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Nov. 8, 2004 Volume 29, Issue 15 |
DataBasics
By Deborah Lee
MSU Libraries
CIS Congressional, also known as LexisNexis Congressional, is the newest database added to the MSU Libraries' online collection.
CIS Congressional provides Web-based access to U.S. legislative and regulatory information and is available to all MSU-affiliated users. Users may perform in-depth research with access to the full text of more than 200 years worth of detailed information about Congress, including member biographies, committee assignments, voting records, financial data, and the full text of key regulatory and statutory resources. CIS Congressional may be used to pinpoint expert testimony on the leading issues of the day or to discover a law's intent by tracing its legislative history.
Users will find a number of key resources in the CIS Congressional database. Full-text access is provided for bills, committee schedules, committee membership/rosters, committee prints and reports. Also available is the full text of the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Register. The strength of the database is the CIS Index, which is the most comprehensive indexing and abstracting service covering Congress. The CIS Index section indexes Congressional materials from 1970 to the present and is searchable by subject, committee, title, witness, bill number, and document number. Also available is the Historical CIS Index (1789-1969), which extends the scope of the database by more than 180 years with CIS's indexes to its comprehensive microforms collections of historical documents.
The CIS Congressional is available via the Libraries' Indexes and Databases Web page. Individual or class instructional sessions may be arranged.
For more information on the database, contact the Reference Department at 325-7667 or reference@library.msstate.edu. Additional Congressional resources also are available in the Libraries' Government Documents Collection, located on the second floor of Mitchell Memorial Library.