NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 24 number 2 - Winter 2004

By Jack McGeachy and Karrie Peterson, Research and Information Services

People in many walks of life are interested in studying the activities of the U.S. Congress. Congress, however, is primarily concerned with recording its actions in ways that help senators and representatives conduct business effectively. This can lead to information gaps for scholars, and it is this kind of gap that is addressed by the Congressional Bibliographies Web site at the NCSU Libraries.

Scholars study congressional meetings and publications to learn about official deliberations and considerations leading to the passage of legislation. It may surprise readers to learn that, outside of this Web site, there is no comprehensive listing of the publications that emanate from Senate committee meetings--not even at the U.S. Senate itself. Also, there is no convenient, online resource that fully indexes committee meetings of the Senate and House of Representatives other than the Libraries' Congressional Bibliographies Web site.

Over time, two major products have been developed as key components of the Congressional Bibliographies: the detailed lists of Senate committee publications and a searchable committee meetings index covering both the House and the Senate. The wealth of data from the Congressional Bibliographies is freely available via the Internet. At the NCSU Libraries' Research Resources page [http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/eresources/] click on the link entitled "Congressional Bibliographies."

Senate Committee Documents

By compiling information from sources such as the "Daily Digest" section of the Congressional Record and using materials provided by the U.S. Senate Library, the developers of the Congressional Bibliographies Web site were able to list the published and unpublished documents that resulted from Senate committee meetings from 1983 to the present.

Scholars who are interested in studying the political focus of the Senate over a period of time can use the meetings data available through the Congressional Bibliographies as can students who wish to track down the publications that result from meetings addressing various topics. Published hearings, for example, record not only the discussions of congressional members, but also testimony from experts and advocacy groups. They are valuable resources for studying subjects ranging from international terrorism to biodiversity.

The Congressional Bibliographies database helps scholars indirectly as well when librarians across the country use it to establish complete collections of printed Senate hearings. Librarians can easily use this data to spot material missing from library holdings.

Congressional Meetings Index

The database for the "Congressional Meetings Index" permits precise searching for topics, committees, and dates of meetings using data drawn from the Congressional Record 's "Daily Digest" from 1985 to the present. While the Congressional Record can also be searched from other online government and commercial databases, those sites' search features do not allow users to limit searches only to meetings data or to specify a particular subcommittee. Searches on other sites often return long lists of results; users must then read through large sections of the Congressional Record to find substantive meeting information.

By focusing exclusively on the data relating to committee meetings in the Congressional Record, the Libraries' "Congressional Meetings Index" allows researchers to determine when committees and subcommittees held meetings on various topics and to begin locating the published records of those meetings.

Social sciences librarian Jack McGeachy, who oversees the Congressional Bibliographies Web site, worked with Shirley Rodgers and Sandra Logeson of the library's Systems Department to develop this unique search feature.

Andrew Taylor, an associate professor in NC State's Department of Political Science and Public Administration, observed that, "the U.S. Congressional Bibliographies project has provided an invaluable resource for students, political scientists, journalists, lawyers, researchers, and lobbyists-indeed, anybody with an interest in Congress. The ability to search the 'Daily Digest's' meetings database means that, with the click of a mouse, we can access information on committee meetings about the issue of our choice."

The Congressional Bibliographies Web site makes a unique contribution to the Libraries' ongoing mission to provide top-quality resources for the campus community and, in its role as a federal government depository, to make resources for government information available to the general public whenever possible.