Congressional Research Service Reports
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for members and committees of the United States Congress. An arm of the Library of Congress, the agency is renowned for its non-partisanship and its in-depth analysis of issues. CRS Reports provide valuable insight into how Congress makes decisions and are excellent sources for determining historical and current legal frameworks on domestic and international issues.
Unfortunately, CRS has not made its electronic database of reports available to the public online and, in 2007, the Director of the CRS prohibited all public distribution of CRS products without prior approval from senior agency officials. (See "Congressional Policy Concerning The Distribution of CRS Written Products to the Public" and "Distribution of CRS Products to Non-Congressionals." Fortunately, there still are a number of CRS Reports available on the Internet.
General Collections of CRS Reports
The Hastings Law Library has an online subscription to the Congressional Quarterly database, which contains all full-text
WikiLeaks claims to have finally published all 6780 CRS Reports on its website. WikiLeaks indicates that this is the entire electronic output made available to all the Congressional Offices. There are additional reports and briefings prepared for specific offices that are not included in that electronic output. No links are currently available to the collection through WikiLeaks, but there are various mirror sites with links to the reports.
The Open CRS has over 4000 CRS reports available.
The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries have produced a large archive of CRS Reports.
The Department of State has the newest CRS Reports and Issue Briefs. They also have older CRS Reports organized by date, region and topic.
The Memory Hole has a CRS page, including Long Reports, Short Reports, Issue Briefs and Appropriations Reports on various topics.
The U.S. House of Representatives Rules Committee page contains CRS Reports on various topics, which can be found by using the site's Search function.
The U.S. Air Force's Air War College site has selected CRS Reports on many topics.
Collections of CRS Reports on Specific Topics
The Thurgood Marshall Law Library has an online collection of CRS Reports focusing on Homeland Security/Terrorism and Health Law & Policy, which can be browsed according to subject, date, title or order code.
The Federation of American Scientists has a collection of CRS Reports addressing national security, foreign policy and related topics.
The Hastings Law Library Website provides access to CRS Reports related to tax issues, via the CCH Intelliconnect database. Access is restricted to students, faculty and on campus users.
GlobalSecurity.org has CRS Reports related to military, weapons of mass destruction, intelligence, homeland security and space.
beSpacific is a research blog on law and technology, which regularly links to newly released CRS Reports on topics that include: homeland security, defense, legislation, Congress, the courts, and climate issues.
CQMoneyline has a select list of CRS Reports concerning campaign finance. (See Quick Reference menu on the right.)
Dudley Knox Library has CRS Reports on foreign relations, homeland security, military, national security & terrorism. (Go to BOSUN, then Digital Archives, then Congressional Research Service Documents.)
The National Agricultural Law Center has CRS Reports about agriculture.
The IP Mall at Franklin Pierce Law School has the full text of intellectual property, cyberlaw and electronic commerce publications of the CRS from 1993 to the present.
A small collection of CRS Reports for 1990 to 1996 related to the US relations with Asia (e.g., trade, security, etc.) also are available on the Gateway Japan site. (All documents are in ASCII only - no PDF files are available.)
The National Library for the Environment contains CRS Reports on environmental and related topics. Users may browse report titles and abstracts for a specific topic or search with a keyword.
The First Amendment Center's Website contains CRS Reports on First Amendment topics.
The Law Librarians' Society of Washington D.C. has Selected Congressional Research Service Reports on Congress and Its Procedures.
Guides to Online and Print Sources of CRS Reports
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has created the Open CRS Website, which offers a searchable, consolidated archive of several large online CRS collections.
The University of Washington School of Law has a guide identifying online, print, and microfilm sources of CRS Reports.
The University of Oregon Libraries have a list of online sources of CRS Reports on various topics.
The Memory Hole CRS page contains links to other sites containing CRS Reports.
The Law Librarians' Society of Washington D.C. has attempted to create a list of most of the CRS Reports available on the Internet.
The LLRX site's Guide to CRS Reports provides an historical introduction to CRS Reports (over 1,000 written reports are published yearly), and links to the various online sources for the reports.
Finally, if you can't find your report, and you know the title, you might try using a phrase search on Google. For example, try "The USA Patriot Act: a Sketch" as your search. If the report is on the Internet, you should get a link to a copy of the report in the first few results. Or, you can try the new Google application, which searches only CRS Reports and will find most (not all) CRS Reports.
Last updated December 8, 2010
Prepared by Susan Nevelow Mart, Reference Librarian. Contact
