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Recent improvements in technology, coupled with the need to replace aging legacy systems, have led to independent efforts in the House, Senate, and GPO to improve their systems for data collection and preparation. This same combination of aging systems and recent technical advances has also affected the development of retrieval systems; the Library, the GPO, and the House are each rebuilding or improving their existing search and display systems.

The fact that these new development programs are under way now offers an excellent opportunity to reduce duplication and to increase the amount of coordination that should exist among systems that are so highly interdependent. One of the primary recommendations of this plan, which will be underscored in other contexts, is that the committees should act soon to ensure that these separate initiatives are purposefully integrated both to reduce duplication of effort and to improve the quality and compatibility of the systems being developed. Absent such a directive, the design and development of these systems will proceed quite separately, with the result that in a relatively short time (probably by the start of the next Congress), they will be much more difficult and costly to integrate.

The Library suggests that the plan contained in this report, after it has been reviewed and modified as necessary by the committees, can offer an effective means to achieve this coordination, particularly by the establishment of a bicameral working group on a new legislative information system (see discussion below). The Library further suggests that this plan, as approved, can provide the basis for the guidelines and agenda for the proposed working group.

The section that follows describes the major programs under way within the legislative branch to create and provide access to legislative information; it also updates the information contained in the Library's duplication study submitted in July 1995.

BACKGROUND

GPO ACCESS System. The 103d Congress passed Public Law 103-40, which directed the Government Printing Office (GPO) to make Legislative Branch and Executive Branch information, beginning with the Congressional Record and the Federal Register, available via online systems. In response to this mandate, GPO developed its ACCESS system, which was first released to depository libraries and the public in June 1994. This legislation authorizes the Superintendent of Documents to determine what other publications distributed by that office will be made available on the system. With respect to legislative information, ACCESS currently includes, among other documents, the full text of bills and the Congressional Record for the 103d and 104th Congresses, the Congressional Record Index (since 1983), the House and Senate Calendars, committee reports for the 104th, the History of Bills since 1983, the 1994/5 Unified Agenda, and the U.S. Code. In December 1995, the Public Printer eliminated all charges for use of the ACCESS system. GPO plans to replace the current ACCESS software with a more sophisticated commercial retrieval system during the first half of calendar 1996. GPO has also developed plans for making

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many Executive Branch agency publications available through the ACCESS system. In response to a congressional directive, GPO is developing a plan, which will be subject to congressional approval, for making the Depository Library Program entirely electronic (except for core publications which will also be available in print) by 1998.

LOC THOMAS System. In December 1994, Speaker-elect Gingrich and Chairman-elect Thomas directed the Library of Congress to develop a system for making legislative information available to the public through the Internet.2 In his speech at the inauguration of the THOMAS system the Speaker stated that his intention was to ensure that the public has direct, immediate, and free access to legislative information. In January 1995, the Library released to Congress and the public its THOMAS system, which currently includes the full text of the bills and the Congressional Record for the 103d and 104th Congresses (received from the GPO), and the CRS-prepared bill digest database, which contains information on sponsors and cosponsors; committee, floor, conference, and executive actions; amendments; and summaries of all bills. In response to guidelines established by the House Oversight Committee, and in response to requests from the JCP, the Library is also working to make other legislative information available on THOMAS, including committee reports (projected availability in February 1996), House and Senate procedural rules, etc. The House Oversight Committee has approved specific guidelines for the legislative information that it wishes to be made available on THOMAS, but the Senate has not yet provided its guidelines to the Library.

Senate Initiatives. In February, 1995, staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee asked the Library of Congress to analyze and, if feasible, to develop the means for providing legislative information retrieval services for the Senate in place of its current Senate Legis system. The Library has been working with the Senate Computer Center to develop a plan for implementing this request. The plan currently calls for the Senate Computer Center to continue to pass its legislative information to the Library, and to begin sending its Treaties, Nominations, and Executive Communications files to the Library on a regular production basis. The Library makes its legislative files available to Senate offices now, and will make the Treaties, Nominations, and Executive Communication files available via its SCORPIO retrieval system as early in 1996 as possible. This task is made relatively straight forward because the Senate Legis system and the Library's SCORPIO system are derived from the same software system. When the Library completes the planned replacement of its SCORPIO system, all Senate files would be migrated to the new system.

This plan, if approved by the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, would enable the Senate Computer Center to focus its efforts on the replacement of its current data collection system, which supports the Secretary

2The Library automated the production of its bill digest files in 1969, made them available in the Library's public reading rooms in 1975, and, with the approval of the Joint Committee on the Library, made them more broadly available to the public through national communications networks in 1990.

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of the Senate, while the Library focusses on providing retrieval services to the Senate.

House Initiatives. In November 1995, the Committee on House Oversight approved several initiatives that relate to the proposed legislative information system. These included 1) the House Information Systems Program Plan 2) the Policy Guidelines for a Joint Effort Between the Library of Congress and the U.S. House of Representatives to Provide Electronic Access to Legislative Information Created by the U.S. Congress, and 3) the ideas encompassed in the concept of the "CyberCongress" (see Appendix A for a discussion of CyberCongress).

