In September, the Library of Congress, in collaboration with the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the Government Printing Office (GPO), unveiled a new free beta website for accessing federal legislative information: Congress.gov. 

The new website will incorporate the resources researchers have come to rely on from THOMAS, the Library of Congress’ public legislative website and Legislative Information Systems (LIS), Congress’ internal website. The Congress.gov website will be in beta form for approximately one year as they work to add materials (e.g., Congressional Record, committee reports, nominations, treaties and communications) and seek user feedback. Both THOMAS and LIS will continue to be available while Congress.gov is in development.

Currently the Congress.gov site includes federal bills and bill status and summary information (2001-current) and member profiles (complete coverage 1973-current; selective coverage 1947-1972), but more documents will be added over time. See Coverage Dates for Legislative Information  for a comparison of what is available on Congress.gov and THOMAS.gov. The new beta site was developed using best practices for creating a comprehensive and user-friendly system for searching and displaying information on various platforms, including mobile devices.