Source:United States. United States Congressional Serial Set

The United States Congressional Serial Set, commonly referred to as the "Serial Set", began publication with the 15th Congress, 1st Session (1817). Documents before 1817 may be found in the American State Papers.

The Serial Set contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports. The reports are usually from Congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. The documents include all other papers ordered printed by the House or Senate. Documents cover a wide variety of topics and may include reports of Executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Executive Branch materials were also published in the Serial Set.

The serial number is a unique number applied to each book in the series of Congressional publications running consecutively from the 15th Congress. The serial number may be useful for locating items, but not for citation. The documents and reports series have three numbers:

• an individual report or document-publication number,
• a volume number of each series for each session of Congress, and
• the serial number.

Documents and reports can be located using the volume or serial number but should be cited using the publication number and Congress and session number.

For further details, see the relevant page at the Library of Congress.

NOTE: Only certain portions of the Serial Set have thus far been digitized and made available online.