Digitization Project Complete! Digitized Versions of Bound Volumes of the Congressional Record Back to Vol. 1, No. 1 (1873) Now Available Online, Final Set Posted Today
From the Government Publishing Office:
The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO), in partnership with the Library of Congress (LC), has made available on govinfo digitized versions of the Congressional Record (Bound Edition) from 1873-1890.
This release covers debates and proceedings of the 43rd through the 51st Congresses and [our emphasis] it completes the objective of digitizing all historic issues of the Congressional Record back to the first appearance of this publication on March 5, 1873.
This era of Congress covers historical topics such as:
- The second term of President U.S. Grant; the disputed election of 1876, resulting in the presidency of Rutherford Hayes; the election and assassination of President James Garfield; the administration of President Chester Arthur; the election and first non-consecutive term of President Grover Cleveland; and the first two years of the administration of President Benjamin Harrison
- The admission of Colorado, Montana, Washington, North and South Dakota, Idaho, and Wyoming as states
- The Panic of 1873
- The Civil Rights Act of 1875
- The Battle of the Little Bighorn (Custer’s Last Stand)
- The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act
- The Sherman Anti-Trust Act
- The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
At the end of each session of Congress, all of the daily editions of the Congressional Record are collected, re-paginated, and re-indexed into a permanent, bound edition. This permanent edition, referred to as the Congressional Record (Bound Edition), is made up of one volume per session of Congress, with each volume published in multiple parts, each part containing approximately 10 to 20 days of Congressional proceedings.
The primary ways in which the bound edition differs from the daily edition are continuous pagination; somewhat edited, revised, and rearranged text; and the dropping of the prefixes H, S, and E before page numbers.
Previous Releases
See Also: GPO and LC Release Digitized Bound Congressional Record for the 1911-1921 (October 27, 2017)
See Also: GPO and LC Release Digitized Bound Congressional Record for the 1920s (September 26, 2017)
See Also: U.S. GPO Announces Release of Digitized Bound Congressional Record for the 1930s (August 22, 2017)
See Also: GPO Announces Digital Release of Historical Congressional Record for the 1950s (June 28, 2017)
See Also: Now Available Online From GPO: Historical Congressional Record For 1971-1980 (March 7, 2017)
See Also: Digitized Editions of Historical Congressional Record for the 1980s on GPO’s GovInfo (November 29, 2016)
See Also: GPO and Library of Congress Release Digital Bound Version of Congressional Record (1991-1998) (September 20, 2016)
Filed under: Conference Presentations, Digital Preservation, Funding, Libraries, News, Publishing
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.