This is a collection of House and Senate Documents which are collected and bound into volumes to form the "Congressional Serial Set". Through the years the "Set" has been known by such popular names as the serial number set, congressional edition, congressional series, and the "sheep set" because of the distinctive binding.

The Serial Set has included a wide selection of titles and series including House and Senate Journals, reports from agencies in the executive branch, annual reports, investigative studies, reports on private and public laws, and research studies.  The Serial Set actually picks up where the American State Papers stop, They are numbered consecutively from that point on.

Significant changes occurred in the distribution and format of the set beginning with the 96th (1979-80)  Congress.  The current set consists of congressional publications in three categories issued in six parts; House reports, Senate reports, House documents, Senate documents, Senate treaty documents and Senate executive reports.

The Library does not have many of the older volumes, but it does have a very good selection including the committee on Un-American Activities, the Impeachments of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and William J. Clinton and the Ku-Klux Conspiracy.

Davidson's holdings for the serial set are: Early editions to 85th Congress (1957-58) are bound and not complete; 86th (1958-59 through the 91st Congress (1969-71) are in microfiche (this is a CIS set and has it's own index); 92nd Congress (1971-72) through 95th Congress (1977-78) are bound; and 96th (1979-80) Congress to present are in microfiche.

The Serial Set is one of the most valuable primary source tools for researchers of any time frame.
 

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Maintained by: Sara Lee Enders
E.H. Little Library
URL:http://www.davidson.edu/administrative/library/govdoc/government_information.asp
Last Modified: 10/01/2009