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The Constitution Annotated … on your phone!

The Government Printing Office (GPO) announced today the launching of a new app and web publication that make analysis and interpretation of constitutional case law by Library experts accessible for free to anyone with a computer or mobile device. The information is from The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation, commonly known as the Constitution Annotated. The new app and improved web publication will make the nearly 3,000-page “Constitution Annotated” more accessible to more people and enable updates of new case analysis three or four times each year. The new Constitution Annotated app is available for the iOS platform and allows users to read the entire document; browse by section – such as by article of or amendment to the Constitution; view and navigate content from a table of cases and index; and search all text. The app can be downloaded for free from iTunes. A direct link is here: http://beta.congress.gov/constitution-annotated/. An Android version is under development.

The complete press release is attached below as a pdf.

Ad Hawk: the free app for identifying who’s behind political ads

Thanks Sunlight Foundation for creating Ad Hawk, the smartphone app that identifies political ads as they air and immediately tells you about who is behind them. I’m not so inundated with ads here in CA, but I bet this will be useful for all of our readers who are in swing states.



Florida Health Facility Locator Phone Apps

There hasn’t been a State Agency Databases activity report since 8/19/2012 because summer activity has been minimal.

Expect project activity to pick up in the next few weeks as we do our quarterly link check and update of state pages.

There was one change to the wiki this week I wanted to highlight here. It involves the production of mobile apps tied to a state agency’s database.

Florida has a healthcare facility database. Here’s it’s description from our Florida project page:

Facility Locator – “To locate a facility, begin by choosing a facility type using the drop down menu. Next enter a facility name, a city, zip code, and/or county, or choose a field office.” Also searchable by proximity to a specific street address. Facility types include: Abortion Clinic, Adult Day Care Center, Adult Family Care Home, Ambulatory Surgical Center, Assisted Living Facility, Birth Center, Cardiac Catheterization, Clinical Laboratory, Community Mental Health-Partial Hospitalization Program, Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility, Crisis Stabilization Unit, End-Stage Renal Disease, Forensic Toxicology Laboratory, Health Care Clinic Exemptions, Health Care Clinics, Health Care Services Pool, Health Maintenance Organization, Homes for Special Services, Home Health Agency, Home Medical Equipment, Homemaker & Companion Services, Hospice, Hospital, Intermediate Care Facility, Lithotripsy, Multiphasic Health Test Center, Nurse Registry, Organ & Tissue Procurement, Portable X-Ray, Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care, Rehabilitation Agencies, Residential Treatment Center, Residential Treatment Facility, Rural Health Clinics, Skilled Nursing Facility, Skilled Nursing Unit, Transitional Living Facility, Utilization Review.

When I visited the facility locator page, I found both an iphone and an Android phone app. Both apps appear to let you map facilities and get driving directions, if desired.

Given the situations where one might be looking for a medical facility, mobile apps appear to make sense.

If you’re aware of other state agency databases that have been “app-ified”, would you live a comment here? Thanks!

Read the Congressional Record on the go!

Want to read the Congressional Record on the go? Well now you can with this Congressional Record iphone/ipad app created by the Library of Congress under the guidance of the Committee on House Administration. The app pulls data from ?the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, and the Government Printing Office. With the app, the reader can:

  • Browse editions of the Congressional Record by date: January 4, 1995 (the 104th Congress, 1st Session) to the present
  • Perform keyword searches within individual documents or sections within documents
  • Share documents via email
  • Save documents to your preferred iPad PDF reader
  • Identify the latest bills and resolutions considered daily on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives
  • Identify the latest bills, resolutions, treaties, and nominations considered daily on the floor of the U.S. Senate

The [[Congressional_Record|Congressional Record]] is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session.

Ten Federal Government Mobile Apps

The Feds have lots of mobile apps at apps.usa.gov. Information Week highlights some favorites in an article: 10 Handy Mobile Apps From Uncle Sam, including:

  • The FBI’s popular Ten Most Wanted list
  • FBI’s Child ID app (lets parents carry pictures and vital information such as weight and height about their children in case of emergency. It provides tips on how to keep children safe and what to do if they go missing, with fast access to law enforcement authorities via email and phone.)
  • Science.gov (search scientific information from more than 50 databases and 2,100 government-affiliated websites.)
  • Cancer.gov (provides a dictionary of terms, and news and information on cancer types, diagnoses, treatments, and how to treat side effects.)
  • Smithsonian Institution’s Access American Stories (companion for visitors to the American Stories exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.)
  • Airport Wait Times (provides estimates of the wait times–the estimated time from landing until passengers are screened by Customs agents–for arriving flights at 23 international airports based on averages and time of year, not real-time data.)
  • Department of Housing and Urban Development: The Edge (online magazine with news and information on housing and community development issues and regulations.)
  • IRS Jobs (jobs at the IRS.)
  • NARA DocsTeach (documents of historical significance.)
  • Smokey Bear

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