CRS Reports Congress' not so Secret Weapon for First Class Research

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA) today sent letters to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), thanking them for introducing S. Res. 118, legislation to allow no-fee public access to taxpayer-funded Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports.

The CRS produces well-researched and balanced reports on a wide variety of current issues affecting our citizens and country. Unfortunately, CRS reports are not systematically made freely available to the public through the Federal Depository Library Program or any other means. No-fee public access to these reports has been a goal the ALA has pursued for many years.

The CRS home page describes its service to congress as providing independent and professional "analytic capabilities" with the capability to "integrate multiple disciplines and research methodologies. In a fast-paced, ever-changing environment,". The site goes on to say that the "CRS approaches complex topics from a variety of perspectives and examines all sides of an issue. Staff members analyze current policies and present the impact of proposed policy alternatives, even if it means bringing to light facts that may be contrary to established assumptions. With public policy issues growing more complex and political debate turning more contentious, the need for insightful and comprehensive analysis of the issues has become vital. Congress relies on CRS to marshal interdisciplinary resources, encourage critical thinking, and create innovative frameworks to help legislators form sound policies and reach decisions on a host of difficult issues."

Wouldn't it be great if you could get access to this type of information on issues not ten years after the event in a book or filtered, slanted, or chopped up into sound bites as so often happens in political reporting of the day? Well at the risk of losing my ALA membership card, I will let you in on a librarian secret. You can get access to thousands of CRS reports that have already been released, or leaked to the public. Most of them would be difficult if not impossible to find using Google. Fortunately, several libraries and organizations have created online collections of these reports for public access on the Internet. Finding the right report for your research involves choosing the right collection of CRS reports to search.

Full text PDF versions of thousands of CRS reports are available at the OpenCRS site http://opencrs.com/. They act as a clearinghouse or central access point for CRS reports however, they do not have all the reports that are available online. While this source appears to have the most current overall coverage, subject access is provided by many groups including the ones listed on the OpenCRS collections page. http://opencrs.com/collections/

According to the web site OpenCRS
http://opencrs.com/ taxpayers pay nearly $100 million dollars a year to fund the Congressional Research Service (CRS) at the Library of Congress.

• National Council for Science and the Environment/National Library for the Environment
  http://ncseonline.org/NLE/CRS/
  


• Thurgood Marshall Law Library/University of Maryland School of Law
  http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/crsreports/index.html
  


• US Department of State Foreign Press Centers (FPC)
  http://fpc.state.gov/c18183.htm, PEPFAR
  CRS Reports,
  


• Franklin Pierce Law School Intellectual Property, Cyberlaw, and Electronic Commerce
  


• Federation of American Scientists Intelligence, Military and National Security
  

Two other clearing houses for CRS reports include the massive Archive IT directory (http://www.archive-it.org/collections/1078) and the web site WikiLeaks which reportedly uploaded 7000 CRS reports recently. The collection of CRS reports at the WikiLeaks site provides not only a full text search of the reports, but an alpabetical list, and (possibly the most significant contribution for research and analysis) a chronological listing of CRS reports.

For those who want to be sure that no virtual stone is left unturned you may want to do one final search with a Google Scholar. Use the advanced search feature with "Congressional Research Service" as an author. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&num=30&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=Congressional+Research+Service&safe=off

When you need some of the best and most current information Congressional Research Service reports a hard to beat. Now you have a secret weapon of sources for your research papers that is sure to impress your teachers and improve your grade.

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R. Philip Reynolds preynolds (AT) sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Geography, Kinesiology