Background

In November 2010, the Joint Committee on Printing approved GPO’s request “to collaborate with the Law Library of Congress to create digitized volumes of the Statutes at Large”.

More than 3½ years later, only volumes 65 through 124 have been published by GPO. The volumes before 1951 are still unavailable from official sources, but they are available at http://constitution.org (one PDF file per volume), Wikisource and Professor Tim Armstrong's Statutes at Large page (volumes 1-44) , and now as statute and Public Law files here at Legisworks.org

Needs Analysis

References to Statutes at Large in legislation of the 112^th Congress
• The analysis shows that about 6% of Statutes at Large citations in legislation from the 112th Congress cite volumes prior to 1951.

Goals

• Create public law and statute-citation files for the pre-1951 and post-2010 Statutes at Large volumes located at constitution.org. See GPO Statutes at Large (1951-2010) for examples of output files.
• Merge pages from http://wikisource.org when pages are missing from the volumes at constitution.org. Scan and add other missing pages from paper sources.
• Create a version of the Popular Act Names List with links to all available US Code, Statutes at Large, and Public Law files: (draft table).
• Create a table of contents for each volume with links to the public law and statute-citation files. (Work-in-progress Directory and TOCs)

Volunteer to Help

• Volunteer Signup List: It's easy to help, just review and update a table of contents file using the volume PDF file.

Volumes Completed So Far (64/64 pre-1951 volumes as of 7/28/2014)

The links below are to directories, not files. Directories after volume 28 contain a sub-directory (publaws) with public law and public resolution files and another sub-directory (stats) with stat-page files for that volume. These directories also have zip files for all of the files in the public law folder and another zip file for the stats folder. The simplified table of contents file is called xout#.txt where # is the Statutes at Large volume.

For directories before volume 35 (1907), the publaws folder is replaced by a separate congress directory. Before volume 35, law numbers repeat due to multiple sessions and Congresses requiring session sub-directories.

• Volume 126 (2012)
• Volume 125 (2011)
• Volume 64 (1950)
• Volume 63 (1949)
• Volume 62 (1948)
• Volume 61 (1947)
• Volume 60 (1946)
• Volume 59 (1945): Joseph Jerome (http://joejerome.com)
• Volume 58 (1944): Daniel Schuman (http://danielschuman.com)
• Volume 57 (1943): Joe Carmel
• Volume 56 (1942): Joe Carmel
• Volume 55 (1941): Joseph Jerome (http://joejerome.com)
• Volume 54 (1940): Sara S. Frug (http://www.law.cornell.edu)
• Volume 53 (1939): Matthew Steinberg
• Volume 52 (1938): Daniel Schuman (http://danielschuman.com)
• Volume 51 (1937): Joe Carmel
• Volume 50 (1937): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 49 (1935-1936): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 48 (1933-1934): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 47 (1931-1933): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 46 (1929-1931): Joe Carmel
• Volume 45 (1927-1929): Joe Carmel
• Volume 44 (1925-1927): Joe Carmel
• Volume 43 (1923-1925): Joe Carmel
• Volume 42 (1921-1923): Joe Carmel
• Volume 41 (1919-1921): Joe Carmel
• Volume 40 (1917-1919): Joe Carmel
• Volume 39 (1915-1917): Joe Carmel
• Volume 38 (1913-1915): Joe Carmel
• Volume 37 (1911-1913): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 36 (1909-1911): Joe Carmel
• Volume 35 (1907-1909): Joe Carmel
• Volume 34 (1905-1907) (PLs): Joe Carmel
• Volume 33 (1903-1905) (PLs): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 32 (1901-1903) (PLs): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 31 (1899-1901) (PLs): Joe Carmel
• Volume 30 (1897-1899) (PLs): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 29 (1895-1897) (PLs): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 28 (1893-1895) (PLs): Joe Carmel
• Volume 27 (1891-1893) (PLs): Joe Carmel
• Volume 26 (1889-1891) (PLs): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 25 (1887-1889) (PLs): Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Volume 24 (1885-1887) (PLs): Kathy K. Carmichael
• Volume 23 (1883-1885) (PLs): Kathy K. Carmichael
• Volume 22 (1881-1883) (PLs): Azhar Unwala
• Volume 21 (1879-1881) (PLs): Azhar Unwala
• Volume 20 (1877-1879) (PLs): Azhar Unwala
• Volume 19 (1875-1877) (PLs): Susannah Savage
• Volume 18 (1873-1875) (PLs): Susannah Savage
• Volume 17 (1871-1873) (PLs): Susannah Savage
• Volume 16 (1869-1871) (PLs): Susannah Savage
• Volume 15 (1867-1869) (PLs): Susannah Savage
• Volume 14 (1865-1867) (PLs): Susannah Savage
• Volume 13 (1863-1865) (PLs 38th Congress): Kathy K. Carmichael
• Volume 12 (1859-1863) (PLs: 36, 37): Azhar Unwala
• Volume 11 (1856-1859) (PLs: 34, 35): Daniel Bennett and Azhar Unwala
• Volume 10 (1851-1855) (PLs: 32, 33): Susannah Savage
• Volume 9 (1845-1851) (PLs: 29, 30, 31): Susannah Savage
• Volume 8 (Treaties with Foreign Nations): Susannah Savage
• Volume 7 (Treaties with the Indian Tribes): Susannah Savage
• Volume 6 (Private Acts of 1st - 28th Congress): (private-#.pdf in each congress folder): Joe Carmel
• Volume 5 (1836-1845) (PLs: 24, 25, 26, 27, 28): Azhar Unwala
• Volume 4 (1823-1836) (PLs: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23): Susannah Savage
• Volume 3 (1813-1823) (PLs: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17): Susannah Savage
• Volume 2 (1799-1813) (PLs: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12): Susannah Savage
• Volume 1 (1789-1799) (PLs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and originating docs): Susannah Savage

