GOVERNMENT INFORMATION & LAW DEPARTMENT
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Laws | Congressional Publications | Locating Copies
of Congressional Publications | Additional MiamiLINK Indexes and Databases | Government
Documents Help Desk Hours
LAWS (Public Law or PL Number)
United States Code Congressional and Administrative News. Gov't & Law Law Collection
Text of all U.S. laws by year and public law number with selected congressional committee reports.
CQ Weekly
and Almanac. GOV REF JK 1 .C66 and KING REF (complete)
Summaries of major laws, congressional activities, and issues. CQ Weekly also on the Web at http://library.cqpress.com/
Major Acts of Congress King Ref KF 154 .M35 2004 v.1-3 -- short essays on selected acts with bibliographies.
See online Table of Contents for acts covered.
CONGRESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS
Hearings and reports on laws in the years in which they were proposed or passed, hearings on programs or issues,
agency appropriation hearings.
LexisNexis Congressional, 1970-. Web index with some full-text
for recent years.
Available through the Libraries' WWW electronic information system, MiamiLINK.
MiamiLINK workstations are available in all the libraries. MiamiLINK can also be reached from campus computer labs
and from personal, networked computers located on campus. The URL is http://www.lib.muohio.edu/.
NOTE: Although MiamiLINK is on the Web and can be reached from off-campus, LexisNexis Congressional can
only be used by persons connecting from a Miami Internet address. Off-campus use from personal computers is possible
if you use Miami as your internet provider. Otherwise see http://www.lib.muohio.edu/libinfo/proxy/
for information about whether and how you can access subscription databases from off-campus.
From the MiamiLINK main menu click on Indexes & Databases on the top blue menu bar. At the next page
scroll to Business, Government and Law. Click on "Government." Indexes are listed alphabetically.
Click on LexisNexis Congressional. To find information by public law number, select "Laws" from
the main menu, then "Legislative Histories by Number.
CIS (Congressional Information Service), 1970- . (GOV REF KF 49 .C62)
Print equivalent of the index that is also available via LexisNexis Congressional. To locate all the publications
related to a public law, use the Legislative Histories volume for the
year in which the law was passed. In earlier years the legislative histories were in the back of the abstract volume.
Legislative histories are arranged by public law number.
LOCATING COPIES OF CONGRESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS
Some publications listed on LexisNexis Congressional include a link to the full-text of the publication
or partial text. Full-text is available for public laws from 1988 and for committee reports from 1990. Transcripts
of hearing witnesses' prepared statements are available from 1988. These testimonies are not the equivalent of
the full published hearing, however.
Publications not available full-text on LexisNexis Congressional are available in print copies in the Government
Information & Law Dept.
United States publications are arranged by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification system which
groups publications together by issuing agency, rather than by subject. Publications are shelved alphabetically
by the letters at the beginning of the call number, then numerically within each letter group.
Hearings:
Hearings have SuDoc call numbers beginning with Y 4 (examples: Y 4.L 11/4:S.Hrg.104-692 or Y 4.W 36:105-3).
These are shelved in the shelving range behind the Gov't & Law Help Desk.
House and Senate Reports and Documents:
LexisNexis Congressional and other indexes include references to individual, numbered House Reports,
Senate Reports, House Documents, and Senate Documents. (Examples: House Report 103-113, Senate Document 105-37).
The first part of the number indicates the Congress - House Report 103-113 is from the 103rd Congress. These are
compiled in bound volumes called the Congressional Serial Set and shelved at the front of the department at the
beginning of the collection. Newer, unbound individual reports and documents for the last few years are shelved
at the end of the bound volumes by series name, then by number within the series.
ADDITIONAL MIAMILINK INDEXES AND DATABASES
Various journal article indexes are available via MiamiLINK Indexes
& Databases. Subject groups of potential interest include General Periodical Indexes, Newspaper Indexes,
Family Studies & Social Work, and Political Science. Of particular interest:
LexisNexis Academic. Under Government, Newspaper Indexes, Political
Science.
Full-text of selected major newspapers. Select News from the main menu.
PAIS: Public Affairs Information Service. Under Government, Political Science.
Social Sciences Abstracts. Under Family Studies & Social Work, Political Science.
Academic Search Premier. Under General Periodical Indexes.
GOVERNMENT & LAW HELP DESK HOURS
Mon.-Thurs. 9 am - 5 pm; 7 pm - 10 pm
Fri. 9 am - 5 pm
Sat. 1 pm - 5 pm
Sun. 1 pm - 5 pm; 7 pm - 10 pm