When Congress announced September 10 that it would put Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report on the Library of Congress's Thomas Web site, the library's Information Technology Services (ITS) office faced an unprecedented challenge. The site logged a record 3.9-million transactions between midnight Thursday, September 10 and midnight Friday, September 11, reaching an hourly high of 450,000 between noon and 1 p.m. Friday.
The burden on Thomas lightened as numerous sites copied and posted the report. A market research company, Relevant Knowledge, estimated that 5.9-million people read the document on the Internet during the first two days of its release.
Computer glitches resulted in numerous minor errors in the initial online version. "The House people called late in the afternoon and asked if we could post a note on our site that said there were some technical errors in the conversion process," ITS Director Herbert Becker told the Washington Post. Thomas corrected the report Saturday morning.
Posted September 21, 1998.