Library Guides: PL SC 1: American Politics: Principles, Processes and Powers: My Representatives Congress

Introduction: Evaluate Resources

There are many online sources of biographical information about members of Congress.

Any resource needs to be evaluated based on some criteria. The guide IF I APPLY: Identifying Bias & Resource Credibility identifies some useful criteria to consider.

The list below can be divided into four different Points of View:

United States House of Representatives
biographical information provided by the candidate
United States Senate
biographical information provided by the candidate

Vote Smart
A non-partisan site with information about candidates for federal and state offices. All you need to know to get started is your ZIP code.
Open Secrets Congress Member Database
Statistics about members of Congress

List of Current Senators
Wikipedia: Free Source Enclyclopedia. Great for finding news articles and other material about the Senator.
List of current members of the United States House of Representatives
Wikipedia: Free Source Encyclopedia. Great for finding news articles and other material about a member of Congress.

Note: check source citations see IF I APPLY evaluation guide

CQ Politics in America This link opens in a new window
Profiles of Congressional members and districts. Similar to The Almanac of American Politics. Part of the CQ Electronic Library
Information on members of the U.S. Congress and their districts. Includes member biographical data, committee assignments, election results, CQ Key Votes, and interest group ratings.

Biographical Directory of the United States
Historical biographies and brief biographies from the Library of Congress

Catalog (Penn State University Libraries catalog) This link opens in a new window
There are numerous historical autobiographies and biographies of members of Congress in our collection as e-books and hard copies.
This is the online catalog of materials owned by Penn State Libraries. All formats (books, journals, audiovisuals, maps, recordings, etc.) are included. Circulation status for individual items is also provided. Coverage: Presently contains about 7 million records. Updates: Continuous up-to-the-minute as new records are added.