Last revised: August, 2008
Finding Congressional Hearings
Scope: The purpose of this guide is to assist you in finding hearings located in the U.S. Government Information, Maps & GIS Services collection on the 4th floor of McKeldin Library. The role hearings play in the legislative process and additional Internet resources are provided as well. If you have any questions or would like further assistance, please contact the U.S. Government Information, Maps & GIS Services staff at 301-405-9165 or send an e-mail to govdocs@umd.edu.
Table of Contents
About Hearings:
After a bill is introduced into the House or Senate, it is referred to the committee within that chamber having jurisdiction over the bill's area of concern. Within a committee, a bill is typically referred to a subcommittee. If a bill warrants consideration, the subcommittee will schedule public hearings. (Hearings can also be held by the full committee as well.)
Public hearings are most commonly held to gather information and opinions regarding the desirability of the legislation in question but may also be held when no legislation has been introduced.
Types of Hearings
- Legislative hearings concern bills.
- Oversight hearings concern the ongoing monitoring of government operations.
- Investigatory hearings explore the need for legislation, inform public opinion, or uncover scandal.
Contents of Hearings
Some individuals may be invited or may request to speak at hearings. Such individuals may include technical and academic experts, Federal agency administrators, public and private interest groups and individuals, and elected state, local, and Federal representatives. For investigatory hearings witnesses may be required to appear by congressional directive.
Most hearing publications contain the full transcripts of the hearing's proceedings, usually arranged in the order of appearance of the witnesses. They may include oral statements, committee questions, discussion, texts of related reports, statistical analyses, correspondence, exhibits, and articles presented to the committee by witnesses or inserted into the record by committee members and staff.
For more detailed information about hearings, see the Library of Congress' How Our Laws Are Made.
Resources for Finding Hearings:
Congressional committee hearings were first held early in the nineteenth century and became a major component of Congressional work in the years following the Civil War. As a result, hearings may be found starting in the early 1800's and continuing into the present. It is important to note that since hearings are published at the discretion of the committee, some hearings are unavailable in published format.
LexisNexis Congressional
This database provides information about congressional hearings from 1824 to the present. Click the "Advanced Search" tab to limit your search to hearings. The drop-down box allows you to search by witness name or affiliation. Many of the hearings from 1988 forward are available in full-text. However, if full text is not available, this database can be used to locate hearings in the U.S. Government Information SU Docs stacks (McKeldin 4th floor) by using the "SUDOC" call number, or in the CIS Hearings microfiche collection (McKeldin 4th floor Computer Lab) by using the "CIS-NO." Note: Full-text coverage of hearings is limited in this resource to include the transcripts of witness testimony but not the complete hearings.
If you prefer using print resources or do not have access to the LexisNexis Congressional database, you can also search the same content in the following print indexes. To locate the hearings using these indexes, note the number listed in each entry and use that to find the hearing in the CIS Hearings microfiche collection.
- CIS U.S. Congressional Committee Hearings Index (1833 - 1969)
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library, U.S. Government Information Reference
CALL NUMBER: KF25.C66 - CIS Annual Index (1970 - present)
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library, U.S. Government Information Reference
CALL NUMBER: JK8.C6 - CIS Index to Unpublished U.S. Senate Committee Hearings (1823-1976)
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library, U.S. Government Information Reference
CALL NUMBER: KF40.C55 - CIS Index to Unpublished U.S. House of Representatives Committee Hearings (1833-1964)
LOCATION: UMCP McKeldin Library, U.S. Government Information Reference
CALL NUMBER: KF40.C54
GPO
Access: Congressional Hearings
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/chearings/index.html
This free Federal government database includes selected House and Senate hearings from 1997 to the present. For tips on using the database, see Congressional Hearings: Search Tips.
UM Libraries' Catalog
http://catalog.umd.edu/F/
NOTE: The Catalog includes hearings primarily from 1997 to the present. To locate older hearings, use the LexisNexis Congressional database.
To find hearings about a particular subject, do a word/s anywhere search using words for your topic followed by the word "hearing."
Examples: chemical weapons hearing or breast cancer hearing
Additional Web Resources:
C-SPAN
http://www.c-span.org/
This website provides coverage of Congressional floor and committee proceedings translated into real audio and current Congressional television programming. You can also listen to Senate hearings live online at CapitolHearings.org, a service of C-SPAN.
Quick Links to House and Senate Committee Hearings and Other Publications
http://www.llsdc.org/quick-links
This Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C. site provides links to information and transcripts of House and Senate committee hearings from the Government Printing Office and the committees' own websites.
PAIS International
This database of articles, books, and other resources relating to public affairs from 1972 to the present includes select government documents.
Locating Hearings in McKeldin Library:
To locate a hearing in McKeldin Library, first find the hearing using LexisNexis Congressional or the Libraries' Catalog. Make a note of the call number (listed in LexisNexis as SUDOC) and the Congress number (often listed in the title) or year the hearing was held.
Hearings are given a call number using the Superintendent of Documents Classification System, typically known as "Su Doc". The Su Doc system organizes publications by the agency that wrote the publication. Congressional hearings begin with "Y4" followed by additional letters and numbers that indicate which committee held the hearing.
Follow these steps to find a hearing:
Example: Y4.J 89/1:101-13
- Find the Y4 section in the U.S. Government Information, Maps & GIS Services SU Docs stacks on the 4th floor of McKeldin Library.
- Find the shelves containing documents of the correct Congress (e.g., 101, found after the colon). If the Congress number is not identifiable within the call number, it is usually listed in the title of the hearing or, if you know the year the hearing was held, you can use the year/Congress conversion chart found at the end of the Y4 shelves.
- Find the section of documents with the committee designation, arranged alphabetically (e.g., J 89/1 is the House Committee on the Judiciary).
- Find the Congress and series number on the document, arranged numerically (e.g., 101-13 is the 13th hearing of the committee in the 101st congress).
