eReviews: Politics and Elections
By Gail Golderman & Bruce Connolly Jul 15, 2011Didn’t we just have an election cycle? As we were working on this set of reviews, Republican presidential hopefuls were lining up on stage to express their agreement with one another on every issue (except maybe on precisely how many and what kind of guns citizens ought to be allowed to own). Meanwhile, Democratic strategists were crossing their fingers that there would be enough people who somehow managed to find jobs by November 2012 that their party’s expulsion from office might not be a foregone conclusion. Or so it seems.
Fortunately, the resources we examined in this issue offer us a much more sophisticated (and much less cynical) way to think critically about the issues that do matter to us and to discover what voters consider to be the issues that affect us most profoundly.
Reviewed here are two polling resources, Roper Center for Public Opinion Archives and Polling the Nations from ORS Publishing, for analyzing all aspects of American political and voting behavior; another, CQ Press Voting and Elections Collection, for understanding the underlying issues that election campaigns battle over; and Issues & Controversies from Facts On File, which offers balance, clarity, and an overview of pros and cons that are vital to building critical thinking skills, particularly for those younger citizens who are making their first connections with the electoral process.
CQ Press Voting and Elections Collection
CQ Press; cqpress.com/product/CQ-Voting-and-Elections-Collection.html
CONTENT The CQ Voting and Elections Collection (VEC) gathers together an impressive array of election data, expert analysis, authoritative reference material, primary-source documents, and historical background to give the researcher a set of powerful tools for examining all aspects of the American electoral process—the behavior of voters, the activities of political parties, the waging of election campaigns, and the outcomes of state and national races.
As the Toolbox that extends the length of the left-hand frame makes apparent, content and functionality are tightly integrated in VEC. The links at the top of the Toolbox—Election Analysis & Results; and Campaigns, Parties & Voters—reproduce the two components of the main search frame, while the second grouping of links reproduces the subheadings under those two broad areas.
Next in the Toolbox is a grouping of ready-reference sources starting with a collection of bibliographies (on campaign finance, the electoral system, political parties, presidential and congressional elections, and voting participation).
There’s a chronology focusing on “congressional and presidential elections as well as major developments in the elections process” along with “changes in the Constitution, the electorate, campaign practices, and political parties” back to 1775. The information, however, is sometimes skimpy—nothing after 2005, nothing listed under the 107th or 108th Congresses, and just a note indicating that Bush defeated Gore in a contested election in 2000.
The Encyclopedia link gives the researcher access to Bob Benenson’s 2008 CQ Press title, Elections A to Z, where more than 200 election- and campaign-related terms are treated at length. This is not only quite substantive but set up to facilitate additional research and exploration. The article on “Media Coverage of Campaigns,” for example, runs nine PDF pages and has two groups of links—Learn More About Campaigns, Elections, and Campaign Finance: General; and Learn More About Presidential Elections: General—each with its own set of links to relevant articles within Elections A to Z as well as to other documents throughout VEC.
An interactive Map feature allows the user to view national political maps for all general elections, plus state maps showing the party that that won the presidential, Senate, House, and gubernatorial races from 1980 through 2008. Hovering a mouse pointer over the national map causes vote tallies for each candidate to display; clicking on a state lets the researcher view results on a county-by-county basis.
There is also a Web Links section with listings for sites devoted to campaign finance, election administration, election reform, state websites, general elections and politics, news and analysis, political parties, polling and public opinion, recent and historical data, state elections, and voter education.
The link for 2010 Elections goes to the site for Roll Call, the online newspaper of Capitol Hill, and the one for 2008 shows a Roll Call map with results for that election displayed by district.The election data found in VEC has been adapted from several authoritative CQ Press sources, including America Votes, America at the Polls, Politics in America, and Guide to U.S. Elections.
USABILITY VEC was just redesigned, and its elegant new look belies the incredible power and wealth of information that resides within the clean and classy interface. The main frame of the VEC homepage is laid out with two distinct components of the electoral process—Election Analysis & Results; and Campaigns, Parties & Voters—each having their own search box and set of subtopics. The Election Analysis side has links for finding information on all major elections and tools for analyzing Incumbent Races, Office Histories, Open Seat Races, Race Competitiveness, and Split Districts. The Campaigns, Parties & Voters side offers a wealth of tools on Candidate Histories, Party Control, Party Switches, Seats That Changed Party, and Third Party Results.
