Resource of the Week
by Steven M. Cohen, Assistant Editor
Editors Note: Shirl Kennedy, Deputy Editor, will return next week with her ROTW column. Btw, we mentioned this week's ROTW and its developers last week when it was first released. Congrats to Derek and Adrian on the ROTW mention.
While awaiting anxiously for the new release of Thomas, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Washington Post has entered the congressional data fray with their votes database, which "lets you browse every vote in the U.S. Congress since 1991."
For both the House and Senate, one can view many details of Congressional votes. Many features are available:
+ In viewing the latest votes, one sees the results of the vote, a link to more extensive data about the vote, and a brief synopsis of the vote. Click on roll call for more indept data on the specific vote, such as a breakdown by party, state, region, "baby boomer status," gender, and astrological sign (how interesting - I wonder what this analysis will reveal about our congressional members).
+ For those familiar with RSS, you'll notice that they have incorporated RSS technology into the resource. You can now get voting information from any congressional member sent to you via RSS, as well as a feed from the most recent votes.
This is an impressive ready reference tool that should be bookmarked.
Editor's Note: In case you're wondering, this database should be searchable soon.
See Also: Those of You with a Strong Interest/Need in Congressional Voting Data
Might also want to take a look at VoteView, A Collection of Downloadable Data Compiled by Dr. Keith T. Poole at the University of California, San Diego.
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See Also: Newspapers--Washington Post--Mashups
Source: Information Today washingtonpost.com Teams Up with Readers for Remix
A new article by Tara Calishain. "The Washington Post Co. has launched a new site called Post Remix, described as "the Post's official mashup center." Available at http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/post_remix, Post Remix spotlights reader creativity with both washingtonpost.com RSS feeds and other streams of content The Post is making available. The site launched around mid-November, and that's been plenty of time for interesting content to appear on it."
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
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