THOMAS is the database of United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 legislative information. It is operated by the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 and was launched in January 1995 at the inception of the 104th Congress. It is a comprehensive, Internet-accessible source of information on the activities of Congress, including:

• Bill
  Bill (proposed law)
  A bill is a proposed law under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an act or a statute....
  
  s & resolution
  Resolution (law)
  A resolution is a written motion adopted by a deliberative body. The substance of the resolution can be anything that can normally be proposed as a motion. For long or important motions, though, it is often better to have them written out so that discussion is easier or so that it can be...
  
  s
  • The texts of bills and resolutions
  • Summaries and status
  • Voting results, including how individual members voted
• Congressional Record
  Congressional Record
  The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
  
  , including the daily digest
• Presidential nominations
• Treaties

The database is named after Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, who was the third President of the United States

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

. It seems there is no reason its name is in all upper-case letters. According to some sources, 'THOMAS' is an acronym for "The House [of Representatives] Open Multimedia Access System", but this text is not apparent anywhere in the THOMAS Web site. This explanation may be a backronym

Backronym

A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology....

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The website allows users to share legislative information via several social networking sites, and there have been proposals for an application programming interface

Application programming interface

An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...

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