Selecting any subheading takes the researcher into Advanced Search mode, where the sophisticated template is customized for searching that particular topic. We clicked on Voters and Demographics, selected Social Groups from the pull-down menu, and typed “christian* OR religi*” into the Search All Text box. The 30-item results list included the following document type breakdown: one article from CQ Researcher, 18 items described as Election Analysis, six encyclopedia entries, one Facts & Figures item (a table breaking down group voting percentages for congressional elections), and four primary-source documents (three speeches, plus H.L. Mencken’s 1928 article “Onward, Christian Soldiers!”). Selecting any of these items not only brings up the full text, but it also gives the user the opportunity to “Learn More” about a variety of related subjects via the links on the document page.
The tools that analyze results are also quite sophisticated. The Race Competitiveness search allows the user to determine, for example, which incumbent House members polled less than 45 percent of the total vote and lost (or won) in primary or general elections for any desired date range.
PRICING The initial price of VEC for CQ Researcher Online subscribers is $6,026, which includes a onetime fee for the data set and permits unlimited simultaneous access and unlimited downloads. The ongoing update price after the first year is $4,654. Trials are available.
END USERS Bursting with valuable content, VEC is a veritable candy store for political scientists, students, and election junkies of all kinds. Libraries attempting to enhance access to political science resources (while contending with congested reference collections) may also want to know that subscribers to any of the CQ Press Electronic Library products can link their titles with those of the growing Political Reference Suite of Online Editions via the CQ Press Electronic Library homepage and conduct searches across all their CQ Press holdings.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Archives
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research; ropercenter.uconn.edu
CONTENT Not to be confused with the for-profit Roper Poll owned by GfK Custom Research Group, the Roper Center for Public Opinion Archives, with more than 18,000 data sets (10,000 U.S. and 8000 International Studies), is “one of the world’s leading archives of social science data, specializing in data from surveys of public opinion,” for the use of researchers, students, political analysts, and journalists worldwide. Originally founded in 1947 to preserve data from surveys of public opinion, the center holds data from the 1930s to the present and continues to grow by hundreds of data sets per year. Although most of the data are national samples from the United States, there are also state and local surveys, as well as a number of surveys of special populations of interest, in addition to data from some 50 nations.
Claiming to be the oldest and most comprehensive collection of public opinion data sets in the world, the archive preserves the data from polls conducted by more than 150 leading survey organizations such as AARP, Associated Press, Gallup Organization (Gallup Polls from 1936 to the present), National Science Foundation, Pew Research Center, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal.
The Roper Center has several different levels of membership to accommodate academic institutions, individual scholars, and students, as well as organizations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Benefits to membership include full access to the iPOLL Databank, a comprehensive resource for U.S. public opinion data, containing 500,000 questions from the 1930s to the present (updated daily, iPOLL includes direct links into the catalog of data sets in the archive and is among the best finding-aids available for U.S. data); search access to the Dataset Collections; unlimited RoperExpress download of data sets in ASCII or SPSS/PASW formats; and instantly generated cross-tabs with thousands of variables from more than 1400 U.S. studies with RoperExplorer, a web-based data analysis tool created exclusively for members.
As it contains such a comprehensive set of tools, we cannot possibly cover all its aspects, but we will highlight several special features. Topics at a Glance offers a sampling of iPOLL and data-set holdings on nearly 50 issues from the Center’s archives within the categories of Economic Issues/Policies, Education, Elections, Government Institutions, Health, Lifestyles, Science, Social Issues, and U.S. Defense & Foreign Policy. A sampling of topics includes Taxes, Presidential Approval, Health Care, Terrorism, Homosexuality, and Immigration. U.S. elections are solidly covered with presidential election data from 1976 to the present; State Primary data, from 1976 to 2008; National Election Day tallies, 1972–2008; State Election Day totals, 1978–2008; Presidential Election popular votes, 1940–2008; and Congressional Elections results, 1994 to the present. Teaching Tools provides sample teaching and polling assignments to help educators get the best use of the website in the classroom. Fundamentals of Polling is a survey tutorial, with Polling 101 and 201, useful as a means to introduce definitions, examples, and explanations of public opinion research as well as analysis of polls.
Because there is so much data available, we highly recommend the available video tutorials (also on YouTube) on the iPOLL Databank and searching the Datasets and the RoperExplorer video tour.
