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BACKGROUND
Acting under the directive of the leadership of the 104th Congress to make Federal
legislative information freely available to the Internet public, a Library of
Congress team brought the THOMAS World Wide Web system online in January 1995,
at the inception of the 104th Congress. Searching capabilities in THOMAS were
built on the InQuery information retrieval system, developed
by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval based at the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The first database made available was Bill Text, followed shortly by Congressional
Record Text, Bill Summary & Status, Hot Bills (no longer maintained), the
Congressional Record Index, and the Constitution (now found, along with
other historical Congressional documents, under the "Historical Documents" category
on the THOMAS home page). Enhancements in the types of legislative data available,
as well as in search and display capabilities, have been continuously added.
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THOMAS DATABASES
THOMAS currently offers the following databases:
- House Floor This Week (Found at top of
homepage.)
- Coverage: 108th Congress: Measures expected to be considered on the
House floor this week.
- Description: For the current week (when the House is in session), the
date and time of the House session is listed, along with bills that are
expected to be passed under suspension of the rules
or expected to receive floor action. File is
updated throughout the week when the House is in session.
- Access: Browsable by date. Measures for possible consideration are linked
to their THOMAS Bill Summary & Status record.
- Source: U.S. House of Representatives
- House Floor Now (Found at top of homepage.)
- Coverage: 108th Congress: Current
Legislative Day.
- Description: For the current legislative day, floor
actions occurring in the House are listed in reverse chronological order.
Procedural actions (motions), votes, speeches and debates are noted. File
is updated continuously throughout the day -- at approximately 15-minute
intervals. If the House is not currently in session, the information that
appears is from the last or most recent legislative day.
- Access: Browsable in reverse chronological order by floor action. Measures
under consideration are linked to their THOMAS Bill Summary & Status record.
- Source: US House of Representatives
- Quick Search of Text of Bills (Found just
below THOMAS banner on homepage.)
- Coverage: 108th Congress
- Description: Searches text of legislation for current Congress by word/
phrase or bill number. This is a "quick and dirty" search for those who
do not want to go to the Bill Text search page. Those who want additional
search features should use the Bill Text
search pages.
- Access: Searchable by word/phrase; bill number.
- Source: Library of Congress.
LEGISLATION:
- Bill Summary & Status
- Coverage: 93rd through 108th Congresses (1973 - present)
- Description: Information about bills and amendments.
For each bill is provided sponsor(s), cosponsor(s), official, short
and popular titles, floor/executive actions, detailed legislative history,
Congressional Record page references, bill summary, committees of referral,
reporting and origin, subcommittees of referral, links to other committee
information on the WWW servers operated by the House, amendment descriptions
(and text, when available), subjects (indexing terms assigned to each
bill), a link to the full text versions of the bill, and links to the
full text of the law, when the bill has been enacted into law, on the
Government Printing Office Web site (in both text and .PDF formats).
For laws having received the line-item veto in the 105th Congress, links
to the text of cancellation notices and links to any disapproval bills
are given. NOTE: Not all information is available in the earlier
Congresses. See: Tips for Searching Earlier
Congresses.
- Access: Searchable by word/phrase, subject (index) term, bill/amendment
number, stage in the legislative process, dates of introduction, sponsor/cosponsor,
and committee. Browsable lists of all legislation, public laws, private
laws, vetoed bills, and bills/amendments sponsored/cosponsored by each
Member during each Congress.
- Source: Library of Congress.
- Bill Text
- Coverage: 101st - 108th Congresses (1989 - present)
- Description: Full text of all Government Printing Office (GPO)-supplied
versions of bills.
- Access: Searchable by word/phrase, bill number. Searches may be limited
to only those bills receiving floor action,
enrolled bills, or to House or Senate bills. Browsable lists of
bill text by bill type and number. Display of words in the database
(beginning at the word you type), along with how many times each word
occurs in the database and how many documents contain that word. At
the bottom of the search page, you can specify the number of bills to
be retrieved (the default is 50). The fewer you specify, the faster
your search, but you may miss relevant documents. The more you specify,
the longer your search will take.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Public Laws by Law Number
- Coverage: 93rd through 108th Congresses (1973 - present)
- Description: Bill Summary & Status records for each bill that became
public law, listed by law number order and in bill number sequence (House
Joint Resolutions, House Bills, Senate Joint Resolutions, Senate Bills).
- Access: Laws are listed both by law number order and in bill number
sequence (House Joint Resolutions, House Bills, Senate Joint Resolutions,
Senate Bills). Information provided for each bill that became law is
described in the "Description" section for the Bill Summary
& Status databases.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Votes
- House Roll Call Votes
- Coverage: 101st Congress, 2nd session, through 108th Congress
(1990 - present)
- Description: Roll call (recorded) votes from the House of Representatives
listed in reverse chronological order (by roll call vote number).