■ zip files contain the contents of the stats and publaw folders.

Sample Acts in the Statutes at Large

• Forest Transfer Act, February 1, 1905
• Nineteenth Amendment (June 5, 1919)
• Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (1930)
• Federal Home Loan Bank Act (1932)
• Glass–Steagall Act of 1933
• Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933
• Communications Act of 1934
• Social Security Act of 1935
• War Declaration Against Japan Dec. 8, 1941
• United Nations Participation Act of 1945 Dec. 20, 1945
• Presidential Succession Act (1947)

Updated volumes with missing pages corrected

• Vol. 46 is missing page 46 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org.
• Vol. 45 was missing page 1676. The PDF file is 57 MB.
• Vol. 42 is missing page 1060 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org.
• Vol. 41 is missing page 1080 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org.
• Vol. 40 is missing page 428 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org.
• Vol. 38 is missing page 784 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org.
• Vol. 35 is missing page 580 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org.
• Vol. 33 is missing page 2 which would be a blank page. The page is missing at both wikisource.org and constitution.org. It is also missing pages 1288-2304 which contain private acts, resolutions, treaties, and concurrent resolutions.
• Vol. 32 was missing page 112. The PDF file is 98 MB (includes Presidential Proclamations)

Process Being Used

• pdftotext to extract OCRed text from volume files. Tesseract or RTF for volumes 6, 7, and 8. (OCR tests)
• Run pagesal#.pl program to create the "control" file that splits the volume PDF file. (see xout#.txt in each volume folder)
• The control file needs to be reviewed for accuracy and manually modified using the table of contents in the volume file, Table III for uscode.house.gov, and/or manually reviewing the SAL PDF file to determine accuracy. The control file also needs to be modified with the missing Statutes pages. This can be determined by running the BreakSAL program repetitively to determine where public law PDF files begin on the wrong page.
• Optimize the PDF file to be PDF 1.5 compatible. I used Acrobat XI Pro
• Run BreakSal.pl using the control files to create the publaws and stats folders and files.

Github Repository

• https://github.com/joec/sal

Technical Notes and Findings

• http://forums.adobe.com/thread/286137 Problem with volume 125 and 126 required saving the files first as Acrobat 5.0 compatible. The problem is that PDF-API2 wanted a pre-Acrobat 9+ PDF file. The pre-1951 files don't have this issue.
• Volume 64 is missing pages 913, 922-926.
• Volume 63 is missing pages 806, 813, 965, 966, and 1045-1049.
• Volume 62 is missing pages 130-135, 866, 867, and 992-1009. Page 1009 is the start of Public Law 774.
• Volume 60 is missing page 252.
• Volume 58 is missing pages 28-30, 187, and 247-252.
• Volume 56 is missing pages 803 and 804.
• Volume 55 is missing pages 690 and 691.
• Volume 51 is missing pages 6, 7, 12, 277, 302, and 370.
• Volume 50 is missing page 319. Not available at wikisource.org.
• Volume 47 is missing page 1622 at the end of the volume. Available at wikisource.org.

Created and Maintained By:

• Joe Carmel

Special Thanks

• Daniel Schuman (http://www.danielschuman.com/)
• Joshua Tauberer (http://razor.occams.info/)
• Joseph Jerome (http://joejerome.com)
• Sara S. Frug (http://www.law.cornell.edu)
• Owen Ambur (http://xml.fido.gov/StratML)
• Matthew Steinberg
• Eric Branson
• Kathy K. Carmichael
• Susannah Savage
• Azhar Unwala
• Daniel Bennett

Member of

Strategic Plan Provided By:

StratML