Congressional Committee Reports

Black and white photo of attendees in the gallery during a break from a Watergate hearing. Image also shows the witness table at a House Banking Committee hearing on Watergate, with name plates for — Warren K. Leffler, photographer. *House Banking Committee hearing on Watergate Incident / WKL.* Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Print Resources

As is true with many of the legislative history resources we discuss, the best place to find congressional reports in print is a federal depository library. The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) distributes government information free of cost to libraries in the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), and these libraries provide free access for all users to this information. Information specialists are available at FDLP libraries to assist researchers with locating government information. To find your closest federal depository library, use the Federal Depository Library Directory.

American State Papers and the United States Congressional Serial Set

The American State Papers and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set contain a variety of federal government information, including committee reports, in print and on microfiche. The American State Papers cover the years 1789-1838. The Serial Set was first published in 1817, and provides coverage up to the present day. The Serial Set has a variety of access points, including subject, keyword, name, reported bill number indexes, and a sequential list of titles and reference information for documents, including committee reports, for each session of Congress.

American State Papers by William S. Hein and Company Incorporated Staff (eds.)
Call Number: KF11 .A48 1998
This resource is divided into 10 classes: Foreign Relations (6 vols.), Indian Affairs (2 vols.), Finance (5 vols.), Commerce & Navigation (2 vols.), Military Affairs (7 vols.), Naval Affairs (4 vols.), Post Office Department (1 vol.), Public Lands (8 vols.), Claims (1 vol.), & Misc. (2 vols.)
United States Congressional Serial Set
Call Number: KF12 .U5
Published/Created: Began with volume 1 during the 15th Congress, 1st session, 1817.
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set (Serial Set) includes a variety of information, including congressional documents, reports, and prints.

The Serial Set is immense, with over 15,000 volumes. Researchers typically need to follow a multi-step process to locate items within these volumes. The first step is finding a schedule or index of reports, such as those available on GovInfo or LLSDC External. Some freely-available indexes include:
- Tables of and Annotated Index to the Congressional Series of United States Public Documents: 15th Congress (1817-1819) - 52nd Congress (1891-1893)
- Index to the Reports and Documents: 54th Congress (1895-1896) - 72nd Congress (1932-1933)
- Numerical Lists and Schedule of Volumes of the Reports and Documents: 73rd Congress (1933-1934) - 96th Congress (1979-1980)
- United States Congressional Serial Set Catalog: 100th Congress (1987-1988) - 105th Congress (1997-1998)
- Schedule of Volumes of the U.S. Serial Set External: 91st Congress, 2nd Session (1970) - 113th Congress (2013-2014)
The indexes are organized by report type, date, and session of Congress and which index to use will depend on the publication date of the sought after report. Once the appropriate index or schedule has been identified, researchers can search by the report number to determine the Serial Set volume number where the report is located. A researcher can then search for the volume number on the University of Pennsylvania Libraries External catalog by selecting the "show more" link and either browsing the list or running a Ctrl+F search for the volume number. Each volume number is then linked to free digitized editions of the volume on HathiTrust.

Congressional Record

Conference reports are usually made available in the Congressional Record the day after they are filed. For information on how to access the Congressional Record and its predecessors in print, please see the "Debates of Congress" section.

Congressional Record
Published/Created: Began with 43d Congress, Special session of the Senate of the United States (Mar. 4, 1873).

Subscription Resources

The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress. If you are unable to visit the Library, you may be able to access these resources through your local public or academic library.

ProQuest Congressional External This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Congressional is a subscription resource that provides access to a variety of congressional publications, including committee reports. On the advanced search screen, you can focus your search to reports by unchecking all of the other document types. You can also click on the “legislative and executive publications” menu at the top and select “search by number” and choose “bibliographic citation” to search by a citation, such as a report number or Serial Set volume number.
ProQuest Legislative Insight External This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Legislative Insight is a subscription resource that provides access to compiled legislative histories. Legislative Insight is typically used by entering a citation to an enacted bill, public law number, or U.S. Statutes at Large citation. If a compiled legislative history is available, the results screen will provide a list of all legislative history documents associated with that legislation, including committee reports.
U.S. Congressional Serial Set External This link opens in a new window
This subscription database, also known as the Readex collection, offers a variety of ways to search the United States Serial Set dating from 1817 to 1982. The Serial Set contains all the Reports, Documents, and Journals of the US Senate and House of Representatives from the 15th Congress to the 97th Congress 1817 - December 23, 1982. Users can search for reports by citation, title, associated bill number, geographic location, associated committee, etc. Full-text access is offered in PDF and JPEG formats.
HeinOnline External This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline has been steadily adding material to the U.S. Congressional Serial Set collection. As of late 2021, the collection includes complete indexing of the Serial Set, complete coverage of the American State Papers, and coverage of 95% of the Serial Set in PDF format.

Free Online Resources

Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
The Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation website, made available by the Library of Congress, contains the American State Papers collection, which covers U.S. congressional documents from 1789-1838.
Congress.gov
Committee reports are available on Congress.gov from 1995 (104th Congress). Strategies for finding committee reports on Congress.gov are available on the About Committee Reports page. To browse committee reports, use the committee reports landing page, where you can narrow the results by using the limiters on the left-hand side or keyword searching.
GovInfo
GovInfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO) that provides free public access to official publications from all three branches of the federal government. GovInfo contains select committee reports dating back to 1995. Access to the Congressional Record dating back to 1994 is also available on GovInfo. Additionally, the Law Library of Congress and GPO are currently collaborating on a Serial Set digitization project. Select volumes of the Serial Set have been added to GovInfo. The joint digitization project is a multi-year effort. Additional volumes of the Serial Set will be added to this collection as they are available.
HathiTrust External
HathiTrust Digital Library preserves and provides access to material in the public domain. A number of volumes of the Serial Set are available in various, separate catalog records on HathiTrust. The US Congressional Serial Set External collection groups these records and allows them to be searched as a set. From the Serial Set collection, simple search and advanced full-text search External are available.
Internet Archive External
The Internet Archive is another source for committee reports. Researchers can use the Advanced Search External to search for a report, specifically by filling in a citation into the “any field” box, report title into the “title” box, and/or a committee title into the “creator” box. For example, if you were searching for a Senate Committee on Appropriations report, you would enter “United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations” in the creator box.