- Access: The vote summary page lists roll call vote number, vote
date, the "issue" (bill/amendment number being voted on, quorum
call or Journal approval), the "question" (description of the vote),
the result (Passed, Failed, or Agreed to), and the title/description
of the legislation. Detailed vote pages show individual member votes
and vote totals by party.
- Source: US House of Representatives
- Senate Roll Call Votes
- Coverage: 101st Congress, 1st session, through 108th Congress
(1989 - present)
- Description: Roll call (yea-nay) votes from the Senate listed
in reverse chronological order (by roll call vote number). Votes
are broken down three ways: Senate Roll Call Votes Taken Today,
Senate Roll Call Votes Taken This Week, Senate Roll Call Vote Tables,
Current and Prior Congresses. For Senate Roll Call Votes Taken Today,
the results of roll call votes are generally posted approximately
one hour after they are announced by the Presiding Officer of the
Senate.
- Access: The vote summary page lists roll call vote number, vote
date, bill number (when applicable), vote result, and title/description
of vote. Vote detail pages show individual member votes ordered
alphabetically by member, ordered by vote category (yeas, nays,
not voting and "presents") and votes summaries (total for each of
these vote categories). In additional to votes on legislative business
-- bills/amendments, procedural matters (motions, etc.) -- Senate
votes on nominations and treaties are shown (executive business).
- Source: US Senate
- CONGRESSIONAL RECORD:
- Most Recent Issue
- Coverage: Current Congress (108th)
- Description: A list of all issues received and processed during
the current two-year Congress, listed in reverse chronological order.
The most recent issue processed appears first on the list.
- Access: Browsable by date and part or section of the Record:
i.e., House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, Daily Digest. Congressional
Record page citations in the Digest are linked to the full text;
bill numbers in the Digest are linked to the full text of the bill.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Congressional Record Text
- Coverage: 101st - 108th Congresses (1989 - present)
- Description: Full text of daily edition of the Congressional
Record.
- Access: Searchable by word/phrase, by Member of Congress, and/or
date or date range. Searches by Member name retrieve debates/speeches
during which a certain member of Congress spoke; retrieve his/her
remarks inserted in the Record in the Extensions of Remarks
section; or return articles with mention of his/her name in other
contexts (e.g., Congressional Record notice of additional
sponsors added to a bill). You can search the entire Record
or limit your searches by section of the Record (House,
Senate, Extensions of Remarks, Daily Digest), by date or date range,
and/or Member name. Browsable list of daily issues divided by section
(House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks, and Daily Digest); each section
is preceded by a clickable Table of Contents for that section for
that day. Browsable display of words in the database (beginning
at the word you type), along with how many times each word occurs
in the database and how many documents contain that word. Links
are made to the Congressional Record Index for
each session of that Congress. Under "Document Display Options"
at the bottom of the page, you can specify the number of Congressional
Record articles to be returned (the default is 50), and you can
sort the set of those returned by date (in reverse chronological
order). The fewer documents you specify, the faster your search;
however you may miss relevant documents. The more documents you
specify, the longer your search may take.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Congressional Record Index
- Coverage: 108th - 104th Congresses; 103rd Congress, 2nd session;
cumulative for each session; published every 2 weeks.
- Description: Index to the daily edition of the Congressional
Record prepared by staff under the leadership of the Joint Committee
on Printing.
- Access: Searchable by index term; browsable by index terms arranged
in alphabetical ranges. Page references for index terms (topics)
and bill numbers are linked to the Congressional Record full
text file. Links to searches for major topics -- those most commonly
searched -- are provided, as well as, for the 106th and 108th Congresses,
a link to the GPO
version of the Congressional Record Index that is updated
daily when Congress is in session.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Days-in-Session Calendars
- Coverage: Senate: 95th Congress, 2nd Session - 105th Congress,
2nd Session (1978 - 1998)
House: 94th Congress, 1st Session - 105th Congress, 2nd Session
(1975 - 1998)
- Description: Calendars show the days the House and Senate met
for each session covered: in-session days are in red (graphical
browsers) or in bold (text browsers). The House Calendars report
the total legislative days
and the total number of calendar days the House met. The Senate
Calendars show the scheduled non-legislative-period days in italics.
- Access: Data is presented in monthly calendar format, so rare
weekend sessions can be spotted immediately. The calendars are browsable
(not searchable). Congressional terms are linked to their definitions,
e.g., legislative days etc.
