprehend. This year, audiences in Los Angeles were offered a unique look at a cross section of the photography collection at the Library of Congress. L.A.’s Annenberg Space for […]

Leonard Bernstein Centennial: My Father, Leonard Bernstein

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To mark the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth—he was born on August 25, 1918—we’re republishing a column by his daughter Jamie Bernstein from the May–June issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine, in which she reflects on her famous dad’s legacy and on the Leonard Bernstein Collection at the Library of Congress. Issues of […]