ProQuest Congressional Service Debuts with Powerful New Tools and Technology
ProQuest unveiled its new ProQuest Congressional, which has been rebuilt with an all-new technological framework that supports richer, more in-depth exploration and expanded use of its unique content. Acquired by ProQuest in late 2010, the one-of-a-kind service captures the breadth of governmental output, providing users with efficient, targeted access to the most comprehensive collection of historic and current congressional information available anywhere online.
"In creating this new incarnation of what has been a tried-and-true service, we focused on the end-user — what they wanted and needed from this resource — and applied ProQuest's collective imagination and technological expertise," said Susan Bokern, ProQuest Vice-President, Information Solutions. "The result is a service with expanded content and new tools that will take users further in their research faster and with more precision."
The Congressional service has long been a staple in libraries because its broad and authoritative content can inform research on such a wide variety of topics. While the volume of content is extraordinary — complete content from congressional publications, including the first-ever full text digital collection of all U.S. bills and resolutions from the first Congress in 1789 to the present — its new technology architecture allows it to be easily navigated, discovered and used within the context of the overall library collection. For example, the service's popular Bill Tracking feature is now expands out through links to the library's other Congressional documents. Searching and other finding aids are both simpler and more precise, with fewer steps and more facets that zero in on exactly the right bits of data — whether it's congressional testimony by experts and other witnesses, research carried out by staffers, or authoritative statistics.
The entire Congressional service includes a core product and six modules — all have been rebuilt and subscribers are currently introducing their users to its new features, look and feel.
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ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world's knowledge — from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms. Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the delivery of complete, trustworthy information.
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An energetic, fast-growing organization, ProQuest includes the ProQuest®, Bowker®, Dialog®, ebrary®, and Serials Solutions® businesses and notable research tools such as the RefWorks®, and Pivot™ services, as well as its' Summon® web-scale discovery service. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.