Four years after shuttering Thomas.gov and launching its replacement, Congress.gov, the Library of Congress is touting a host of new features meant to address accessibility and add capabilities requested by users.
During a virtual public forum Thursday hosted by the Library, officials walked through some of the improvements that went live in 2020 and looked ahead at enhancements expected to roll out over the next months and year.
“Congress gave the Library the responsibility of providing a central, accessible place for their data,” Library Chief Information Officer Bud Barton said during the forum.
Barton dwelled on this point, noting the data accessible through Congress.gov is not the Library’s data.
“It’s data that belongs to the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and they have final say on how their data is presented,” he said. “And for nearly [three] decades now, the Library of Congress has helped coordinate a fairly complex data exchange between the clerk of the House, the secretary of Senate and our legislative branch data partners like the Government Publishing Office and the Congressional Budget Office.”
The Library launched Congress.gov in 2016, merging two older portals: Thomas.gov, which maintained information for the public on passed and pending bills, and the Legislative Information System, or LIS, which was geared toward members of Congress.
Since that time, the website has gone through iterative improvements, a number of which were completed in 2020.
Robert Brammer, chief of the Office of External Relations of the Law Library of Congress and subject matter expert for Congress.gov, noted that many of these improvements came out of feedback from users, including the public and members of Congress and their staffs.
“Since Congress.gov launc ..
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