Congressional Help: Search by Number

Use the Search by Number form when you know the citation of the document or a related bill or law.

​Use the left-hand navigation to select the citation type of your choice.  Options are grouped by category:

• Legislation
• Publication Search
• Congressional Record
• Regulations

Public Law Number

 

Public laws are assigned sequential numbers within a Congress (for example, P.L.104-1). If you know the public law number, you can retrieve a legislative history for that law. Use the drop-down list to select a specific Congress, then enter the bill number in the form.

 

Statute at Large Number

 

Statutes at Large is the official compilation of legislation passed and signed into law during each session of Congress. A new volume, arranged sequentially in order of passage, is issued for each Congress. To retrieve documents using a Statutes at Large citation, you must know the volume and page number.

 

 

Enacted Bill Number

 

Bill numbers are assigned sequential numbers within a Congress (for example, the first bill introduced in the Senate during the 104th Congress would be S. 1). If you know the enacted bill number associated with a law, you can retrieve a legislative history for that law. Use the second drop-down list to select the bill type.

Bill type

 

Choose from the following abbreviations:

Abbreviation	Description
H.R.	House Bill
S.	Senate Bill
H.J.Res.	House Joint Resolution
S.J.Res.	Senate Joint Resolution
H.Con.Res.	House Concurrent Resolution
S.Con.Res.	Senate Concurrent Resolution
H.Res.	House Resolution
S.Res.	Senate Resolution

Publication Number (found under Publication Search category)

Many, but not all, congressional publications have an official number assigned to them that reflects the number of the Congress in which the publication was issued, the publication type, and the order in which publications of that type and for that year were issued. Select Publication Number, and then select the abbreviated form of publication type from the drop-down list. Choose from the following abbreviations, which may vary according to your subscription type:

In most cases, once you have selected the publication type, you will be asked to select the Congress number from a drop-down. In the blank space to the right of the Congress, type the number of the publication for which you are looking.

For example, if you want to retrieve the 34th Senate report from the 108th Congress, select S.rpt. from the Publication type drop-down list, select 108 from the Congress number drop-down list, and enter 34 into the search box.

SuDoc and Accession Numbers (found under Publication Search category)

Congressional publications can also be retrieved if you know the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification number or the CIS accession number.

SuDoc Format for Congressional Basic:

Prior to 1981, GPO did not assign SuDoc numbers to House Reports, House Documents, Senate Reports and Senate Documents.

However, Senate Executive Documents (later known as Senate Treaty Documents) and Senate Executive Reports have always had SuDocs assigned using the Y.1(Congress-Session) class number.

For special House and Senate Documents, GPO did assign SuDocs using  X(Congress-Session):H.doc.(the number) for their classification.

In 1981, GPO began classifying the complete serial set document collection. The former SuDoc class number for Senate Treaty Documents and Senate Executive Reports was changed to Y1.1/4: and Y1.1/6: respectively to conform to the new series listed below:

Y 1.1/3:           Senate Documents

Y 1.1/4:           Senate Treaty Documents      

Y 1.1/5:           Senate Reports

Y 1.1/6:           Senate Executive Reports

Y 1.1/7:           House Documents

Y 1.1/8:           House Reports

Serial Set Volume (found under Publication Search category)

If your institution has purchased access to the U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection, you can retrieve congressional publications by entering the Serial Set volume number into the appropriate box on the Search by Number form. If your institution does not have access to the U.S. Serial Set Digital Collection, you will not see this search option. Users from institutions that have access to Serial Set bibliographic records through the Congressional Indexes historical module will not be able to enter the Serial Set volume number on the Search by Number form, but they can retrieve records by entering SERIAL-VOL_NO: followed by the volume number into a keyword search box on the Advanced Search form (e.g., SERIAL-VOL-NO: 12795-6).