The General Services Administration has released a free iBook version of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the set of rules governing the federal government’s purchasing process.
Using the downloadable iBook format allows FAR to be internally searched, notated, highlighted and tagged. In addition, an iBook can be updated and reloaded for free on multiple devices, avoiding the cost of printing for each new edition or correction.
The benefits to providing an offline copy of FAR for iPhone and iPad are particularly seen for acquisition professionals in the field, where Wi-Fi is spotty or unavailable to laptops.
"We realized that not everyone works in a traditional wired office these days, but they still need instant access to the FAR. This includes people working in the field who are without internet," said Dan Briest, program manager of Acquisition.gov in GSA's Office of Acquisition Policy. "The Contingency Contracting Corps and other teams responding to assist in disaster relief need the FAR, but mobile signals are going to be down. The Department of Agriculture often has employees traveling to areas without internet, but they still need to be able to look up regulations.
These are the people who have been asking for a downloadable version of the FAR."
Briest said the Federal Management Regulation and the Federal Travel Regulation will be released as iBooks, too, and the FAR will be released in the Kindle and Google Play stores in the near future.
The FAR iBook is available now on iTunes.
