US Congressional Serial Set

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The US Congressional Serial Set began in 1817 as the official collection of congressional reports and documents. The collection was published in a "serial" fashion, hence its name. It is common for a volume of the Serial Set to be composed of a combination of documents and reports. Some of these reports may be one to two pages in length, while others can be hundreds of pages long. Although congressional in name, there are thousands of executive branch publications (e.g., the Annual Report of the Secretary of War) included within its pages. It is this rich combination of legislative and executive publications that account for its tremendous value as a primary source for American history.

Although its 14,000 bound volumes are a rich historical resource, it has often been neglected by researchers due to weak indexing and limited distribution. Volumes of the Serial Set have been sent to federal depository libraries over the years by the Government Printing Office, but many such depositories will be found to be only partially complete for a variety of reasons (e.g., age of the depository). LexisNexis and Readex have both had digitization efforts to convert the text to electronic format. LexisNexis completed their efforts in late 2006 and has undertaken a digitization project for [[congressional hearings]] and while Readex has completed up to 1910. Neither of these subscription services are generally available and it is best to consult with a local university librarian to determine where specific volumes can be located.

In 2007 the Google Books project began to scan the Serial Set.

A bibliographic citation such as "35th Congress, 2nd Session, House Miscellaneous Document #43 Claims of citizens of Territory of Kansas" (or the equivalent shorthand version "35th-2nd H.misdoc 43") will be found in the Serial Set.