Happy birthday, THOMAS!  The premier site for free, U.S. legislative information turns 15 today and it’s better than ever!  The Library of Congress is celebrating THOMAS’ birthday in a fashion that is seldom seen today . . . they are giving away birthday presents in the form of greater functionality and new features.  A happy birthday indeed!

Anyone who does federal legislative research in the USA will tell you that THOMAS (named for Thomas Jefferson) has long been an indispensible resource.  Not only has it been free and easy to use . . . but comprehensive and feature-rich as well.  Covering the 93rd Congress (1973) on, THOMAS provides bills and resolutions in full, searchable text.  Additionally, users can find the Congressional Record back to 101st Congress, committee reports back to the 104th Congress, presidential nominations back to the 100th Congress, and a sweet collection of treaty materials all the way back to the 90th Congress.  Sprinkle in some additional government resources links and you can see why THOMAS has been so valuable for 15 years!

In honor of the 15th birthday of this amazing tool, the Library of Congress has been seeking user feedback for a slew of new improvements and features.  These candles on the cake were unveiled today with some much-deserved fanfare.  If you haven’t checked them out, join in the birthday celebration and do so.  There is a new bookmarking and sharing toolbar for you social networking fans, a rundown of the top five bills of the week, a wonderful new RSS feed (that iBraryGuy will be adding to Librarians.Collected and LibraryVibes), and a cool tip of the week section.  They say that some things get better with age . . . clearly THOMAS is one of them!