Senate Executive Documents & Reports

A student approached the reference desk recently, trying to locate a Senate Executive Report. These reports contain committee recommendations regarding the ratification of proposed treaties, or recommendations on proposed nominations. Beginning in 1979 these reports were published in the Serial Set, but the document we needed was issued in the 90th Congress, 1968. To locate this older report, we needed to look outside of the Serial Set in a unique collection called Senate Executive Documents and Reports (SED). This collection is indexed in Congressional Universe (aka Lexis/Nexis Congressional), but to locate the report itself, we had to search the SED on microfiche. The fiche are filed by Congress, session, and report number. For example, in this citation -- Exec.Rpt. 5, 73-2 -- we would look for the 73rd Congress, session 2, report number 5.

If you’re ever doing treaty research and need to find a Senate Executive Report, stop by the Reference Desk so we can help you locate it on microfiche on the first floor of the library at KF 39.

We can also help you to find Senate Executive Documents (renamed “Treaty Documents” in the 97th Congress, 1981) in this collection. These documents are issued by the Senate when the President asks them to ratify a treaty. They generally contain the text of the Presidential communication supporting ratification of the treaty and the text of the treaty agreement itself. Like the Executive Reports, these documents are also published in the Serial Set beginning in 1979; the older documents can be found in the SED microfiche collection.