One Down and CIS Records

For the second week in a row, I came to NARA I on Monday to find a cart full of boxes, and again only managed to get about two days worth of work from the materials. This week I found some great stuff in the House and Senate records around some of the major pieces of legislation from the period I’m looking at (1943-1968,) but most of Bill files had only a few documents. At least 5 of the 9 boxes I pulled this week weren’t useful at all. It’s frustrating, but at least I’m finding some stuff.

I’ve been working with one of the legislative archivists here at NARA, and from what he’s told me, I’ve seen just about everything I can at this point (a few things are still classified, and Congressional records are not subject to FOIA. Ironic that Congress wrote themselves a exemption…) I’m sure there will be more materials to look at once I get a better sense of my project, but for now I think I’m done at NARA I. I’m planning on spending the rest of my time here moving between the Library of Congress (19 boxes of Celler Papers left,) and NARA II (endless supplies of State Department, Displaced Persons Commission, and Department of Agriculture records.)

The legislative archivist did take me around the bound finding aides for Congressional Committee publications, prints, and hearings. If nothing else, learning how to use this collection was well worth my time at NARA I. The Congressional Information Service (CIS) put together all of the Congressional publications, and indexed them in some of the most complicated volumes I’ve seen.

There are two major sets that the archivist showed me: The CIS US Serial Set Index, and the CIS US Congressional Committee Index. Both run from around 1900 to 1969, relate to Congressional publications, and allow you to search by subject keyword (“immigration” “refugees”, etc.) or by Congress (81st, 82nd, etc.). Once you find the proper call numbers from each set, you then go to the appropriate set of microfiche (published by CIS as well,) to view the documents. Supposedly UCB should have copies of both, either in the Main Library, or in the Government Reference Division.

The US Serial Set Index (Z1223.Z9C65) is divided primarily by time period, and then within each time period, by Subject Index, and then by Finding Aid List. The Finding Aid list contains the numerical list of reports and documents published by each Congress, as well as a list of private bills enacted for individuals and organizations (especially useful for immigration studies.) Entries look something like the following:

“Amend Sec. 319, Immigration and Nationality Act”
H.rp. 877 (90-1) 12753-6

The first line contains the title, while the second contains the Branch of Congress (“H”); the type of documents (rp = report); the publication number (“877”); and Congress and Session (90th, 1st session,) and finally the Serial Number needed to retrieve the document itself (“12753-6”).

Got it so far?

OK. The CIS Congressional Committee Index (Z1223.Z7C6 ) is the list of committee prints from all of the various Congressional Committees. Like the Serial Index, it’s broken up into subject files and lists of prints. According to the introduction, the proper way to do research in the Congressional Committee Index consists of 3 steps:
1. Scan the subject index for keywords (“immigration” “refugee”, etc.) to get the accession numbers.
2. Refer to the main entry/entries in the Ref. Bibliography, using the Accession # this gives the full data, and also the Subdocs (Superintendent of Documents) Number.
3. Retrieve the publication from the microfiche, or from the library if available. (According to the archivist, if the Subdocs number starts with a “Y4” they probably have a hard copy at NARA I.)

If all of this sounds complicated, it is, and I really have to wonder why the process of producing a reference volume makes the final product even more complicated. Still, this is probably the best way to get a comprehensive overview of what’s out there. Up to this point I’d just been using UCB’s library catalog to search for Committee reports, etc. on my topics, but now that I know how to use the CIS collections, I should be able to get the full range of Congressional documents available.