The November Update to Congress.gov

We are continuing to push forward on Congress.gov! We are working hard to refine the beta.  Can you believe the launch was already two months ago?

As with the first iterative update to Congress.gov, Jeanine has updated the About Congress.gov page:

November 2012

Highlights of minor updates include:

  • Member profiles search order tuning;
  • Clarification of “Party history” for Members who have changed party;
  • Leadership designations on Member profile pages where appropriate;
  • Fine-tune display of website and contact information for current Members;
  • Retention of user source selection when searching on legislation or Member landing pages;
  • Improvement of presentation of “more” page for sponsor/cosponsor; and
  • Release of three additional legislative process videos - Introduction and Referral of BillsCommittee Consideration, and Calendar and Scheduling.

We will also roll out more legislative process videos as they become available.  Another update to the videos is that they stream on mobile devices (an item suggested via feedback).

This minor update is the last before the bigger enhancement coming before the start of the next Congress that will include the Congressional Record.    In the meantime you can enjoy it on an iPad or iPhone or on THOMAS.  Once the Congressional Record is added, Pam and Judy will update their Congress.gov Training to include it.  There are a few free webinars scheduled in January and February.  You can register now knowing that the Congressional Record will be added to Congress.gov by then.

One item mentioned in the comments section of our blog post, Introducing Congress.gov, was also updated with this release:

Please remove the “Rep.” and “Sen.” titles before member names. Makes it impossible to, for example, hit the “N” key to go to members with last names starting with “N.”

Thanks for sending us your feedback for Congress.gov and please continue to do so.  We have received many great comments that we have reviewed and plan to incorporate a lot of them. From my inside the Library of Congress perspective, it is great to see comments on enhancements that we already have planned.  It is nice to know that we are headed in the right direction.

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