Resources of the Week: One of These Things Is Not Like the Others
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor

Regarding the public availability of Congressional Research Service reports…maybe the situation will be different in the new administration. Maybe these valuable, taxpayer-funded documents will finally be posted online BY the Congressional Research Service AS THEY ARE ISSUED. In our opinion, there is no logical reason for the hoop-jumping necessary to pry these things loose from the CRS.

Granted, access is a lot better than it used to be, thanks to the tireless efforts of various academic and nonprofit organizations to corral as many of these reports as possible and make them freely available online. The Center for Democracy and Technology’s OpenCRS, for example, is a great place to start searching; not only is it a huge archive of these reports, but it links to other key report collections, such as:

• National Council for Science and the Environment
• Federation of American Scientists
• Thurgood Marshall Law Library/University of Maryland School of Law
• National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism

Archive-It.org, in partnership with the Social Sciences Resource Group at Stanford University, links to a large number of CRS report collections, including the venerable archive at the University of North Texas Libraries. And the Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington School of Law offers an excellent CRS pathfinder. If you can’t find the report online, you can always request it from your congressional representative’s office. Or you can buy it from a private company that obtains and sells them — which annoys us so much that we won’t identify it or link to it here.

The sheer volume of government information now available online is amazing, and has made life infinitely easier not only for researchers, but for the average citizen. We have not yet heard a compelling reason why the Congressional Research Service — a division of the Library of Congress — remains a black hole. This Washington Post story, from February 2007, blames “a wall erected by lawmakers” who regard the agency “as an extension of” their own staff.

We’re not buying that excuse. Equivalent agencies in other countries routinely place their reports online:

+ Parliament of Australia — Parliamentary Library Research Papers
Large, searchable collection of reports, organized chronologically, from 1993 forward. Also notable, a comprehensive page of links to all Parliamentary Library publications.

+ Canada — Library of Parliament Research Publications

The Parliamentary Information and Research Service (PIRS) provides a consulting service for individual parliamentarians, responding to questions that require research and analysis on legal, economic, scientific, or social science matters. Researchers obtain and analyze material, and write letters, short notes and longer research papers at the request of Senators and Members of the House of Commons. In some cases, responses are provided to clients by telephone briefings or by meetings with individual parliamentarians and/or their staff.

Awesome collection here, organized by category, from Aboriginal Issues to Transport.

+ New Zealand Parliamentary Library Research Publications

• Research papers
  

  Research papers from the Parliamentary Library are published here. Research papers cover a variety of topical subjects of relevance to Parliament.

• Bills Digests
  

  A Bills Digest is a guide written to assist members of Parliament when they consider a bill. Bills Digests are published here in pdf form.

• Electorate profiles
  

  Electorate profiles for each of the seven M?ori electorates and 63 general electorates in New Zealand are published here. Electorate profiles are produced by the Parliamentary Library. Each profile includes election results, statistics about people, households and industries, and maps.

+ UK Parliament — Research offers:

• Commons Library Research Papers
  

  Research papers on subjects of current interest, compiled for MPs by the staff of the House of Commons Library.

• Commons Library Standard Notes
  

  Standard notes are topical briefings prepared by the House of Commons Library for Members of Parliament and which may be of wider interest.

• Lords Library Notes
  

  Research notes on subjects of current interest, compiled for Lords by the staff of the House of Lords Library.

• Parliament and Constitution Research
  

  A selection of research papers and standard notes produced by the House of Commons Library on subjects such as: central government, constitution, Crown, devolution, elections, Parliament, and political parties.

• Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  

  Short briefing notes and longer reports on science and technology issues published by POST.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 and is filed under Business and Economics, Databases, Directories, and Guides, Resource of the Week, Source File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.