- Source: Library of Congress
- COMMITTEE INFORMATION
- Committee Reports
- Coverage: 104th - 108th Congresses
- Description: The full text of House and Senate committee reports
(including conference reports and joint committee reports) printed
by GPO -- most, but not all, committee reports are printed.
- Access: Searchable by word/phrase, report number, bill number,
committee;searches can be limited by type of report (House, Senate,
Conference, Joint). Browsable sequentially by House/Senate committee
report number, by conference report and joint committee report.
Display of words in the database (beginning at the word you type),
along with how many times each word occurs in the database and how
many documents contain that word. At the bottom of the search page,
you can specify the number of reports to be retrieved (the default
is 10). The fewer you specify, the faster your search, but you may
miss relevant documents. The more you specify, the longer your search
will take.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Committee Home Pages
- Coverage: 108th Congress
- Description: Links to House and Senate Committee home pages residing
on House and Senate servers. Pages typically include: committee
jurisdiction, chair, full committee and subcommittee membership,
committee schedules, press releases, witness lists, hearing transcripts,
committee publications.
- Access: Browsable by committee name.
- Source: US House of Representatives and US Senate
- House Committees
- Coverage: 108th Congress
- Description: Links to House servers with information on 1) Schedules
and Oversight Plans for each of the House committees. 2) Selected
hearing transcripts from some of the House committees. Because each
committee provides its own hearing schedules, there is no common
format.
- Access: Browsable. For some hearing transcripts, links are provided
to statements by Members and witnesses listed alphabetically.
- Source: US House of Representatives
- Senate Committees
- Coverage: 108th Congress
- Description: Links to Senate servers with information on Senate
hearing schedules. The time, place, and purpose of the meetings
are shown.
- Access: Browsable.
- Source: US Senate.
In addition to THOMAS databases, the THOMAS home page provides these links
of interest to the legislative searcher in the column to the left of the main
body of the homepage.
- Frequently Asked Questions: Answers are given to users' most frequently
asked questions about the THOMAS system, culled from the THOMAS mailbag.
- House and Senate Directories: Provided by the Office of the Clerk
of the House and the Secretary of the Senate, respectively. The Clerk's
Web site gives access to an alphabetical list of House Members, with their
room assignments and phone numbers; lists of Members by state delegation;
list of Member committee assignments, and additional Member information.
The Secretary of the Senate provides lists of Senators both alphabetically
and by state. Each Senator's name is linked to his/her home page with directory
information (room, phone, fax number) as well as other information provided
by that Senator's office.
- Congressional Internet Services: Links to the Web sites of other
legislative agencies, including the House, Senate, Library of Congress,
Government Printing Office (GPO), General Accounting Office (GAO), Congressional
Budget Office (CBO), Architect of the Capitol (AOC), Office of Technology
Assessment (OTA) [now closed, but Web site is archived], plus additional
Congressional servers.
- Library of Congress Web Links: Web indexes to Internet resources
on Federal Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, as well as State
and Local government prepared by subject specialists on the Library's staff.
The Judicial page includes links to regulatory information as well (Federal
Register, CFR, Unified Agenda).
- THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS:
- House: How Our Laws Are Made
- Coverage: Revised November 1997 to reflect the legislative process
current to the 105th Congress.
- Description: Hypertext version of the 22nd edition of a publication
originally written and published in 1953 by Charles F. Willett,
House Law Revision Counsel. The November 1997 edition has been extensively
revised and updated by Charles W. Johnson, Parliamentarian of the
House of Representatives. Describes the numerous steps of our Federal
lawmaking process from the origin of an idea for a legislative proposal
through its publication as a law. Emphasis is on the legislative
process in the House of Representatives, although Senate procedure
is also covered.
- Access: Browsable sequentially through the entire document, or
by individual chapters accessed through a clickable table of contents.
The entire document is available in plain text for downloading.
- Source: Library of Congress
- Senate: Enactment of a Law
- Coverage: Revised February 1997 to reflect the legislative process
in the 105th Congress.
- Description: Hypertext version of a publication of the Senate
Parliamentarian's Office. The February 1997 edition has been revised
and updated by Robert B. Dove, Parliamentarian of the United States
Senate. Describes the numerous steps of our Federal lawmaking process
from the origin of an idea for a legislative proposal through its
publication as a law. Also describes the executive business of the
Senate, consisting of nominations and treaties submitted to the
Senate by the President of the United States for its "advice and
consent." Emphasis is on the legislative process and executive sessions
in the Senate, although the legislative procedure in the House of
Representatives is also covered.
