United States Congressional Serial Set 

Significance

The United States Congressional Serial Set, variously known as the "Congressional Set", "Congressional Series," "Serial Set," and the "Sheep Set" because up to 1907 volumes were bound in beautiful sheep leather, is the oldest and most valuable historical collection of federal publications in existence.  With a resolution in 1813, the United States House of Representatives ordered the printing of "all messages and communications from the President of the United States, all letters and reports from the several departments of the Government; all motions and resolutions offered for the consideration of the House, all reports of Committees of the House; and all other papers [produced] in the usual course of proceeding, or by special order of the House."  Distribution began in December 1813 with documents of the 13th Congress in the State Paper Series (see American State Papers), but not until a joint resolution of Congress in 1817 was the Congressional series compiled, produced, and distributed.

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century when executive branch departments and agencies filed an annual report, conducted research or investigations, Congress required a copy of the document be printed as part of the Serial Set.  It can be said that the amount of human endeavor recorded in the United States Serial set far surpasses that recorded in any other single writing or collection. (DeLong, p. 127).  It records the scientific, social, economic, political, military, and cultural growth of the nation through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  It contains reports of the land and sea explorations of the new nation including the Lewis and Clarke expedition, the Perry expedition, and surveys of the coast of the United States.  These are not just scientific treatises, but record information on the peoples, plants, animals, and geological and cultural artifacts found in the region.  In science and technology, it includes patent reports, reports of the Smithsonian Institution, reports on mineral and other natural resources, and health studies on diseases.  The commerce of the nation is reported in the development of roads, canals, railroads, and navigation.  And, of course, the Serial Set provides detailed documentation of United States domestic and foreign policy and military activities.  The demographic portrait of society is recorded in a myriad of statistical reports, including the decennial census.  The fine arts are represented with reports on architecture, sculpture music, and painting.  "The printed volumes of these reports are in themselves a record of the development in the arts of printing and engraving, illustrations, photography, composition, and cartography." (DeLong, p. 127)    It has been written that the documents that comprise the historic United States Serial set are literally the "heritage of the nation."

Congressional Series

The United States Congressional Serial Set is a complex mixture of the work of Congress, the executive branch, and selected non-governmental organizations.  Its complexity is increased by the changing decisions of Congress on what to include or exclude from the set.  The Congressional series consistently included in the Serial Set are:

• House and Senate Journals, excluded since 1953
• House and Senate Reports on public and private legislation
• House and Senate Documents series consisting of Congressional manuals, administrative reports, reports resulting from congressional investigations and special publications of both Houses

Other Congressional series are not part of the Serial Set, including: the text of bills and resolutions, congressional debates and proceedings (see United States Legislative Branch Publications - Floor Debates and Proceedings), committee hearings, committee prints, and proceedings and records of the secret or executive sessions of the Senate (Senate Executive Journals, Documents, and Reports), except by special order.

The largest and most varied collection in the Serial Set of the nineteenth and early twentieth century is executive branch publications ordered printed by Congress as part of the House and Senate Document series.  Until about 1920 Congress routinely requested and published in its Documents series:

• Communications from the President to Congress, including inaugural addresses, state-of-the-union reports, and veto messages
• Annual reports from federal executive departments and agencies
• Reports of special investigations and research authorized by the President
• Selected annual reports of non-governmental agencies such as the American Red Cross, Boys and Girls Scouts of America, Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Historical Society, and proceedings of the national conventions of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars
• Extended series of survey, research, and statistical publications developed by executive agencies

Through a series of measures to overhaul and trim the growing Serial Set, Congress eventually removed most executive department publications from the Serial Set.  In 1908 publications of the executive departments and agencies were sent to libraries in plain bindings without Congressional series of numbers on the copies.  This meant that in order to identify executive documents as part of the set, libraries had to stamp the volume and serial number on the books and continue to shelve them in the same arrangement as other serial set volumes.  By 1913 libraries began receiving executive department and agency publications separately from the Congressional series.  Only the posterity libraries, the Senate and House Libraries, the Library of Congress, Public Documents Library, and the National Archives continued to receive the executive publications in the distinctive Serial Set binding and serial numbering edition.  Even so, Congress continued to order some executive department and agency annual reports and selected research reports and series printed as part of the Congressional Documents series well into the twentieth century.  However, the modern serial set is almost exclusively documents produced by Congress and its Committees.

Chronology of Congressional Series in the United States Congressional Serial Set

Arrangement and Numbering System

Arrangement

Serial Set series are arranged in a specific order that has changed little over the years.  In general, from 1817 to 1902, the series followed the order of:

• Senate Journal
• Senate Documents
• Senate Reports
• House Journal
• House Documents
• House Reports.

Between 1902 and 1952 the series were arranged by:

• Senate Journal
• House Journal
• Senate Reports
• House Reports
• Senate Documents
• House Documents.

In 1953 Senate and House Journals were removed from the Serial Set.  Since 1979 the arrangement of series within a Congressional session has been:

• Senate Documents
• Senate Treaty Documents
• Senate Reports
• Senate Executive Reports
• House Documents
• House Reports.

Numbering System

The Serial Set which is actually a series within a series, employs three separate numbering systems within the whole.  Each publication in the series is numbered; each series is numbered; and then all volumes in the set are numbered. 

