The United States Code

The United States Code is a compilation of all the laws by subject. This set is kept current by annual updates until a new edition is published. The Code is kept in the first row of the Government Documents compact shelving, even though the SuDoc number of the code is Y 1.2/5:. A shelf marker in the Y section will remind you of this, and the location in WebCat is given as Government Documents Reference. There is an extensive subject index for the set, and, in a separate volume there is an index which gives laws by their popular names.

The Statutes and the Code can be used together to give you more complete information on laws. Each set has references to the other set. For example, if you wanted to know if a law has been updated, you would find its location in the Code, and all further legislation and amendments affecting this law would be listed.

U.S. Code via the House of Representatives Internet Law Library - subject approach to all laws in force as of January 1996.

U.S. Code via Cornell Law School - text of all laws in force as of January 1996; searchable by popular title of law, title and section of the U.S. Code, or keyword.

The U.S. Code is also searchable in the Legal Research section of the LexisNexis Academic database.

Firstgov has an index of federal laws and regulations by subject category.

How to Find a Law

Let's assume you know the number or name of the law or keywords in the title of the law. From what you learned above you should know to how to search the Statutes at Large, find the volume for the Congress, and then find the law number.

Got an exact citation from either the Statutes or the Code? Not too hard. For example, a citation for the Statutes is written as 107 STAT. 6, which means page 6 of volume 107. This is the citation for the "Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993." A citation for the Code would be written as 29 USC 2601, which would be volume 29, section 2601. The section number is given at the outer corner of each page.

Got the name or some good keywords? Try the most obvious place first: WebCat. If at first you don't succeed with the name as the person gives it, try keywords. Next go to the U.S. Code and try the Popular Name Index. If you know the approximate year, you can browse the indexes of the Statutes at Large.

You would like laws on a given subject? Once again, try WebCat. The subject subdivision "law and legislation" is frequently used for laws, so try these in addition to the desired subject in a subject keyword search. If your search returns documents with different classification numbers, sort them by call number. Any starting with AE 2.110 will be laws.

A Word about Bills