I learned a couple things about the Congressional Record on
WESTLAW and LEXIS today and thought I'd share them.
A student came to the Reference Office because she was having
trouble finding Congressional Record cites on WESTLAW. She'd found page
references in law review articles and in the print index. One passage she
needed was at 137 Cong. Rec. H9526 (11/7/1992). (Our paper copy was off
the shelf.) Through some trial and error, we found that WESTLAW apparently
gives the whole document a page citation (e.g., 137 Cong. Rec. H9505-01)
and doesn't give any star paging within the document. We got on LEXIS and
found the same document starting at H9505, but on LEXIS there IS star
paging -- we entered p*h9526 and got to the right place.
You can use FIND on WESTLAW -- but only to that starting page, if
you know it, not to the "real" page. FIND 137 cong rec h9526 just gets
you the unfriendly message "We cannot process this FIND request because
the document is not included in any WESTLAW database." FIND 137 cong rec
h9505 takes you to the first page of the document. Then if you know some
words in the passage you're looking for, you can use LOCATE (e.g., loc
"quota monster" -- the passage is on p159 of 397). LEXSEE works much
better: lxe 137 cong rec h 9526 takes you to h9505, and then you can use
star paging. (It's a little tricky that in the LEXSEE format you need a
space between the "H" and the "9526" and with the p*___ feature you don't.
I asked Customer Service to suggest to the systems people that LEXSEE
accept either format.)
Mary Whisner
Head of Reference Telephone: (206) 543-6794
Gallagher Law Library FAX: (206) 685-2165
University of Washington Internet: whisner@u.washington.edu
1100 NE Campus Pkwy, JB-20
Seattle, WA 98105
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