ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES
Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program
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June 15, 2000
GP 3.16/3-2:21/09
(Vol. 21, no. 09)
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How to Find Congressional Hearings on GPO Access
In response to questions regarding the availability of congressional hearings
online through GPO Access, GPO staff have prepared the following report on the
current status and future plans at GPO for providing hearings electronically.
All congressional hearings are not centrally available on GPO servers at this
time. This is due in large part to the fact that committees from the House and
Senate do not provide GPO with all hearings to place on GPO servers. Also,
there is frequently a delay between the receipt of hearings in hard copy and
their subsequent availability online through GPO Access. Below, we outline
five ways for users to find congressional hearings on or through GPO Access,
and also present some enhancements currently being developed to further
improve the ability of customers to access congressional hearings.
Existing Tools
The following examples use the existing tools available on GPO Access and
external sites GPO links to for congressional hearings. "Cervical cancer" is
the sample search used to find the hearing on "Women's Health: Raising
Awareness of Cervical Cancer."
1. GPO Access - Database of Congressional Hearings
Starting at the GPO Access homepage ,
click on "Legislative." Scroll down the page and click on "congressional
hearings, 105th Congress Forward." Enter the terms "cervical cancer" in the
search box. The desired result "Women's Health: Raising Awareness of Cervical
Cancer" comes back as the first result, available as a Text or PDF file.
2. GPO Access - Committee Browse Page
Starting at the GPO Access homepage ,
click on "Legislative." Scroll down the page to "Miscellaneous House
Publications and Committees." Click on this. Scroll down the "U.S. House of
Representatives" page until "Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives"
appears. Click on "Commerce." You will notice on that page a link to
"Committee Hearings." These are hearings that are physically located on GPO
servers. Click on this link. The next page will contain a link to "Committee
Hearings, 106th Congress." Click on this page. "Women's Health: Raising
Awareness of Cervical Cancer" comes back as the fourth result, available as a
Text or PDF file.
3. GPO Access - Site Search
Starting at the GPO Access homepage ,
click on "Site Search" and enter "cervical cancer." The results list (on the
test day) shows the 11th result as "House Committee on Commerce, Committee
Hearings (106th Congress). Click on that link, scroll down the page, and find
"Women's Health: Raising Awareness of Cervical Cancer" as the fourth option,
available as a Text or PDF file. It should be noted that Site Search was able
to find this hearing because the title of the hearing appeared on a browseable
HTML page. Site Search does not search for information within individual
hearing databases on GPO Access.
4. Catalog of U.S. Government Publications
Starting at the GPO Access homepage ,
click on "Finding Aids." Next click on Catalog of U.S. Government
Publications, and enter the sample search terms in the keyword search box.
"Women's Health: Raising Awareness of Cervical Cancer" appears as the seventh
result. There are two PURLs available; one for the Text and the other for the
PDF file.
5. Individual Committee Web Pages
In order to find a congressional hearing through GPO Access on individual
committee web pages, a user must know the committee name. For example, to find
a hearing on terrorism from the House Committee on Armed Services, start at
the GPO Access homepage and click on
"Legislative." Scroll down the page until the link to "Miscellaneous House
Publications and Committees" appears. Click on this. Scroll down the "U.S.
House of Representatives" page until "Committees of the U.S. House of
Representatives" appears. Click on "Armed Services." There are no
congressional hearings listed that are available directly from GPO servers on
this page. However, by clicking on "Web Site" you leave GPO Access and go
directly to the House Armed Services Committee Web Site. Click on "Schedules
and Transcripts" to link to their page of hearings. A hearing on "Terrorist
Threats to the United States" is listed. On the test day, however, only a
press release about the hearing is posted, not the hearing itself.
GPO cannot guarantee the authenticity of information on non-GPO sites, because
we do not have control over the content or organization of that information.
Tools Under Development
GPO is in the process of developing a new application to create a browseable list
of all congressional hearings that are officially part of GPO Access. Eventually a
catalog of hearings will be available for customers to browse by Congress on
separate web pages, similar to the current Catalog of Congressional Bills
application.
Also, on a weekly basis, GPO will announce the availability of all new
congressional hearings that are being placed on GPO servers and made available
through GPO Access. This will be accomplished through weekly postings to New
Electronic Titles (NET), the service that will replace the Browse Electronic Titles
in July. (See New Electronic Titles Service Begins in July on p. 14.)