HeinOnline’s New Monthly Blog on the Secrets of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set

HeinOnline offers an interesting monthly blog titled Secrets of the Serial Set. This month’s blog is about Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement and last month focused on Lewis and Clark. The blog contains links to the Serial Set and other resources available in HeinOnline so that the reader can obtain further information, including interesting historical insights.

The United States Congressional Serial Set began publication in 1817 with the 15th Congress, 1st session (U.S. Congressional Documents prior to 1817 are published as the American State Papers). Documents in the Serial Set include not only the House and Senate Reports, but also reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations.

The serial number is a unique number applied to each book in the series of congressional publications running consecutively from the 15th Congress, 1st session onward. The documents and reports series have three numbers:

  • individual report or document-publication number
  • volume number of each series for each session of Congress
  • serial number

Documents and reports can be located using the volume or serial number but should be cited using the publication number and Congress/session number.