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ProQuest Congressional redesign launches on July 24th

July 23, 2019 Author: Jayne DicksonCategories: Tags:

ProQuest will launch a redesigned ProQuest Congressional interface on July 24, 2019. According to the redesign webpage, the changes are intended to facilitate the retrieval of information by students unfamiliar with government content, while maintaining the ability of more sophisticated users to perform complex queries.
For CDL-managed resources, this will affect

  • ProQuest Congressional,
  • ProQuest Congressional Hearings Digital Collection: Part A (1824-1979),
  • ProQuest Congressional: Unpublished Hearings Digital Collection A (1973-1979), and
  • ProQuest Digital Bills and Resolutions (1789-2013).

Key Benefits

  • Search results will be organized by Content Type. A new section at the top of the search results page will direct users to the best results for each Content Type and give them more information about the content type choices they can select for further exploration. More results are displayed below the top hits.
  • Improvements to the Advanced Search form layout provide search options for specific content types (Hearings, CRS Reports, House & Senate Documents/Reports, etc.). Duplicate entry points to content have been eliminated and streamlined to make it easier for users to select the content they need.
  • Search by Number form has been improved and made more intuitive through clearer navigation and page organization, as well as explanations of content types.
  • Basic Search has been updated to analyze search queries for key citations, such as bills and laws, and returning the matching document at the top of the page.
  • Search results relevance is improved to emphasize content types that are expected to be most useful for the search that was performed. For example, Member Profiles are now displayed first when searching for Member of Congress.
  • HELP will be updated and available via the LibGuide through links in the product interface (typically found in the upper right corner of the page, and in the footer.)
  • Congress in Context is growing in its usefulness to students, therefore it will be placed more prominently on the page. Congress in Context illustrates what was going on during each Congress, including information on House and Senate leadership and partisan composition. This useful feature provides perspective on economic conditions, foreign relations, current events and more. PDFs of supporting documents are provided.