- Access: Browsable sequentially through the entire document, or
by individual chapters accessed through a clickable table of contents.
The entire document is available for downloading.
- Source: Library of Congress
SUMMARY OF CONGRESSIONAL ACTIVITY:
- Coverage: 91st - 108th Congress (1969 - present)
- Description: Congressional "workload" statistics published for each session
of Congress. Included are "legislative" and "executive" data. The résumé
of legislative data includes, for each Congress, such measures as days and
number of hours Congress was in session; bills enacted into law; total number
of measures introduced, passed, and reported; number of conference reports;
quorum calls; yea-and-nay and recorded votes; bills vetoed, and vetoes overridden.
A second quantitative component of the Résumé includes
the Disposition of Executive Nominations -- a table of the numbers of Civilian,
Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps nominations submitted to the Senate
by the President each Congress for confirmation -- how many were received,
confirmed, not confirmed, withdrawn, or returned.
- Access: Data is presented in tabular format; browsable (not searchable).
Congressional terms are linked to their definitions, e.g., Senate Joint
Resolutions, conference reports, quorum calls, etc.
- Source: Library of Congress
HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS:
- Coverage: Chiefly from 1774 - 1789, although amendments to the Constitution
through the 27th (ratified 1992) are included.
- Description: Includes broadsides from the Constitutional Convention and
Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers,
and the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments.
Background, describing the origin and impact of the documents, is also provided.
- Access: Historical documents are word/phrase searchable, as a collection,
as well as searchable and browsable individually. (Note: The Declaration
of Independence is searchable as part of the broadsides collection, but
is not individually searchable.)
- Source: Library of Congress
US Congressional Documents and Debates: 1774-1873
- Coverage: The link to the Library of Congress American Memory collection
entitled "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: US Congressional Documents
and Debates: 1774-1873" now includes Senate and House Journals and the Annals
of Congress (the earliest precursor of today's Congressional Record)
for very early Congresses. Later Congresses will be added in the coming
months.
- Description: "US Congressional Documents and Debates: 1774-1873" now includes
Senate and House Journals, Senate Executive Journals, the Annals of Congress
(the earliest precursor of today's Congressional Record) for very
early Congresses, Journals of the Continental Congress, Elliot's Debates,
Ferrands Records, Maclay's Journal.
- Access: All US Congressional Documents in this American Memory collection
are browsable and also searchable.
- Source: Library of Congress
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HOW OFTEN IS THOMAS UPDATED?
As soon as new files are received from the Government Printing Office (GPO),
they are indexed and made available for searching. The bill text files are updated
several times throughout the day. The Congressional Record files are
received once a day, when Congress is in session, usually in the morning. Committee
reports arrive intermittently, after they are published by GPO, and are indexed
when they arrive.
Information about bills in the Bill Summary & Status files:
Typically, basic information about a bill or resolution, including the sponsor
and cosponsor(s), committee of referral (if appropriate), short title (if
any), official title, status steps, chronology of actions, and Congressional
Record page number references, appears in the Bill Summary and Status
file within 24 to 48 hours after introduction of or action on the measure.
Changes in a bill's status are generally available the next day. A link to
a bill's full text is created as soon as the text is received from the Government
Printing Office, usually within 24 to 48 hours of introduction or action.
Index terms, digest, and revised digests, which require analysis of the text,
are available as soon as 48 hours after introduction or action, depending
on the complexity of the measure and the volume of legislative activity. The
file is updated daily.
THOMAS USAGE STATISTICS
In 2003, THOMAS transmitted 117,916,977 files, comprising 158,625,770,393
bytes (1.59 terabytes) of information.
On average, 323,060 files (or 4,345,911,518 bytes) were transmitted every
day.
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ABOUT INQUERY
Searching in THOMAS is done under the InQuery information retrieval system,
developed by the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval
based at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
InQuery employs a relevance-ranking algorithm for searching, and displays
search results with the most-relevant items appearing first on the results
list. Experienced searchers who wish to use Boolean searching may use native
InQuery syntax to override the relevance-ranking default.
To learn more about how InQuery works in the THOMAS system, choose from among
the following topics:
To learn more about InQuery in general, visit Sovereign Hill Software's pages:
A THOMAS BUTTON FOR YOUR WEB PAGE
If you want to build a link from your Web page to THOMAS, using a colorful
graphical button, copy this code to make the button on your Web page:
<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov">
<img src="http://thomas.loc.gov/images/link.gif"
alt="[Link to THOMAS Home Page]"></a>
Your button will look (and act) like this:
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Graphic Design by Black/Pickett, Information Technology
Services, Library of Congress
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