The House Information Systems Program Plan mandates a new information research facility for the House based on the World Wide Web paradigm and replacement of the MicroMIN, MIN, and ISIS systems. MIN and ISIS are two general information systems used extensively by the House community. They provide extensive information, research, and computational services, covering legislative, newswire, periodical publications, geographic and demographic information and services, federal funding information and services, and administrative services. MIN represents over 15 years of user driven development and delivery of services, and is used each month by over 5000 users from almost every House office. ISIS was built, using newer technology and information system approaches, upon H.I.R.'s experience from delivering information services via MIN and driven by user requirements which exceeded the capabilities of the technology used to deliver MIN. See Appendix A for a discussion of the plans to retire MIN and ISIS.

The Policy Guidelines, prepared by The Committee on House Oversight's Computer and Information Services Working Group, are intended to provide the House and the public with more unified and less redundant systems for accessing legislative information. The objectives of these policy guidelines are to 1) provide access for the House and the public to legislative information in electronic formats; 2) improve the timeliness and amount of legislative information made available to the House and the public; 3) establish policies and procedures that ensure that legislative information in electronic formats will be prepared, preserved, maintained and continue to be made available to the House and the public for as long as Congress shall determine; and 4) reduce the duplication of legislative information services supported by the Congress.

The Policy Guidelines propose that the Library make available for retrieval, legislative information that is prepared by, or on behalf of, the entire Congress, or by the committees, subcommittees, or offices of the Congress. The House, through its electronic research services supported by HIR, would provide access to information which is prepared by party organizations or by the House leadership; or which is by, or about an individual Member. The House would also provide access to information which is temporary or subject to frequent change, such as committee and floor schedules.

The committee also approved a resolution stating that "...it is the sense of the Committee that the Chairman should recommend to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee the establishment of a joint Legislative Information

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Working Group which would review and make recommendations with respect to the integration of the various separate but related initiatives currently being undertaken within the Legislative Branch to provide improved access to legislative information both to the Congress and to the public."

GOALS OF A NEW LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM

The Library recommends that the goals for a new legislative information system for Congress include the following. The system should

1. Provide Members of Congress with the legislative information that is the most useful to them in making informed public policy decisions.

5.

Enable staff of offices, committees, and legislative support agencies to serve Members more effectively.

6. Enable Members of Congress to serve their constituents more effectively.

7. Provide a permanent, accessible, and portable electronic record of the legislative activities of the U.S. Congress.

8.

Create links among the various components of legislative information.

The system should serve a variety of purposes and be used by Members and their staffs in a number of complementary ways. Examples:

A Member of Congress or a staff person new to the Hill (or new to a particular issue) should be able to use the system to help them get up to speed quickly on any legislative topic. The system should require little training and yet provide easy online access to current and previous legislation, support agency publications, committee reports, hearings, and outside literature.

A staffer should be able to use the system to check the status of a piece of legislation within minutes of action on the floor, call up the committee report on the bill as soon as it is available, view a support agency report on the bill, see an explanation of how that bill would amend an existing statute, and link directly to the portions of the U.S. Code that would be affected if the bill became law.

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A congressional or a legislative support agency staff person should be able to specify areas of legislative interest, and then receive daily, in a single integrated listing, information related to those areas, including new bills introduced, actions on bills previously introduced, items from the Congressional Record, committee reports and hearings, relevant support agency reports, news articles, listings (with links to the full text) of public policy articles in journals, magazines, and other publications, etc.

PROPOSED HOUSE AND SENATE JOINT LEGISLATIVE SYSTEMS WORKING GROUP

Background

The fragmentation of legislative information policy has been a continuing problem within the legislative branch. A variety of informal operating arrangements has been undertaken in the past to coordinate information policy, but with little permanent success.

The 1977 Commission on the Operation of the Senate identified major areas of overlap, duplication, and fragmentation in Senate administrative operations, including information policy. Based on these findings, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee (from 1977 through 1981) encouraged informal collaboration between itself and the offices of the Secretary of the Senate and the Sergeant at Arms to establish a comprehensive information policy in the Senate, to define the appropriate roles for each entity, and to eliminate administrative fragmentation in other policy areas as well.

This informal arrangement was supplanted in 1981 when the Senate Majority Leader directed the Secretary and Sergeant at Arms to establish a working group comprised of senior administrative staff in their respective offices. Again, numerous informal arrangements were agreed to concerning merger and consolidation of services to Senate offices, including establishment of revised standards for providing computer and information services to Senate offices. Similar informal arrangements have existed in the House to coordinate work among House officers, the former House Information Systems, and the former House Administration Committee. But, these informal units have had no permanent authority and have not yet been able to overcome bicameral differences in setting Congress-wide information policy standards.

The issue was again reviewed more formally by the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress in 1993. A study commissioned by the Joint Committee and carried out by Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government recommended the creation of a bicameral committee to coordinate information policy for the legislative branch. Its recommendations specifically urged that Members of Congress be in control of any informal coordination mechanism in order to assure that disputes and deadlocks at the staff and administrative level could be quickly resolved.