Technical Detail On Non-print Format Availability
In the late 1980s the Congressional Information Service issued the Serial Set, along with its predecessor American State Papers, through 1969 (v.1-12880) on microfiche; the entire set constituted about 117,000 fiches. CIS also issued a 56-volume hardcover comprehensive index to both series covering 1789-1969, for the first time providing access to their contents via multiple points (subject, name, bill number, etc.) including the many maps they contain. LexisNexis and Readex have both undertaken digitization efforts to convert the text of American State Papers and the Serial Set to electronic format. Neither of these subscription services are generally available and it is best to consult with a local university librarian to determine where specific volumes can be located.
LexisNexis completed their efforts in late 2006 (covering 1789-1969) and has undertaken a digitization project for congressional hearings. LexisNexis is also rescanning the maps in the set via a partnership with the University of Maryland, College Park, acknowledging the initial scans done from the CIS microfiche while adequate for text are inferior when it comes to maps versus scanning the originals. On November 30, 2010 Reed Elsevier the parent company of LexisNexis, completed the sale of the CIS and UPA product lines (which includes the digital Serial Set) to ProQuest.
Readex, a division of NewsBank, is using original Serial Set volumes from Baker-Berry Library at Dartmouth College to create fine new digital images of every publication through 1994, including approximately 56,000 maps. Additional Serial Set materials not available from Dartmouth are being provided by the United States Senate Library, Middlebury College, the Vermont State Library and the University of Vermont. The Readex digital edition contains nearly 14,000 high-resolution color maps from the Library of Congress and more than 8,000 high-resolution color illustrations. To ensure the best search results, Readex has created all-new indexing of subject terms, executive agencies and bill numbers as well as of personal, committee and geographic names. The Readex edition contains active links from terms in bibliographic records that enable retrieval of related publications, an integrated subject thesaurus, map-level indexing and OpenURLs for each publication.
In 2007, Google Books began to scan the Serial Set.
Read more about this topic: United States Congressional Serial Set
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