A Snapshot of Availability of U.S. Congressional Committee Hearings

Abstract

U.S. congressional hearings are among the most heavily used sources of government information made available through the Federal Depository Library Program. The traditional distribution of full-text hearings in tangible format (paper and microfiche) is only beginning to be supplemented by online distribution through GPO Access. Alternate online sources of committee hearings are the Web pages of individual congressional committees. This study identifies and tallies the number of hearings held by committees of the 105th and 106th Congresses and distributed in tangible format by the Government Printing Office. Data from the initial step is then compared to those listed on GPO Access and congressional committee Web sites between October 2001 and May 2002 to determine the comprehensiveness of the online lists. Finally, the study tabulates and compares the availability of full-text hearings records (transcripts) on both the GPO Access and congressional committee sites. Although the study indicates fuller coverage for the more recent Congress, analysis indicates that neither GPO Access nor Web sites provide complete availability of full-text hearings, and that the coverage varies greatly from committee to committee, and from Congress to Congress.