Publication Numbers - The serial set basically consists of four publication series: House Reports, Senate Reports, House Documents, and Senate Documents (the documents series at times has been divided into executive and miscellaneous documents).  Each series has its own ascending numeric sequence.  Single publications within a series are assigned a number as it is issued during the Congressional term.  For example,  H. rp. 93 (69-1) is House Report number 93 of the 69th Congress, first session; S. doc. 58 (73-1) is Senate document number 58 of the 73rd Congress, first session.

Sessional Volume Numbers - Single publications in a series are bound together in ascending numerical order in a single volume.  The number of individual House and Senate Reports and House and Senate Documents for any one Congressional term may comprise several bound volumes.   The bound volumes for each series are numbered sequentially within a session.  For example, H. rp. 2192 (72-2) is located in volume 4 of the House Reports series for the 72nd Congress, second session.  An exception to this rule are the Reports on private bills and resolutions and simple resolutions 1905-1939 which were assigned session volumes with letters instead of numbers and printed separately at the end of a Report series.

Serial Numbers - The serial numbers sequence and identify volumes within the serial set as a whole.  The serial numbering scheme was not developed until 1895, but was applied retrospectively to volumes before that time.  At that time a serial number was assigned to each volume of the serial set beginning with the first session of the 15th Congress through the current volume.  In many libraries serial numbers are handwritten on the spine of these early volumes.  After 1895 the Serial Set volume number is stamped on the spine.  There are now over 14,000 bound volumes in the Serial Set. 

Pagination - If several publications are bound in one volume, there is no volume pagination.  It is crucial to know the specific document or report in order to locate the publication in a volume.

Distribution and Availability

In 1817 Congress ordered that the Congressional series be distributed to incorporated universities, colleges, and historical societies throughout the country.  The Serial Set, along with the House and Senate Journals, is the oldest collection of documents routinely printed and distributed to designated libraries.  While continuously distributed to federally designated libraries until 1997 when only regional depositories began receiving the bound Serial Set, few libraries have a complete Serial Set, because the composition of the set sent to those libraries has changed over the years.  Only 22 copies of the "complete" Serial Set were bound in sheepskin and stamped with colored lettering on the binding.  These copies were distributed to what has been designated as the "posterity libraries" - the Senate and House Libraries, Library of Congress, Public Documents Library of the Government Printing Office, and the National Archives.  In addition, documents for use by members of Congress were printed first, subsequent copies of the same titles were often corrected or had information added before distribution as departmental editions.  After 1913, libraries no longer received executive department and agency publications as part of the bound Serial Set, but as separate departmental editions.  These editions sometimes varied from the same document printed in the official Congressional Serial Set edition.  Thus depository library "Serial Sets" compiled from Congressional Series received and the departmental editions received and known to be included in the official Congressional Serial Set edition are not exactly the same as the official United States Congressional Serial Set sent to the posterity libraries.   Some of the major differences between the "complete" Serial Set edition and sets distributed to depository libraries include:

Fortunately, a commercial firm, the Congressional Information Service (CIS) drawing upon the U.S. Senate library collection with fill-ins from other sources where gaps were found due to loss, wear and tear, has compiled a complete serial set edition which it has produced on microfiche and is currently digitizing and making available electronically as the LexisNexis U. S. Serial Set Digital Collection.  This ongoing project is scheduled to be completed in December 2005.

Indexes to the United States Congressional Serial Set

A variety of indexing tools are available for the Serial Set.  These include both commercial and government sources, print and electronic.  Below is a chronological list of indexes to the United States Congressional Serial Set.

Chronological List of Indexes to the United States Congressional Serial Set

Other Tools for Using the United States Congressional Serial Set

U.S. Congressional Serial Set Finding List (College of Wooster Libraries)
Many executive department and agency documents were issued as a House and/or Senate Document and separately as a departmental/agency series or serial. In addition, as noted above after 1907 executive department and agency publications were no longer issued to depository libraries as part of the bound serial set, so many libraries shelved these as departmental editions in the Superintendent of Documents classification scheme. The College of Wooster has developed an online guide to executive department and agency series found in the Serial Set by Superintendent of Documents class, agency series title and serial set volume number.

U.S. Congressional Serial Set Inventories (Harvard University) The goal is to provide a database of library holdings of Serial Set volumes.  The database is searchable by index and volume number and by contributor.  The site currently includes the holdings of a handful of libraries.  An inventory of the print holdings of Indiana University's American State Papers and U.S. Congressional Serial Set is available from their Government Information, Microforms and Statistical Services Website.

U. S. Congressional Serial Set Volumes Not Used Provides an account of the missing numbers from the Serial Set extracted from old hand-written records and notations in copies of the Indexes to Reports and Documents and Numerical Lists and Schedule of Volumes maintained by the Government Printing Office. Annotations usually list the title for which the volume had originally been reserved and the final publication disposition of that title whenever ascertainable.

Brief Bibliography

DeLong, Suzanne. "What is in the United States Serial Set?" Journal of Government Information 23, no. 2 (1996): 123-135.

McKinney, Richard J. "An Overview of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set." (Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., Inc.)

Morehead, Joe. Introduction to United States Government Information Sources. Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1999. (Government Publications Reference ZA5055.U6 M67 1999)

Schmeckebier, Laurence F. and Roy B. Eastin. Government Publications and their Use. Brookings Institution, 1969. (Government Publications Reference Z1223.Z7 S3 1969)

U.S. Congressional Serial Set: What it is and its history (Government Printing Office)