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TIPS ON USING FULL-TEXT HEARINGS IN LEXIS CONGRESSIONAL

Coverage as of 2/5/08 is 1965-2003
Hearings for 1824-1964 to be completed by December 2008
Some additional hearings through 1920 may be found as full text documents in the Serial Set Collection (Titanic Disaster) and earlier executive hearings (Gulf of Tonkin, Bay of Pigs) that were declassified after 1964

Full text hearings can be searched under CONGRESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS; then Basic Search, Advanced Search, and Search by Number
Under CONGRESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS/Advanced Search, you can select all or the hearings 1824+

Searching by number or Advanced Searching by all fields except full text, subject, title, keyword, and witness affiliation work well
Witness searching does not necessarily get the witness name in order. For instance, Dean, John can also yield Dean, Howard and Engler, John. Although the results aren't perfect, you can get around this by searching

dean, john

Searching full text searches a much larger database: CIS records, the full text of commercial transcripts beginning in the late 1980s, and the full text of digital hearings.
If you want ONLY the full text of digital hearings (rather than news transcripts), search

partial birth abortion and digital collection

CLEAR the form before you start a new search and make sure you adjust the dates. LEXIS often freezes when you start a new search without removing the old one.

As in the past, search results are displayed by the collection they have tapped (e.g. documents, published hearings, digital hearings, reports). This means that if you find a published hearing, you need to page down to see if there is a digital version. There is no hint in the search results or published record of the full digital version.
However, the record for the digital copy of the hearing will include the SUDOCS number and a link to the CIS microfiche number.

You can either download the entire document or a 50 page segment.
If you have done a keyword search, the number of hits for that search term will be next to the 50-page segment.
Be cautious about the search engine you use for finding a word in a 50-page segment. The initial search screen to the right side of Acrobat often doesn't work. Instead, use the link to find a word within a document.

Grace York, Coordinator, Documents Center
University of Michigan Library
February 5, 2008

http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/cishear.html

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