During the execution of its legislative responsibilities, Congress issues a wide variety of publications. While these are mainly intended either for the use of the members of Congress or as a record of Congressional proceedings, they often contain information which is valuable not only for an investigation of the legislative process, but for research on nearly any topic. The four principal types of working papers produced by Congress are: hearings, committee prints, documents, and reports. This site is intended to provide the necessary skills to both locate Congressional publications and use the legislative histories published by CIS.

Until the advent of the CIS/Index and other CIS publications in 1970, the researcher who was interested in locating specific Congressional publications was severely hampered by the absence of tools sufficient for identifying and locating relevant information. The acquisition of the publications themselves could also prove to be enormously difficult. The Congressional Information Service, though, has made a comprehensive effort to collect all publications of Congress (with the exception of the Congressional Record) and provide the necessary indexes to locate and access these valuable materials.

The cornerstone of this service is the CIS/Index which catalogs, abstracts, and indexes publications on a monthly basis. Every month, CIS publishes the CIS/Index - a two part publication containing a section of abstracts organized by CIS accession number and an index section containing subject, name, title, bill number, and other supplementary indexes for locating the appropriate abstract. Cumulations which cover the publications abstracted during the previous three months are issued every quarter. Yearly cumulations, the CIS/Annuals, are issued every year and contain all the abstracts and indexes of the previous year. Multiple year indexes have also been issued which completely supersede the annual indexes. The cumulative indexes which have been issued up to the present time are: 1970-74, 1975-78, 1979-82, 1983-86, 1987-90, and 1991-94.

Until 1984, the abstracts volume of the CIS/Annual also included a section of abstracts and legislative histories for all public laws enacted during the previous year. Beginning in 1984, however, a separate legislative histories volume has been continuously published with every CIS/Annual. This volume contains a wealth of information for those interested in following the process of legislation from beginning to end.

Using the CIS/Index to find relevant Congressional publications dealing with a specific topic is a multi-step process which involves locating appropriate references through the use of the indexes, notating the accession numbers, locating the abstracts for the material, and, finally, locating the material itself. The use of the legislative histories will be covered separately. Please click on the aspect of the CIS/Index about which you would like more information:

Please direct all comments or inquiries to John Spears or Mary Mallory