Committee Prints and Miscellaneous Congressional Publications

The official committee prints publication category began when committees started to issue printed versions of their own internal working papers. Today, committee prints include a wide variety of publications approved and issued by committees or portions of committees, such as majority or minority staff. Prints issued by only a portion of the committee are normally identified as such on the cover.

A committee print can contain anything relevant to the legislative and oversight functions of Congress. The print content varies widely from committee to committee, and over the course of time the function and format have been inconsistent. Examples of committee print content include:

• Research papers by committee staff, Congressional Research Service experts, or outside consultants
• Committee rules and calendars
• Compilations of laws
• Transcripts of markup sessions or other proceedings
• Legislative descriptions and analyses

Many committee prints may best be described as reports, but these reports should not be confused with reports that are numbered as official House or Senate reports.

In 1983 (98th Congress), the Senate adopted a numbering system for official committee prints that is still used today. The House does not have an official numbering system for committee prints, but some House and Joint committees use their own internal numbering systems. ProQuest Congressional includes numbered and unnumbered prints that originated in print format, as well as similar materials that were never printed but originated on committee Web sites.

In addition to official committee prints, ProQuest^® Congressional includes in the print and miscellaneous congressional publication category other committee content with similar research value, as well as congressional publications that are not issued by committees, but which also contain similar research content. These miscellaneous congressional publications include such things as reports posted to an official committee Web site, but never published, and publication sof congressional entities such as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office, and the former Office of Technology Assessment. The committee prints and miscellaneous congressional publications category includes some content that is not available through the GPO Federal Depository Library Program.