Recently, the Brooklyn Law School Library added CQ Almanac to its CQ Press Electronic Library subscription. For those of you who are unfamiliar with CQ Press, originally known as Congressional Quarterly Press, it is a highly regarded publisher of Capitol Hill news, congressional member profiles, legislative tracking services, specialty publications, congressional transcripts and much more. The CQ Almanac, originally published in 1946, publishes the legislative history of every major piece of legislation that Congress considers during a session. The histories are arranged thematically and are cross indexed for reference.

The electronic version combines sixty years of congressional reporting into one source making researching a piece of legislation or a policy matter much more efficient than before. You can research an issue by browsing by subject, by browsing by congressional session, or by performing a key word search. One of the great new features of CQ Almanac online edition is its Policy Tracker. The Policy Tracker allows you to explore a specific policy to see how it has evolved over the years. For example, if you are researching animal rights, you can click on the Policy Tracker link and then browse the topics alphabetically, eventually finding the topic “Animal Rights and Animal Research.” Under the selected topic, you will see a list of the all the major pieces of animal rights legislation passed, since the inception of the CQ Almanac, which is 1946. You can explore each piece of legislation individually and see how animal rights have evolved over the past sixty years.

To access the online version of the CQ Almanac, go to the Brooklyn Law School Library’s Electronic Resources page and click on the link for the CQ Press Electronic Library. When you arrive at the CQ Press Electronic Library page, click on the link to the CQ Almanac. If you are accessing this site from off campus, you will need to implement the proxy instructions on your home computer or lap top.