The Law Library of Congress and Government Publishing Office announced Wednesday that they’ve uploaded the 10,000th volume of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set to the internet.
The posting of the documents to the GovInfo website is part of a multi-year effort by the Library of Congress and the GPO to digitize and make accessible the United States Congressional Serial Set back to the first volume, which was published in 1817.
The U.S. Congressional Serial Set, commonly referred to as the Serial Set, is a compilation of all numbered House and Senate reports and documents, including executive reports and treaty documents, issued for each session of Congress
Taken together, the volumes contain more than 185,000 individual government documents and reports.
“The digitization of and free public access to the 10,000th volume of the Congressional Serial Set marks a major milestone in our commitment to open government and historical preservation,” said Aslihan Bulut, the law librarian of Congress
“This achievement would not be possible without our partnership with the U.S. Government Publishing Office, whose collaboration helps ensure that scholars, students and the public can explore the documentary record of Congress and better understand the decisions that have shaped our nation,” Bulut said.
Nathanial Halpern, director of the Government Publishing Office, described the document preservation effort as “one more way we continue to make government information available to the American people.”
Halpern vowed to continue the two entities digitization work “to make even more of the documents available online.”
Earlier this month, the GPO surpassed 15 billion retrievals of government information, a count that started with the launch of the Federal Digital System — a precursor to the GovInfo website — in January 2009
In Fiscal Year 2025 alone, the agency recorded 1.97 billion retrievals of government information from GovInfo — a 16% increase over the previous fiscal year.
Halpern said the milestone illustrates the growing demand for ”accessible, authentic content.”
The top three collections accessed on GovInfo for FY 2025 all outpaced their use in the previous fiscal year.
These were:
- U.S. Courts Opinions: 489 million retrievals (75% increase compared to FY 2024).
- Federal Register: 242 million retrievals (60% increase compared to FY 2024), and
- Code of Federal Regulations: 90 million retrievals (65% increase compared to FY 2024)
Highlights from the newly added documents to the Congressional Serial Set include:
- “Plan for the City of Washington DC” in papers relating to the improvement of the city of Washington, District of Columbia. The Law Library created a companion Story Map located here.
- Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, performed in the years 1852, 1853, and 1854, under the command of Commodore M.C. Perry, United States Navy, by order of the Government of the United States, and
- “Titanic” Disaster: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, Sixty-Second Congress, Second Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 283, Directing the Committee on Commerce to Investigate the Causes Leading to the Wreck of the White Star Liner “Titanic.”
The GPO has nearly 6,000 remaining volumes of the official Serial Set to upload and is aiming to release an additional 2,000 volumes in FY2026.
The Law Library of Congress has digitized over 15,500 volumes in the collection, and GPO is currently cataloging and authenticating the PDFs.
Additions to the collection will be made available on both the GovInfo and loc.gov websites as authenticated documents are available.
Law Library, GPO Digitize 10,000th Volume of Historic Congressional Documents
