By Anna Russell, Electronic Resources Librarian

In early 2017, Librarians became aware of GPO’s new beta site set to replace the Federal Digital System (FDsys).  The unveiling may have seemed muted to some; discussed by others as a clearly nice new front for federal government content but still in beta; I took the news as good to know for the future.  The future is now.

Govinfo.gov, while still in beta should impress us all.  For example, the congressional record available through FDsys goes back only to 1994 – a well-known lamented problem for those tracing laws older than 1994 and having no other free ONLINE resource to turn too.  Now, we have govinfo, which quietly (or maybe I was working too hard?!) announced in March the digitization of the Congressional Record 1971-1980.  Holy smokes!  And on April 25, another govinfo release note with major appeal appears: Digitized Bound Congressional Record 1961-1970 is now available as well.  I think GPO should be shouting these enhancements from the proverbial rooftops (and maybe they are or maybe they are working so hard that they do not yet have time too).  FDsys was a major improvement from Thomas.  And Govinfo is shaping up to be another home run.  Congratulations to GPO!  We will now have multiple law library congressional research guides to update across the country.  Joy!