USABILITY Since we were fortunate to have full membership access, this review will provide a broad overview of the entire Roper Center for Public Opinion Archives. Users can quickly log in to iPOLL either via the Quick Links pull-down menu at the top of the page or from the center of the opening screen. A powerful database by itself, iPOLL allows searchers to enter (and/or exclude) keywords or exact phrases, select a specific topic, or limit to an organization or date range if desired. We entered “texting while driving” as a phrase and retrieved questions from three separate polls: Marist, CBS News, and CBS News/New York Times.
Users can select standard, expanded, or full view, and each question includes an icon to display the full question with accompanying metadata. Some records provide access to the full question with cross-tabs, as well as the RoperExpress analysis tool, which contains a data-set abstract of the study, PDF and Word files of the questionnaire and documentation, the complete data sets in desired format, and access to RoperExplorer, which will automatically run the desired analysis of the full survey. No matter how many times we previewed RoperExplorer, we were amazed at the ease with which we could create the individual tables.
The main homepage also houses a set of Hot Topics links—a subset of the Topics at a Glance section—available in full from Quick Links. Each topic includes several subcategories, with content summary and charts taken directly from the polls. We selected News Media and were able to expand the subcategories of Source of News, Newspaper Loyalty, Confidence in the Media, Accuracy of the Press, Censorship and Free Press, Public Information, and From the Archives. Many of the summaries now include a link to iPOLL full-search results.
Expanding the subcategory Newspaper Loyalty, we retrieved questions from three Pew Research Center for the People polls. As members, we were able to retrieve seamlessly one of the full surveys on iPOLL, view the query details (587 questions) and query statistics, and easily create a table (downloadable in Excel or RTF) through the analysis tool. Once in iPOLL, users can bookmark the search and questions, continue with a new search, or go back to the tools and search options available from the homepage.
PRICING Membership offers complete access to all archived material and IP authentication (for academic institutions). Fees range from $1000 for institutions granting associate’s degrees to $5800 and up for those with Doctoral Extensive classification. For iPOLL access only, Roper offers two pricing options—“pay-as-you-go” for accessing U.S. opinion polls, $200/year or $2/question, and a new unlimited model with a first-year introductory rate of $1500. Nonacademic and corporate fees available.
END USERS Students, faculty, journalists, pollsters, and political analysts are just a few of the demographics that will want access to this resource. Membership obviously offers the best deal, as the combined services permit users to locate questions and “topline results” in iPOLL and, with a few clicks, download the documentation and data files for the studies, as well as create customized analysis in minutes.
Polling the Nations
ORS Publishing; poll.orspub.com
CONTENT Polling the Nations from ORS Publishing is a collection of international public-opinion polls consisting of over 14,000 surveys conducted between 1986 and the present. The data—the resource assembles responses to a half million questions—are drawn from more than 1400 different sources designed to gauge the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of the citizenry in the United States and more than 100 other countries. Only surveys using scientifically selected random samples are included.
The All About Polling area aims to educate the user about the history, design, mechanics, and challenges of polling in the 21st century and includes a National Council of Public Polls document titled “20 Questions a Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results.” According to the Council, the first question should be “Who did the poll?” Polling the Nations offers some pretty impressive answers. The best-known U.S. pollsters (Harris, the Pew Research Center, Roper, Zogby, and even Gallup) are represented here along with their international counterparts (Asia Barometer, Eurobarometer, and Latinoberó metro). There’s a long list of academic polling centers as well (e.g., George Washington University, Siena Research Institute, Marist Institute for Public Opinion, and Quinnipiac University). Media surveys are well represented: there are print news outlets from here and abroad (New York Times, Los Angeles Times, London Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Jerusalem Post), numerous magazines (like People, Good Housekeeping, Time, and Newsweek), plus major television news organizations (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN). Surveys from various special-interest groups (AARP, AMA, and National Wildlife Federation) are available, as are polls from policy institutes and advocacy groups (from the Brookings Institution to the Heritage Foundation). Database contents are updated weekly.
USABILITY Upgraded June 1 with a new interface and improved search capabilities, Polling the Nations gives the user a fresh-looking and efficient way to explore database contents. There is also a selection of new features including a Top Ten Topics list of the previous week’s most common searches, access to search questions for nonsubscribers, and, most significant, the ability to incorporate up to six search criteria into a single strategy to build a very precise search.
