About the U.S. Congressional Serial Set
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set—commonly referred to as the Serial Set—is considered an essential publication for unveiling American history. Spanning more than two centuries with more than 17,000 bound volumes, the records in this series include House and Senate Documents, House and Senate Reports, and much more. The reports are usually from congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation.
The documents include all other papers printed by the House or Senate. Documents cover a wide variety of topics, including reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, executive branch materials were also published in the Serial Set.
The American State Papers
United States Congressional Documents between 1789 and 1817 are published under the American State Papers, which consists of 38 volumes. The two series overlap, as American State Papers covers through 1838. Full coverage of the American State Papers is available within HeinOnline's database.
The Serial Set in HeinOnline
The Serial Set is an enormous undertaking and therefore will be released by HeinOnline in phases, with the goal of adding approximately four million pages each year until the archive is completed. Moving forward, HeinOnline will add newly released material as well as fill in any missing volumes between 1977 and 1817. Since its initial launch in October of 2018, more than 3.6 million pages and 5,300 volumes have been added to the Serial Set.
The Serial Set in HeinOnline currently includes:
- Complete indexing of the more than 17,000 volumes of the Serial Set
- Full 40-year (1978-2018) content archive in HeinOnline's image-based PDF format
- Complete coverage of the American State Papers
- 87% of the Serial Set, available in HeinOnline or via HathiTrust Digital Library
- 63% of documents available in HeinOnline's image-based PDF format
