UNT Makes CRS Reports Online Archive Available to All

The University of North Texas Libraries is doing a great public service by making available an online archive of Congressional Research Service Reports.  The site, available at http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/, provides integrated, searchable access to many of the full-text CRS reports that have been available on the Web since 1990.

Ron Jones, Univ of Cincinnati Law Library

From the public announcement:

Because UNT Libraries are saving both current and older reports, users can look for a topic of interest today, such as Social Security Reform, and see how the issues may have changed since the late 1990's. 

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) serves as the public policy research arm of Congress, and works exclusively for Members, their committees and staff. CRS does not provide direct public access to the numerous reports it produces each year, although some Members, as well as several non-profit groups, post a select group of the reports on their Web sites.  In the past, citizens who wished to view these reports had to request them from their Member of Congress.  The University of North Texas Libraries online archive of CRS reports will help greatly in providing permanent public access to this vital information, by serving as a one-stop gateway to these resources.

In the summer of 2002 NewsBank/Readex and the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table awarded the Catharine J. Reynolds award to Cathy Nelson Hartman and Valerie D. Glenn, to begin the process of capturing CRS reports available via the Web and providing permanent public access to them. Thus far over 6500 reports have been captured, on topics ranging from Terrorism and Foreign Policy to Medicare and Social Security. 

This new site offers users the ability to search the full text of the reports, as well as by title, author, subject, and report number. The site also allows users to browse the reports by subject.

The UNT Libraries will continue to add reports as they become available.  We welcome all contributions or notifications of report availability.

For more information, please contact:
Arlene Weible
Head, Government Documents Department
University of North Texas Libraries
P.O. Box 301590
Denton, TX 76203-5190
940-565-4150
aweible@library.unt.edu
http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/