Congressional Research Service reports, funded by taxpayers but not readily available to the public, are a valuable tool for reporters.
CRS reports become public when a member of Congress releases the report. However, the number of reports released is a small fraction of the number of reports provided for Congress by CRS. Over the years, several organizations have endeavoured to amass collections of released reports. Open CRS, a project of the Center for Democracy & Technology, is a central repository of reports already in the public domain, through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS reports.
Not all publicly available reports are posted on the Open CRS website. The sporadic way the reports are released renders it impossible to collect them in a methodical manner. Nonetheless, the site is updated with new reports as possible, is searchable, and offers links to some large collections.
Open CRS also provides a list of recently released reports and includes a feature whereby new reports can be uploaded anonymously.
