Quick Start: Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection   Tags: congressional, congressional record, quick start guides  

There are two versions of the Congressional Record in ProQuest Congressional. 

The first version, available with the Congressional Basic subscription, is the Congressional Record Daily Edition.  This version is available from 1985-present, and is available through the Daily Congressional Record and Rules tab on the left menu.

The second version, the Permanent Digital Collection, contains both the bound Congressional Record (beginning in 1873 and currently available through the late 1990s) and the predecessor titles including the Congressional Globe (1833-1873), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Annals of Congress (1789-1824).   

This second version, the Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, is what we are highlighting in this guide.  

And for information on searching in Congressional, see the ProQuest Congressional Training Videos, in the box to the right.

You can easily see if your library has the Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection by looking at the left menu for the menu titled Congressional Record Only (shown right) or by checking if you have the 4th tab on the Congressional Publications menu.

Please note, users will also see results for the Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection when seeing results from the Basic and Advanced Search tabs.  The results will show up on the second results tab (see the Searching the Congressional Record page in this guide for an example). 

The Congressional Record Only tab shows all of the options for searching with the Congressional Record. 

Select the time period of interest either by selecting the title in the Search within portion of the page, or by search a date range or congress in the Restrict by section. 

Three of the options from the pulldown shown here will result in another pulldown being offered.  The Content Type pull down has an additional 28 options including letters, remarks by, tributes, conference reports, and more.  The other two options that results in the additional pulldown are Full text by section, and View of GPO Index volumes Only.