In the Blume Library Reference Area:

• Congress and the Nation. REF 1061 .C6. Summaries of Congressional action. 1945–present.
• CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Almanac. REF JK 1 .C66. An annual publication that reviews the work of Congress. 1960–present.
• Encyclopedia of the U.S. Congress. REF JK 1067 .E63 1995.
• Landmark Documents on the U.S. Congress REF JK 1041 .L36 1999. Writings, speeches, debates, letters, etc.
• Politics in America. REF JK 1012 .C63. The most biographical information on current and recent members of Congress. 1984–present.

In the Documents Collection:

• Congressional Directory. Y 4.P 93/1: 1/ . Latest edition is at the Reference Desk; 98th Congress–present in the Documents Stacks; 89th-97th Congress in Storage.
• Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress, 1774-2005. Y 1.1/2:14902. Listings by Congress, with brief biographical information.
• Congressional Pictorial Directory. Y 4.P 93/1:1 P/ . 98th Congress–present; 90th-97th Congresses in Storage.
• The Senate. Y 1.1/2:13723-6. Two volumes contain Robert Byrd's addresses on the history of the Senate, one contains classic speeches (1830-1993) and one historical statistics (1789-1992).
• History of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789-1994. Y 1.1/2:14248.

House of Representatives. Schedules, directories, administrative information, reference resources.

Senate Web. Schedules, directories, some historical information, statistics, reference resources.

When Congressional terms end, and the websites of former members disappear from these indexes, they can be accessed at the National Archives' (NARA) site. NARA does an "end of term harvest" of web sites that preserves most of their content. For nformation about NARA's harvesting in January, 2005, see this page.

GPO Access' Legislative section offers a wealth of information about Congressional activity, including rules, manuals, and directories.

The Library of Congress' Thomas service offers several databases of information about Congress, including:

• Roll call votes (coverage from 1989 to the present)
• On the House Floor Now (daily index to current activity, keeping the last week's entries)
• Treaties (back to the 90th Congress)

Thomas also offers Government Resources from Library of Congress, a collection of links to Congressional information current and historical. Also from the Library of Congress, their "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation" provides access to laws, debates, journals and more for the years 1774-1873.

Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress 1774 to the Present. Congress provides a searchable version of the Directory listed above. You may search by name, title and state. Information is a brief, "vita"-style biography. GPO provides a PDF edition, with the capability of viewing/downloading individual sections of the volume.

Here are some good non-governmental sources of Congressional and legislative information:

Project Vote-Smart Congressional Information. Links to information on current members of Congress, committees and Congressional leadership. The link "Congressional Resources" leads to a listing of useful links to party organizations, guides to the workings of Congress, historical/architectural information, and information for visitors. Plus, on the main Vote-Smart page, there are links to biographical, information on legislators, issue positions, interest group ratings, voting records, and campaign finance data. There is also a database of their Public Statements that allows keyword searching.

C-Span Congress Resources. Includes directory of Congress, status of bills, how to contact members, current schedule of Congressional activity and C-Span TV schedules, caucus information, as well as links to governmental sites of all kinds. Their Congressional Chronicle is an index of the videos they have of House and Senate floor proceedings.

GovTrack pulls together information from Thomas and other official sources. It includes a lot of useful and interesting features such as RSS feeds that allow monitoring of legislation and committee meetings and an enhanced Congressional Record version for the current session that includes links to legislation and pictures of Congressional speakers. A related site is OpenCongress, which emphasizes news about campaign finance issues.

Campaigns and Elections. Information on recent Congressional activities. Some of the information on this web site is available to subscribers only, but there is also a great deal of free material, including a directory of blogs.

LegiStorm is a non-partisan site that provides information, especially in the areas of salaries and travel about Congress with a view toward increasing government transparency.

Policy Agendas Project. This website, developed by researchers at the University of Washington and Penn State University, allows the creation of charts of Congressional priorities, going back to 1946. The sources of the information include Congressional hearings, U.S. laws, entries from Congressional Quarterly Almanac, selected articles in the New York Times Index, and the Budget of the United States. They have plans to add other sources as well.

The Blume Library's Information by Subject guides include a section on Political Science with links to more information relating to Congress and Congressional activities. And you can find out how to contact your Texas and San Antonio-area legislators by consulting this page.

The CQ Press Political Reference Suite (available on-campus and off-campus to St. Mary's students/faculty only) has a lot of information about Congress and politics in general, in text and data form. There is a good deal of directory-type information as well. Look particularly at CQ Almanac, Congress and the Nation, Politics in America, Vital Statistics on American Politics, and the Washington Information Directory. You can also search across all of these publications at once.

The Dirksen Center, a non-partisan educational organization located in Illinois, contains a great deal of directory and educational material about Congress. Their Congressional Information Center provides a directory with various ways of searching for, and sorting, lists of Senators and Representatives. Background information for each member of Congress is extensive. Additional information includes district maps and party leaders.

The Washington Post has compiled an extensive database of Congressional votes since 1991. You can track individual legislators' voting records, or find detailed information on particular votes. The official sources of roll call votes are: Clerk of the House • Secretary of the Senate. Thomas also includes a listing of roll call votes.

Most of the work of Congress takes place in Committees. The library staff at North Carolina State University have compiled an index to House committee meetings, gleaned from the Congressional Record's Daily Digest, a yearly compilation of Congress' activities. Use this index (beginning with the 99th Congress in 1985) to find out when meetings were held on a topic and by which committee. An innovative new source of detailed Committee information is the Congressional Committees Project wiki, which includes discussion fora.

Lobbying has become an increasing important topic of interest related to Congress. The librarians at the University of Massachusetts, Amhearst, offer this guide to lobbying resources, which includes links to many organizations and watchdog groups, as well as tips on finding articles on lobbying-related topics. Campaign finances is a related issue of importance. The official government source of information on finances is the Federal Election Commission. You can also find good information at CQ (Congressional Quarterly) Moneyline and OpenSecrets.org.