New on LLRX: The Government Domain - Congressional Documents on FDSys: the Basics

On July 27, 2009 Peggy Garvin published an article on LLRx.com titled The Government Domain - Congressional Documents on FDsys: the Basics. Peggy Garvin of Garvin Information Consulting is author of The United States Government Internet Manual 2006-2007 (Bernan Press) and Real World Research Skills (TheCapitol.Net).

The U.S. federal government’s content shop, the Government Printing Office (GPO), is rolling out a new website for the government documents stream that it manages. The Federal Digital System (FDsys) is to replace GPO’s fifteen-year-old GPO Access website by the end of this year. GPO is moving content to FDsys gradually, collection by collection, with congressional documents leading the pack. GPO refers to the current system as a public beta version.

Congressional documents collections currently (as of 26 July 2009) available through FDsys are listed below. The capitalized acronym for each document collection is the “collection code” used in advanced FDsys command line searching, described later.

• Congressional Bills, 103rd Congress (1993-1994) to present; BILLS
• Congressional Calendars, 104th Congress (1995-1996) to present; CCAL
• Congressional Committee Prints, 100th Congress (1987-1988) to present; CRPT
• Congressional Documents, 103rd Congress (1993-1994) to present; CDOC
• Congressional Hearings, if available from committee, 105th Congress (1997-1998) to present; CHRG
• Congressional Record, 103rd Congress, 2nd session (1994) to present; CREC
• Congressional Committee Reports and Senate Executive Reports, 104th Congress (1995-1996) to present; CRPT

Read the full article to learn more about the search options, including tips for a Boolean search and basic syntax, about the search results and the future of the FDsys.