Latest Legal Information Update From Washington DC

I am away from Washington for the summer, but I want to update you on some recent developments at the Law Library of Congress. If you have any questions about the information below or any other questions or suggestions, the law librarians there are available through their Ask a Librarian interface or their 24/7 chatbot.

In January a post in their In Custodio Legis blog announced an improvement to the search interface on Congress,gov. “The new Search Bar is what we used to refer to as the Global Search, which was present on almost every page. The new Search Form was referred to as Quick Search. They are now integrated to provide a more unified experience. All of the previous areas to search in Quick Search are still available in the new Search Form.”

An April post offered New Ways to Search Congress.gov . “This post will walk you through the different search options available on Congress.gov and help you get started on your journey to discover U.S. federal legislative information.”

To see a list of all enhancements made to Congress.gov go to the Congress.gov Enhancements page.

Also in January there were posts listing the Most Viewed Global Legal Monitor Articles of 2017 and the Most Viewed Law Library Foreign Law Reports of 2017. “The [foreign law] reports deal with five major subject areas: immigration and citizenship, refugees, children’s rights, firearms, and sentencing issues.”

In February came the announcement of the Historical U.S. Reports Available Online. “Following our releases of the Federal Register and United States Code collections, the Library of Congress is pleased to make available the decisions and orders from the United States Reports, from 1754 through 2003. The U.S. Reports is the collection of bound volumes that contain the official version of the U.S. Supreme Court opinions. The new online collection includes over 35,000 opinions from volumes 1-542 covering the years 1754 through 2003.” The opinions after the above date are available on the Supreme Court of the US website.

I hope you have a very pleasant summer.