Comprehensive Index of Legal Reports (Law Library of Congress)
From the announcement that came via email:
In an effort to highlight the legal reports produced by the Law Library of Congress, we have revamped our display of the reports on our website.
The new Comprehensive Index of Legal Reports will house all reports available on our website. This will also be the exclusive location to find reports written before 2011.
The reports listed on the Comprehensive Index page are divided into specific topics designed to point you to the reports of greatest interest and relevance. Each report listed is under only one topic and several topics are not yet filled (“forthcoming”). We plan to add many reports from our archives to this page over the next few months, filling in all of the topics.
The Current Legal Topics page (http://www.loc.gov/law/help/current-topics.php) will now only contain the most current reports. The list of reports by topic also includes a short description explaining what you will find in each report.
No links will be harmed in this change, so any links you have created to individual reports will continue to work. Just remember to add http://loc.gov/law/help/legal-reports.php as a place to find research, especially of a historical nature, and http://loc.gov/law/help/current-topics.php to find recently written reports.
There are US entities that rival the British Library and the British Museum. The Library of Congress is one of those, as is the Law Library of Congress (the law library is a part of the Library of Congress but merits separate mention).
Every greedy, I would like to see something similar for the Congressional Research Service.
From the webpage:
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for the United States Congress, providing policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation. As a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress, CRS has been a valued and respected resource on Capitol Hill for more than a century.
CRS is well-known for analysis that is authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan. Its highest priority is to ensure that Congress has 24/7 access to the nation’s best thinking.
Imagine US voters being given “…analysis that is authoritative, …, objective and nonpartisan,” analysis that they are paying for today and have for more than the last century.
I leave it to your imagination why Congress would prefer to have “confidential” reports that aren’t available to ordinary citizens. Do you prefer incompetence or malice?