THOMAS explained

THOMAS was the first online database of United States Congress legislative information. A project of the Library of Congress, it was launched in January 1995 at the inception of the 104th Congress and retired on July 5, 2016; it has been superseded by Congress.gov.^[1]

Contents

The resource was a comprehensive, Internet-accessible source of information on the activities of Congress, including:

• bills and resolutions
  • texts
  • summaries and status
  • voting results, including how individual members voted
• Congressional Record, including the daily digest
• presidential nominations
• treaties

The database was named after Thomas Jefferson, who was the third President of the United States.^[2] "THOMAS" was an acronym for "The House [of Representatives] Open Multimedia Access System".^[3]

The website allowed users to share legislative information via several social networking sites,^[4] and there were proposals for an application programming interface.^[5]

Library of Congress Legislative Data Challenge

The Library of Congress created the Markup of US Legislation in Akoma Ntoso challenge^[6] in July 2013 to create representations of selected US bills using the most recent Akoma Ntoso standard within a couple months for a $5,000 prize,^[7] and the Legislative XML Data Mapping challenge in September 2013^[8] to produce a data map for US bill XML and UK bill XML to the most recent Akoma Ntoso schema within a couple months for a $10,000 prize.^[9]

• In December 2013, the Library of Congress announced "Jim Mangiafico as the winner of our first legislative data challenge, Markup of US Legislation in Akoma Ntoso and the $5,000 prize".^[10]
• In February 2014, Jim Mangiafico and Garrett Schure as the winners of the Library of Congress Second Legislative Data Challenge.^[11]

External links

• THOMAS (now redirects to Congress.gov)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): THOMAS Retirement . . October 18, 2014 .
2. News: THOMAS.gov to Retire July 5 . August 30, 2018 . News from the Library of Congress . The Library of Congress . April 28, 2016 . en.
3. Book: Vlietstra . J. . Dictionary of Acronyms and Technical Abbreviations: For Information and Communication Technologies and Related Areas . 2001 . Springer Science & Business Media . 9781852333973 . 624 . en.
4. Web site: Sharing THOMAS Content with the Share Tool . THOMAS . . https://web.archive.org/web/20101210174053/http://thomas.loc.gov/help/share.html. 2010-12-10. dead.
5. the database of United States Congress legislative information . Kim . Zetter . Kim Zetter . March 5, 2009 . .
6. Web site: Markup of US Legislation in Akoma Ntoso . 2013-09-23 . https://archive.today/20130825093949/http://akoma-ntoso-markup.challenge.gov/ . 2013-08-25 . dead .
7. Web site: Library of Congress Announces First Legislative Data Challenge . Tina . Gheen . July 16, 2013 . .
8. Web site: Legislative XML Data Mapping . Legislative XML Data Mapping . en.
9. Web site: Second Library of Congress Legislative Data Challenge Launched . Tina . Gheen . September 10, 2013 . .
10. Web site: First Legislative Data Challenge Winner Announced . . December 19, 2013 . December 20, 2013 . Tina . Gheen.
11. Web site: Jim Mangiafico and Garrett Schure Announced as Winners of the Second Library of Congress Legislative Data Challenge . . February 25, 2014 . February 25, 2014 . Tina . Gheen.