A Topic search employs a pull-down menu of 6000 controlled vocabulary terms to query the database. Scrolling through the list is a tedious process, but keying in a letter or word jumps the searcher to that spot in the open list. Although it’s not perfect—we got 36 hits for “Cosmetic Surgery” and two for “Plastic Surgery”—the presence of a controlled vocabulary is a very nice plus, and there is no need to extol its virtues to this audience.
The searcher may also do a keyword search on the wording of a poll question, search the geographic area covered by the survey (again via pull-down menu), specify a date range, or limit to a polling source. Likewise, users can do a full-text search of poll results. Except for the date field, any of the criteria may be searched alone or in combination with other criteria.
We searched “obama” in the question field and “lgbt OR gays OR lesbians” in the results field, which yielded four hits—three regarding public opinion on the topic of gays and lesbians in the military, and one in which the sample included “312 self-identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT)” respondents. This would be fine except that the Help pages on “Features of the Database” describe the results criteria as the place to “search for respondent categories, e.g., teens, Hispanics, Catholic priests,” which clearly is not completely accurate.
Each record in the results list includes the survey question, polling organization, period when the survey information was collected (field date), date the poll was published, and results reported. Records also identify the poll’s “universe” (i.e., the geographic area or specific group of people surveyed) along with any additional qualifying information (e.g., “Survey sample included 100 interviews with cell phone only users”) that would be necessary to interpret the results accurately. Interviewing method, sample size, notes, and copyright information, along with contact information for obtaining additional information, all appear in the record.
When a record is displayed, the searcher has three options: Graph This Question, Add to Export Cart, and View All Questions in This Poll. The graphing capability resides outside the resource. Clicking on the Graph button opens Excel, where users may then create graphs of the responses they want to present.
Questions from the results list that are added to the Export Cart may be displayed on screen or exported as HTML or CSV files. They may also be sent via email or printed. The View All Questions button permits the researcher to see each question in the context of the full survey.
PRICING Annual subscription prices based on concurrent users begin at $495 for a single user, increase to $742 for two to four users, and top out at $2,104 for 21–30 concurrent users. Subscriptions based on an institution’s FTE have the advantage of permitting an unlimited number of users to access the resource concurrently. They also begin at the $495 price point for FTEs ranging from one to 1500 and step up to $2,215 at 18,001–21,000 FTE.
The upgrade opened up Polling the Nations to nonsubscribers, who are now permitted to search the database and examine the results. Access to survey responses themselves is still limited to subscribers, but this is a good way to try out the database, examine survey language, and possibly identify sources already available within the library’s collection. Trials are available.
END USERS Polling the Nations’s publishers would argue that people need polling data even when they don’t realize that’s the information they need. They would also contend that everyone should be able to review public opinion data as a primary source unfiltered by the media or some other agent with an interest in spinning a poll’s results to meet certain needs. While this is not the most glamorous product we’ve ever examined, it doesn’t need to be because it delivers on the promise of making primary-source polling results readily accessible to any subscriber intent on discovering what people all over the globe are thinking and doing.
Issues & Controversies
Facts On File; infobasepublishing.com/OnlineProductDetail.aspx?ISBN=1578520274
CONTENT Pick any newsworthy issue, and it’s likely to be included in Facts On File’s Issues & Controversies. This resource runs the gamut from Abortion to Zoos, featuring more than 1000 hot topics in politics, government, business, education, and popular culture. To name just a few: Air-Travel Delays, Breast Implants, Decriminalizing Marijuana, Military Draft, Plagiarism, Reality Television, and Texting While Driving.
Updated weekly, Issues & Controversies includes a 16-year back file of in-depth articles written by Facts On File’s writers and editors, offering a comprehensive source for up-to-date objective coverage of accurate information.
Each article presents a pro and con statement, including key facts with current arguments and historical events on any selected topic, in an easy-to-understand format and features supporting material such as time lines and chronologies, illustrations, maps, sidebars, statistical tables, primary-source documents, bibliographies, editorial cartoons, and selected newspaper editorials from a variety of content culled from Facts On File World News Digest and other news services databases. Topics also offer discussion questions and activities, assisting students to strengthen their critical thinking and analysis skills.
Other highlights taking center stage on the opening screen include Need a Research Topic?, with summaries of key topics linked to related articles to jump-start student research; Curriculum Tools, promoting classroom use with practical activities, assignments, and teaching aids and research tools for students and educators; the Annual National High School Debate Topic, with a series of in-depth articles on the key aspects of the debate (the current selection for 2011–12 is Expanding the Space Program); Special Features, which includes Newspaper Editorials, Charts, Graphs, Maps, and “Bill of Rights in Debate,” with a list of the first ten amendments to the Constitution and links to articles in the database in which those amendments play a central role; and Reference Shelf with World Almanac and Book of Facts content and the World Almanac Encyclopedia.
