This page presents answers to frequently asked question about state legislative journals and this web site. General information is first, followed by technical and contact information and finally information for librarians, archivists and historians.

What are state legislative journals?
When state legislatures meet, they keep a record of what happened. Generically, these are the state legislative journals. The Lillian Goldman Law Library has a very complete collection of published state legislative journals. Usually, each house of a bicameral (two-house) legislature will publish its own journal. The state legislative journals are the state analogue to the United States Congress' Congressional Record, but the content is more of a hybrid between the Record and the Journal of the House of Representatives and the Journal of the Senate. That is, there are generally fewer full-text debates or speeches.

What is this site about?
This site is primarily designed to display the results of a grant-funded study of select state legislative journals in the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School. It may also be useful to researchers trying to locate journals or determine if specific journals exist. Detailed information about the grant is available. For information about creating a legislative history of a state law, try this page or consult your librarian.

What information can I find in a journal?
The content of the journals varies from state to state, by which house published the journal and over time. Most journals have a description of what happend on the floor and what bills or resolutions were passed. Beyond that, the content varies widely, but can include:

• some or all bill text
• roll-call votes, listing which member voted for a given bill, resolution or amendment
• statements made by members during floor debate or upon introduction of a bill
• summaries of committee hearings
• reports of committees
• governors' signing statements
• governors' addresses, e.g., "state of the state" speeches
• executive messages, e.g., reports from executive agencies or governors' budget messages

Most journals contain an index and some have tables of contents. For information about creating a legislative history of a state law, try this page or consult your librarian.

How can I read a historic legislative journal?
This site DOES NOT CONTAIN THE TEXT of the journals. To read the journals, you will need to seek out copies of them from a library or archives. This site serves a dual purpose: first, to display the results of a study of the contents of journals, and second to help researchers locate bibliographic information about the journals. Once you have located the complete information about the journal(s) you want to read, you should try to find a copy in a library near you. If you live in the state you're researching, this should be relatively simple, as most large libraries will have copies of their own state's journals. If you do not live in the state you are researching, you may need to visit a very large research or law library to find copies of out-of-state journals. If all else fails, your local library may be able to borrow the journal(s) from another library through interlibrary loan. You should discuss interlibrary loans with your local librarian.

How can I read a current (or relatively recent) legislative journal?
Many state legislatures make their current and recent journals available online for citizens to read. Each state is different, and while most states make journal-type information available on the internet, it may not resemble a printed journal. Printed journals are necessarily printed at the close of a legislative session or term, so the current online information will certainly vary in format. Your state may also make a version of the print journals from recent sessions available online. Here is a list of state legislatures' web sites. Check to see how your state presents its current journal information, often called "legislative tracking" information.

I'd like to see a sample of what a journal page looks like.
OK, a few sample pages are available. They show the title page of the 1911 Alabama House Journal and the results of the Alabama House of Representatives' election of Alabama's United States Senator. (Prior to 1913, U.S. Senators were elected by the state legislatures, not directly by state voters.) Note that these image files are quite large and may download slowly depending on your network connection. The images will open in a new browser window.

I don't understand what the columns on the home page represent.
The first column is the name of each state with the year it was admitted to the union. This allows you to tell if a journal from a given year is a state journal or a territorial journal, because our collection has both types of journal and it may not be clear from the title. Clicking on the name of the state will bring up a complete list of all the journals examined by a librarian in the course of a grant-funded study of the collection.
The second column has the number of volumes from the reconstruction era that were examined by librarians in the course of a grant-funded study of the collection. Clicking on the number will pull up a list of the examined volumes with details about each.
The third column has the number of volumes from the New Deal era that were examined by librarians in the course of a grant-funded study of the collection. Clicking on the number will pull up a list of the examined volumes with details about each.
The fourth and fifth columns are short-cuts into the Lillian Goldman Law Library's catalog. They will pull up the library's holdings of the state's house or senate volumes. The catalog is currently the ONLY COMPLETE LIST OF JOURNALS THAT THE LIBRARY OWNS. The previous columns only report the sample volumes that were examined in the study. The library has one of the most complete sets of state legislative journals in the U.S.
The last column is reserved for future use. If permission can be obtained, it may eventually incorporate the data from two published checklists of state legislative journals: Grace Elizabeth Macdonald and The National Association of State Libraries, Preliminary Check-List of Legislative Journals (Oxford Press 1937) and William R. Pullen, Checklist of Legislative Journals Issued Since 1937 by the States of the United States of America (American Library Association 1955).

I am more interested in the legislative activities of the United States Congress. How can I find its journals?
Since 1873, the U.S. Congress' journal has been called the Congressional Record. It is available online from 1994 through yesterday at GPO Access. For legislative tracking information, check Thomas from the Library of Congress. For historical access, many larger and law libraries will have the Congressional Record available in microfiche. The largest libraries will also have the Congressional Record in print. Check the Federal Depository Library Locator to find a library near you. (Please note that the Congressional Record comes in two flavors: Daily and Permanent or "bound". While the content is similar, the page numbers are completely different. Ask a librarian if in doubt.) For congressional journals, including the Congressional Record, prior to 1875, see A Century of Lawmaking from the Library of Congress. The journals, which had various titles, are available for online viewing.

I'm interested in seeing the data from the study of state legislative journals in another format.
Because the goal of the study was to determine if a digitization project was desirable or feasible, the data include evaluation of the physical condition of the library's volumes. You can see this by clicking on a journal title in one of the state lists, but cannot see at a glance the physical condition of a subset of the volumes. If you are a librarian, rare book dealer or want to see this data for some other reason, you should ask for a copy of the raw data. (Really, most of this will only be of interest to librarains.) Click here for a view of the database schema with every field listed.
The data are currently available in a Microsoft Access file. The web site is driven by a MS SQL database. The data are in one flat table, so Excel, CSV or tab-delimited versions could be created. Contact to request a copy of the data file.

I work at a library, archives or state legislature and would like to make (or have already made) my state's historic journals available to the public online.
Great! Please contact to discuss your project so we can avoid duplication of effort when digitizing journals. Also, don't forget to check GODORT clearinghouse of government documents digital projects. If you already have a version of your journals available and would allow us to link to your site, please let us know.

I'm a researcher working on a multi-state survey of a particular issue. How can I check multiple states?
Currently, you will need to check the index of each house's journal from each session of each state during the time period you are interested in. If you wish to visit the Lillian Goldman Law Library to use our collection, please contact well in advance. The journals are stored off-site and must be recalled to the library before your visit. We are happy to work with you in advance to ensure you have access to the needed volumes when you arrive.