U.S. Government Publications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison : Congressional Publications

Congressional publications include:

• hearings
• reports and documents
• bills and resolutions
• roll call votes
• laws

To locate a particular title, search the UW-Madison libraries catalog. Because records for many publications will not be found in the catalog, check the following databases or contact a librarian for more assistance.

Many of these databases require that you search or browse by Congress and Session number. In order to locate the number of the Congress and Session for a particular year, see this page provided by the U.S. Senate.

ProQuest Congressional a.k.a. Congressional Publications (U.S.)

• Available for use in campus libraries, or off-campus use by UW-Madison students, faculty, and staff.
• Provides access to
  • Committee prints and miscellaneous publications (1830-present)
  • Congressional Record and predecessors (1789-1997)
  • Hearings (1824-present)
  • House and Senate documents and reports (1817-present)
  • Legislative histories (1969-present)
  • Serial Set maps (1789-present)
  • Serial Set (1789-2003)
• Help available from ProQuest's guide to Congressional

Gov Info (US Government Publishing Office)

• Provides free public access to full text of Congressional
  • bills (103^rd Congress (1993-1994) to present)
  • Congressional calendars (104th Congress (1995-96) to present)
  • committee prints (104th Congress (1995-96) to present, plus select prints from prior Congresses)
  • directories (41^st Congress (1869-1871) to present)
  • documents (select House, Senate, and treaty published documents from the 104th Congress (1995-96) forward. Additional documents from previous congresses are also available.)
  • hearings (select House and Senate hearings for the 104th Congress (1995-96) forward. Hearings from earlier congresses are being digitized, and will be added over time.)
  • Congressional Record daily edition (from Volume 140 (1994) to the present), bound edition (1873-present) and Record index (1983-present)
  • reports (select House, Senate, executive, and conference reports from the 104th Congress (1995-96) forward. Additional documents from previous congresses are also available)
  • history of bills (1983-present)
  • House rules and manuals (104th Congress (1995-96) to present, plus select manuals from prior Congresses)
  • Senate manual (104th Congress (1995-96) to present, plus select manuals from prior Congresses)
  • Journal of the House 1992 forward, plus select documents from prior Congresses
  • Journal of the Senate (108th Congress (2003-04) to present, plus select journals from prior Congresses)
  • Statutes at Large (1789 to present)
• Select one or more of the above collections in the "Refine by collection" box in the advanced search to search just those collections. .
• Help section

Congress.gov 

• Provides free public access to full text of Congressional
  • bills (1799/6^th Congress to present)
  • bill summary and status information (1973/93^rd Congress to present)
  • Congressional Record daily edition (1995/104^th Congress to present)
  • Congressional Record bound edition (1873/43^rd Congress to 1994/103^rd Congress)
  • Historical debates of Congress (not searchable; 1789/1^st Congress to 1833/42^nd Congress)
  • Presidential nominations (1981/97^th Congress to present)
  • Treaty Documents (1995/104^th Congress to present)
  • committee reports (1995/104^th Congress to present)
  • committee hearing transcripts  (1993/103^rd Congress to present)
  • public and private laws, slip form (1995/104^th Congress to present)
  • Statutes at Large (1951/82^nd Congress to most recent published by GPO)
  • roll call votes (1989/101^st Congress to present)
• See Coverage Dates for Congress.gov Collections for more details on when different kinds of publications are posted
• Help section has a variety of guides and tutorials

As part of the Federal Depository Library Program, the UW-Madison Libraries make U.S. government publications available to the public at no fee.

Contact the Wisconsin Historical Library Society at  asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org

OR

The UW-Madison Law Library at askuwlaw@law.wisc.edu.

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