POL 411 Congress: Structure and Function

Purdue Libraries, as a federal depository library, provide access to many U.S. Government information resources including those produced by the U.S. Congress. Web links to a variety of congressional information resources are provided on the legislative section of the Purdue Libraries Government Document Department website. Numerous paper, microform, and electronic information resources are produced by the U.S. House and Senate, congressional committees, and congressional support agencies. Most of these are in the government documents collection on the 1st floor of HSSE Library's periodical stacks and have call numbers beginning with the letters X or Y with the following being examples:
Y 4.AR 5/3:S.HRG. 108-301, Y 10.2:B 85/3, and Y 1.1/8:109-88. Many recent versions of these resources are online.

The Libraries Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) is a good place to begin looking for information about Congress. Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) terms you can use to search include:

Legislative Power United States
Legislators United States Biography
United States Congress
United States Congress House Discipline
United States Congress Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Federal resources for accessing congressional legislative information include GPO Access and the Library of Congress' Thomas. Both of these resources can be used for searching congresional bills, committee reports on legislation, and the Congressional Record. The Congressional Record is a particularly important publication because it contains the text of bills, speeches made by Representatives and Senators, and recorded votes.

Websites for the House of Representatives and Senate contain information about the overall workings of each house, links to the websites of individual Representatives and Senators, and links to congressional committee websites. The Clerk of the House features administrative information about Representatives and House activities including members foreign travel reports. Congressional committees are very valuable information resources. These committees are responsible for reviewing proposed or existing legislation, conducting oversight of current federal programs, and determining funding for these programs. Congressional committees have subpoena authority and generally swear witnesses in before their testimony. Witnesses testifying before congressional committees include experts from government agencies, the military, academe, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and average citizens. Hearing transcripts will contain questioning of witnesses by committee members which can become heated and a wide variety of substantive reports submitted by committee members from a variety of sources. Committees also publish reports on proposed legislation and reports documenting their activities during individual two-year congressional sessions.

Paper copies of congressional committee hearings from 1975-present are located in the Y 4 area of the HSSE Library Government Documents collection on the 1st floor of the HSSE periodical stacks. We have extensive collections of pre-1975 congressional committee hearings in the HSSE Attic which can be requested through the Government Information Librarian. Many recent versions of these publications are also Internet accessible. Examples of congressional committee hearing transcripts and their call numbers include:

House Agriculture Committee HSSE DOC Y 4.AG 8/1:
[Review of the Industry Response to the Safety of Fresh and Fresh-Cut Produce. HSSE DOC Y 4.AG 8/1:110-23]
House Administration Committee HSSE DOC Y 4.H 81/3:
[Oversight Hearing on Congressional Mail Delivery Y 4.H 81/3:C 76/6]
Senate Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs Committee HSSE DOC Y 4.B 22/3:
[Federal Reserve's Monetary Policy Report for 2007. HSSE DOC Y 4.B 22/3:S.HRG. 110-182]
Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee HSSE DOC Y 4.G 74/9
[The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices: A Need to Put the Cop Back on the Beat: Staff Report]. HSSE DOC Y 4.G 74/9:S.PRT. 109-65

A useful commercially produced index to congressional publications is the CIS INDEX HSSE REF 328.73005 C76. This resource, covering 1970-present, makes it possible to see which witnesses testified before a congressional committee hearing, track the history of legislation, and find congressional committee publications on particular topics.

Besides the professional staffs of Representatives of Representatives and Senators and the expertise contained on congressional committees, there are three major congressional support agencies advising Congress on public policy issues: The Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service (CRS), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and Government Accountability Office (GAO).

CRS provides members of Congress with nonpartisan analysis and advice on public policy issues from accounting to zoology. Although it does not have an official website, numerous CRS reports are accessible on the Legislative Section of the Purde Libraries Documents Department website linked above and the University of North Texas Libraries site linked to in the previous paragraph which is also accessible through the Purdue Libraries online catalog.

CBO is responsible for advising Congress on federal budget issues and on budgetary data and implications of individual federal programs such as Medicare, the cost of military operations in Iraq, etc.

GAO is Congress' accounting arm and issues hundreds of reports each year on the management performance of individual federal programs.

The C-SPAN website is also a useful source for congressional information because it will contain video webcasts of some committee hearings. Some congressional committees maintain live and/or archived audio or video webcasts of hearings on their website.

Bert Chapman
Government Information & Political Science Librarian/Associate
Professor of Library Science

chapmanb@purdue.edu