After a librarian logs you into MassTrac, you’ll notice a toolbar at the top with tabs for General Court, Transcripts, Bills & Laws, Budgets, News/Media, and Resources. Each tab drops down to give you more options to choose from, to better assist you in your research. I wanted to specifically point out the Transcripts and the Bills & Laws tabs. The Transcripts tab allows you to search for transcripts of committee hearings, floor debates, Regulatory hearings, special commission hearings, and more. Once you select the type of transcript you’re looking for, you can narrow down the session year and then search for keywords. The same can be done for the Bills & Laws tab: choose a session year and then do a keyword search.
As we all know, sessions and hearings can be long. To have to watch an entire recording or read through a transcript just to find the part on your topic can be a tedious task. MassTrac has made this easier by allowing you to search within videos and written transcripts. You can keyword search within a video and MassTrac will bring you to the timestamp where that keyword was discussed. You can also click on a word in the typed transcript and MassTrac will bring you to that point in the video. MassTrac also allows you to download transcripts as a PDF. For more information on finding transcripts, be sure to check out our previous blog post.
This year MassTrac has released some exciting new features. MassTrac now has AI built into it, providing the researcher with AI-generated bill overviews and transcript synopses. You’ll notice a general summary of the bill in the lower right area of the bill’s page. For a more detailed overview, MassTrac also provides a section-by-section summary that you can view right on MassTrac or export to Excel. If elaboration is required, MassTrac’s Legal Division staff will write a summary that includes more detail.
MassTrac Copilot is currently in the works, which will provide users with instant conversational assistance to help navigate legislative information. For example, you’ll be able to ask MassTrac Copilot “Tell me who testified on the Bottle Bill in 2022 and tell me what they said and what the response was.”
Another new feature this year is the Legislator & Committee Staff pages. These pages provide you with contact information for legislators and their staff committees. Access this information by clicking on the General Court tab and then choosing Committees.
Another new feature this year is the Legislator & Committee Staff pages. These pages provide you with contact information for legislators and their staff committees. Access this information by clicking on the General Court tab and then choosing Committees.
MassTrac is full of information and tools to help you quickly and smoothly navigate legislative research, and the State Library is here to assist! If you have any questions on MassTrac or any of our other resources, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at reference.department@mass.gov.
Please note that MassTrac can only be used in the library. It is available to state employees and the public on our computers in the reading room (room 341) or on the balcony (room 442). After logging into one of our computers, simply open a browser and you’ll find the link to access MassTrac on our State Library of Massachusetts Onsite Database Links webpage. A librarian will log you in and then you’re ready to start your legislative research.
Jessica Shrey
Legal Research and Reference Librarian
Please note that MassTrac can only be used in the library. It is available to state employees and the public on our computers in the reading room (room 341) or on the balcony (room 442). After logging into one of our computers, simply open a browser and you’ll find the link to access MassTrac on our State Library of Massachusetts Onsite Database Links webpage. A librarian will log you in and then you’re ready to start your legislative research.
Jessica Shrey
Legal Research and Reference Librarian