USABILITY The opening screen offers a variety of options, with information in clearly defined boxes organized in the center of the screen. Although it is a tad busy, the layout doesn’t overstimulate, and users can easily parse the content. Issues in the Headlines displays a dozen or so topics, with an Access More Topics link leading to an A-to-Z listing. Several of those selected for the top-level screen were current as of this year, including President Obama’s India Policy, updated in May, and Homeownership, updated in January; but quite a few, including Middle East Peace Process, were extremely outdated (current as of December 2006), and even with an update mention, some content was five years old.
The left side of the screen offers a search mode for basic and advanced (constant throughout the session), and a Subject Index of 16 topics, such as Arts/Media, Crime/Terrorism, Family Life, Minorities/Race, and Women. In addition, there is a quick link to Issues: Pros and Cons, with a full list including Abortion, Advanced Placement Classes, Bullying, Childcare, and Inflation.
We did a basic keyword search for mosque*, and although Help doesn’t include wildcard information, we increased our retrieval set from 18 featured articles to 29 when utilizing the standard asterisk. Users can restrict their keyword to Search Title Text Only for more focused results. Results display in tabbed format at the top of the screen, with Featured Articles and sidebars, Editorial Cartoons, By the Numbers (statistical snapshots of key issues), and Reference Shelf, allowing users to control the results set to the preferred content.
We selected the limit of Featured Articles to Main Articles—filtering the set to 15. Sorting by date, current articles for our query included “Banning Burqas in Public” and “Building Mosques in the United States.” All articles within the database follow the same format and provide background/historical information on the topic, the supporting and dissenting statements, suggested discussion and activities, a current bibliography, additional sources, and contact information. A Key Words and Points section at the bottom of the article offers further information by listing terms and keywords to search in other databases or publications. Terms for the ongoing debate over building mosques in America included “Cordoba Initiative,” “Feisal Abdul Rauf,” “Ground Zero mosque,” “Murfreesboro mosque,” and “Terry Jones.”
A sidebar displays additional links to numerous in-depth articles (“Switzerland Bans Minarets, Prompting Discussion of Treatment of Muslims in Europe,” “Obama’s Remarks on the ‘Ground Zero Mosque,’” etc.), which always begin with the History of Key Events of the topic, a series of Related Articles, and Key News Events.
Recent enhancements to the interface include a “Back to Search Results” function, a text-resizing option available for all articles, and automatically generated MLA (7th ed.) citations.
Unregistered guests can save items in a folder for the current session. Registering offers permanent access to saved content. Citations display in MLA style, with APA guidelines, and all articles include a durable URL.
PRICING The database pricing is based on FTE. The annual cost for fewer than 5000 students is $475. Trials are available.
END USERS Issues & Controversies offers balance, clarity, and an overview of pros and cons that are vital to building critical-thinking skills, a proficiency we consider an essential tool for promoting lifelong learning. This is an excellent (and affordable) resource for secondary research use and high school debate prep, offering not only detailed coverage of the current debate topic but also a means to brush up easily on current events and historical topics from previous years.
E-Short Takes
American Government
ABC-CLIO; abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147483690
Providing access to information about current events with “themes of American politics and public policy at all levels,” American Government offers a great deal, with more than 12,000 primary and secondary sources. These include 1200 documents, 4000 images, 200 maps, and 200 audio/video recordings. Users can also peruse more than 2100 short biographies, covering important historical and current government figures, as well as a continually updated roster of key federal bureaucrats, state governors, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. From grassroots activism to the White House, the database includes daily news reports on issues affecting state and federal governments. An Analyze section poses questions with the intent to promote critical thinking and to present an issue from all sides. Curricular elements are organized by topic, including the three branches of government; rights and liberties; and state, national, and international systems. All offer a general overview, discussion, articles, visual media, primary documents, and facts and figures. American Government is integrated with 12 other ABC-CLIO online resources for cross-searching if applicable.
