To access congressional publications on a specific topic, search using keywords on the Basic Search Form (Congressional Publications) or the Advanced Search Form (Congressional Publications). The Advanced Search form allows you to restrict their search by publication type and limit the search to subjects only.

Improve search results by using the Index Terms Look-up Tool accessible from the Basic or Advanced Search forms. The ProQuest Congressional subject term index provides both controlled vocabulary subject terms and geographical terms. You may type the term you are looking for in the box or browse alphabetically. Once you find the term(s) you want, use the Paste to Search button to add the terms to the search form.

ProQuest^® Congressional controlled vocabulary subject terms have been assigned to results records to help the user obtain comprehensive search results. Searches using controlled vocabulary subject terms return results that gather similar content, regardless of variations in the way the content may be described in the source publications. The assignment of a subject term indicates that there is a substantial amount of information on that topic within the source document, rather than just a passing mention.

Some terms do not have a check box next to them. These "non-preferred: terms direct the user to search using similar or related terms. A subject-restricted search on a non-preferred term will produce no results.

The presence of "broader/related" and "see also" terms is also noted. Choose terms that best approximate the level of specificity desired, and select all terms that apply.

For example, if you select the term "Fish and fishing industry", you will get results citing publications that include material on fish and the fishing industry in general. If you want your search to include results on specific types of fish, you must also select all the "see also" terms that interest you.