GPO Makes Available Thousands of New U.S. Congressional Serial Set Volumes

U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has added more than 3,000 volumes of the Congressional Serial Set containing more than 45,000 individual documents and reports to GPO’s GovInfo, the one-stop site for authentic, published information for all three branches of the Federal Government. This comes as part of a multi-year effort with the Library of Congress to digitize and make accessible the U.S. Congressional Serial Set back to the first volume, which was published in 1817.

“A big congratulations to our Library Services and Content Management team and our GovInfo team for their work making accessible thousands of historic documents,” said GPO Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern. “This effort to preserve our Nation’s history serves as one more way we are delivering on our vision of an America Informed. I look forward to the continued digitization of these treasured documents.”

Highlights from the newly added volumes include:

1. Annual reports of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum 
2. Reports from May and June of 1874 relating to Susan B. Anthony’s criminal trial for illegally voting in elections in Rochester, New York. (At the time, women were barred from voting under New York state laws.)
3. Hearings on the construction of the Panama Canal
4. Compilations of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War 

The United States Congressional Serial Set, commonly referred to as the Serial Set, is a compilation of all numbered House and Senate reports and documents, including executive reports and treaty documents, issued for each session of Congress. GPO is uploading volumes of the official Serial Set in phases for free public access on GovInfo. Thus far it makes available nearly 7,000 volumes, with nearly 11,000 remaining. The entire effort is expected to take at least a decade to complete.