CQ Press Public Affairs Collection
CQ Press; cqpress.com/product/CQ-Public-Affairs-Collection.html
CQ Press Public Affairs Collection features in-depth coverage of fundamental public policy issues, statistical and historical analyses, and full-text historical documents and primary-source materials. Organized within 22 key public affairs topics—from Advocacy and Public Service to U.S. Congress and Politics—the collection is relevant for researchers and students of public affairs and public policy, social work, government, political science, journalism, and communications. Features include simple and advanced search options; encyclopedia entries for important terms, concepts, and milestones; summaries of key Supreme Court cases and legislation; specialized topical browsing paths; cross-links to related records within documents; an image library related to specific public affairs topics; chronologies and bibliographies; and key government, state, and newspaper websites. Users can search all 22 topics or select any subset while topics break down to second and third levels for more specificity. A bibliography includes additional books, magazines, and government documents selected by CQ Press staff.
Gallup Brain
Gallup, Inc.; brain.gallup.com
A 70-year archive of public opinion, Gallup Brain is a searchable database that contains the answers to more than 136,000 questions, featuring responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by the Gallup Poll since 1935. More important for those of us not familiar with data crunching, it also includes analytical articles on what the results mean. Available at the site are Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing articles, and Gallup Management Journal articles, which feature in-depth public opinion along with key questions that Gallup has asked about world-changing events through the decades. Updated daily, current questionnaires include the USA Today/Gallup Poll on President Obama (economy, foreign affairs, terrorism, etc.) and Osama Bin Laden Killing Reaction. Features include an A-to-Z of Topics and Trends, Surveys by the Decade, and basic and advanced search options for documents and questionnaires. Questionnaires are the surveys used to collect data from respondents; documents are analyses based on the results of the questionnaires from Gallup Poll, Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, or Gallup Management Journal. Institutions can also subscribe to Gallup Poll Social Series to access Gallup’s monthly updates on the nation, world affairs, the environment, the economy and finance, values and beliefs, minority rights and relations, consumption behavior, work and education, governance, crime, health, and lifestyle.
PAIS International/PAIS Archive
ProQuest; www.csa.com/factsheets/pais-set-c.php
With more than 655,000 records, PAIS International is an index to the literature of public affairs and current issues, covering important political, economic, and social concerns that affect world communities, countries, people, and governments. PAIS contains references to journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, web material, and more, from over 120 countries throughout the world. In addition to English, some indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Updated monthly, the database is the online version of the print publications PAIS Bulletin (1976–90), PAIS Foreign Language Index (1972–90), and PAIS International in Print (1991–present). Also available, an enhanced subscription to PAIS International on CSA Illumina includes access to the PAIS Archive, a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, published from 1915 to 1976. With more than 1.23 million records, the archive provides historical perspective on many of the 20th century’s public and social policies, including the atomic age, China’s Cultural Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, the Great Depression, McCarthyism, Prohibition, and the Vietnam conflict. Available via ProQuest/CSA Illumina and OCLC.
ProQuest Congressional (Basic Subscription)
ProQuest; http://cisupa.proquest.com/ws_display.asp?filter=Congressional%20Overview
The database formerly known as LexisNexis Congressional and Congressional Universe, ProQuest Congressional (acquired by ProQuest in late 2010) is a well-known LexisNexis product that indexes and provides selected full texts of congressional publications, regulations, laws, legislative histories, and background information on members of Congress from 1789 to the present (depending on subscription options). Offered as a basic subscription with optional modules (some of which are also available on a stand-alone basis), ProQuest Congressional provides access to a long list of sources, including indexes and abstracts for congressional committee documents, prints, reports and published hearings, 1970–present; legislative histories, 1969–present; committee hearing selected transcripts and full-text statements, 1988–present; committee prints selected full text, 1993–2004; committee reports full text, 1990–present; House and Senate documents (electronic versions) full text, 1995–present; Government Accountability Office report abstracts and PDFs, 2004–present; Congressional Record daily edition, 1985–present; Bill texts and tracking, 1989–present; public law texts, 1988–present; Code of Federal Regulations, 1981–present; Federal Register, 1980–present; and more. Congressional Historical Indexes, 1789–84—including indexes to published materials from 1789 to 1969 and to unpublished hearings from 1824 to 1984—are available only as an add-on to the basic subscription.
| Author Information |
| Gail Golderman (goldermg@union.edu) is Electronic Resources Librarian and Bruce Connolly (connollb@union.edu) is Reference & Bibliographic Instruction Librarian, Schaffer Library, Union College, Schenectady, NY |
