The Texas Register is published every week. It is administered by the office of the Texas Secretary of State, and it details all the changes (proposed or final) made to Texas regulations by state agencies. The Texas Register is available in print, with included final changes added to the Texas Administrative Code during the annual update of applicable volumes. It is also available online at http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/TR/.
Using the online version of the Texas Register isn’t intuitive, but once you learn to navigate the site, you can find a lot of information. The online Texas Register is part of The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository managed by the University of Texas. When searching and navigating through the site, you should keep in mind that the Portal contains far more than just the Texas Register. Make sure to limit to just the Texas Register collection when searching, if the option is provided to you.
A simple search box is provided at the top of the page, which allows you to select whether you want to search through the full text of the Register or limit your search to other fields (such as title, subject, or metadata). The advanced search mimics basic Boolean searching, allowing you to limit by date and collection (as discussed above, make sure to limit to the Texas Register collection).
Once you find your search results, you can click on the title of a particular volume to get more information or see the full text. Even though the volume was selected through a keyword search, when you click the title, you are taken to a general page for the entire volume. You will need to keyword search again, within that particular volume, to find the pages containing those words. This search box is at the top right of the volume page.
If you’d rather browse through the volume, you’ll need to click on the image of the Texas Register (under the “Brief Record” tab). You can then browse through the volume by page number.