Congressional Serial Set: Home

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The United States Congressional Serial Set is comprised of the numbered Senate and House documents and reports from 1817 to present, which are bound by session of Congress. Reports and documents from 1789–1816 can be found in the American State Papers.

UCSB subscribes to the full text Serial Set from 1817–1980, and American State Papers 1789–1838, through Readex U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Archive of Americana). They are indexed 1789+, and full text 1990+ through ProQuest Congressional.

Some reports and documents from 1985 to the present are freely available online in FDsys and Congress.gov.

The print and fiche Serial Set must be retrieved by volume number: view the record in ProQuest Congressional to find this number.

Please note: For 1970–1978, these numbers do not appear in ProQuest Congressional. Instead, consult the Numerical Lists and Schedule of Volumes of the Reports and Documents of the…Congress: Government Information Reference GP 3.7/2:

• 1st through 14th Congresses (1789–1816) were not part of the official Serial Set; these documents can be found in American State Papers
  • American State Papers [via Library of Congress] (free access)
  • U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Archive of Americana) 
  • Print: Wyles Collection (Special Collections Library): J33 U5
  • Microfiche: Government Information collection: Y 1.1/2:

• 15th through 95th Congresses (1817–1980)
  • U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Archive of Americana)  coverage until 1980
  • Microfiche: Government Information collection: Y 1.1/2:
    • Some volumes in print in Government Information Reference Collection: Y 1.1/2:. Search holdings in the UCSB Library catalog (search title: congressional serial set)

• 96th Congress to the present (1979+)
  • Microfiche: Government Information collection
  • Search UCSB Library catalog by title to find call number of individual documents and reports:
    • 96th Congress: X 96…:
    • 97th Congress to present: Y 1.1/3: Senate documents
    • Y 1.1/4: Senate treaty documents
    • Y 1.1/5: Senate reports
    • Y 1.1/6: Senate executive reports
    • Y 1.1/7: House documents
    • Y 1.1/8: House reports

• Many House and Senate Reports and Documents, from 1985+ are full text in:
  • ProQuest Congressional  
  • FDsys 

While ProQuest Congressional is an excellent discovery tool, there are other resources specific to the Serial Set that can help you find content related to your research.

• U.S. Serial Set: Selected Documents and Reports [23rd-64th Congress] (Library of Congress): The American Memory collection is useful for browsing reports of particular interest for 1833–1917, and includes HTML indexes for many of the volumes.
• U.S. Congressional Serial Set Inventory (University of North Texas): This tool lists the volumes in order by Congress and volume number, so you can quickly see what is in each volume. Remember that earlier volumes are organized not just by date but also by size, so they may not be in strictly chronological order. Also, please note that the list of holding institutions is incomplete.
• Numerical List of Documents and Reports [85th-112th Congress] (Government Publishing Office): This tool lists numerically, with a brief title, all of the Senate and House Documents and Reports issued during a Session of Congress for 1957+. The Numerical List also indicates the specific volume of the Congressional Serial Set in which each Document and Report is bound.