January 17, 2012 Library of Congress Offers Congressional Record As iPad App

The Library of Congress, at the initiative of House Leadership and under the guidance of the Committee on House Administration, today announced it has made the Congressional Record available as an app to users of iPad tablet devices. The Congressional Record delivered through the app is a PDF document that can be shared via email and be able to be browsed by date and searchable by keyword within an individual document or section; documents can also be saved to the iPad. Content includes Congressional Record issues dating from January 4, 1995 through the present.

“The Library of Congress is pleased to develop a new way to receive authoritative and convenient access to the debates, proceedings and activities of the nation’s legislature. While all this content will continue to be available on THOMAS, our legislative information website, access to the Record on tablet devices will provide portability for Members of Congress as well as the public, and allow for searching, saving and sharing content from the Record,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

“The Congressional Record - the official record of our nation’s legislative endeavors - is vital to legislators doing their job and to the public holding them accountable. That is why I commend the Library of Congress and the Government Printing Office for their dedication to creating this app and improving access to legislative data,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), who chairs the Committee on House Administration.

“As we’ve seen in the 112th Congress through our new electronic posting standards, and now this new Congressional Record app, this House is committed to transparency, accountability and accessibility,” Lungren said.

The creation of the app was first announced today by the Committee on House Administration. The content for the app is provided by 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. The app can be found at itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-congressional-record/id492077075 External.

The Congressional Record contains the debates, proceedings and activities of the Congress of the United States. It is published in four parts: coverage of the House of Representatives, the Senate, Extension of Remarks, and the Daily Digest. The final part provides a summary of the activities of a given legislative day. The House and Senate portions of the record contain debates and statements made on the floor of each chamber along with records of parliamentary actions and roll-call votes. They also contain communications from the president and the executive branch, memorials, petitions and information about legislation, including amendments. Members are allowed to edit the transcripts of their floor remarks before the Congressional Record is published. The Extensions of Remarks section allows members of the House to insert additional information on a subject of previous remarks or debate; in the Senate, such material is included in an Additional Statements section of the Senate’s record for the legislative day.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled collections and integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Many of the Library’s rich resources and treasures may be accessed through the Library’s website, www.loc.gov.