SLA Government Information Division

SLA Posts 2010 Conference Preview Program

SLA has just posted the SLA 2010 Conference Preview online program. The conference program is in a new format this year; be sure to check the tool bar across the top of the page for options to view, search, print, and save the conference program.

The handy online conference planner and other conference information are on the SLA conference website.

Look for more information on the Government Information Division program coming soon.

GovLoop News Update

GovLoop.com is a social media site designed specifically for government employees around the world to share tips, knowledge, and news. The community was launched in 2008 and continues to grow. They just launched a GovLoop iPhone app, more newsfeed than social at the moment. GovLoop is also forming an Advisory Board, with Craig Newmark of Craigslist fame as one of the first members to be announced.

SLA/DGI members may be interested in joining the Libraries group within GovLoop. There are a number of other specialized groups like Libraries that can provide members with an opportunity to interact with government professionals in other fields. Here are just a few:

• Google for Gov
• Knowledge Management in Government
• Twitterati
• Government 2.0 Australia
• GovLoop Canada, and
• Web Metrics

In addition to government workers, GovLoop also welcomes government contractors, students, and those interested in a public service career. From the GovLoop FAQ: "GovLoop does ask government contractors to refrain from explicit business development and marketing." GovLoop is owned by GovDelivery, Inc.

Gov.UK 2.0

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced several major initiatives in a 22 March 2010 speech about Britain's digital future and introduced a Number10 Downing iphone app the same day. Initiatives described in the speech include:

• Establishing of a new Institute of Web Science to be led by Sir Tim Berners Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt (the team behind data.gov.uk)
• Extending of broadband services to many more households
• Freeing up more geographic data from the Ordnance Survey for developer re-use
• Shutting down nearly 500 government websites in the name of efficiency and effectiveness
• Replacing the Directgov portal with a customizable MyGov web service

The full speech transcript is available online.

State Library Agencies: New Demands, Old Budgets

State Library Agency Service Trends: 1999–2008 [PDF], a 10-page research brief from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS.gov), reports on revenues, expenditures, and services provided by U.S. state library agencies. From the press release:

Funding for state library agencies, which includes a mix of federal, state, and other sources, remained flat from fiscal year (FY) 2004 to FY 2008. The current economic downturn will likely decrease agency budgets and could affect the quality and quantity of state library agency services in the future, according to the brief.

Twenty-first century patrons expect more technology resources in schools, public libraries, colleges, and universities. While current and future information technologies provide exciting new opportunities to extend library services to patrons across the U.S., they require significant investment and coordination, the study found.

New Guide: Finding Reports to Congress

The Legislative Sourcebook web resource from the Law Librarians' Society of Washington DC (LLSDC) is a must-bookmark for anyone doing U.S. federal legislative or regulatory research. The guides on the site are relevant and up-to-date. And now there is a new one: Sources for Finding Mandated Reports to Congress by U.S. Federal Agencies. It is an annotated list of links to sources for finding those numerous and elusive reports the agencies are required to submit to Congress on a periodic basis.

Law librarian extraordinaire Rick McKinney, last year's winner of the AALL Robert L. Oakley Member Advocacy Award, created the guide.

FCC Issues National Broadband Plan Recommendations

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a detailed National Broadband Plan, as directed by Congress. The plan makes recommendations to improve the availability, adoption, and use of high-speed Internet connections and infrastructure in the U.S.

The central web page for information on the plan is http://www.broadband.gov/plan/, where you can find options to search the plan or to download chapters or the full report (PDF only). On the chapter download page, the FCC states the agency will also issue the plan in e-book, Braille, and Spanish versions.

Recommendations about online content made in chapter 15 of the plan may be of particular interest to researchers and librarians. Here are a few, linked to the relevant section of the report:

• The primary legal documents of the federal government should be free and accessible to the public on digital platforms.
• The federal government should create and fund Video.gov to publish its digital video archival material and facilitate the creation of a federated national digital archive to house public interest digital content.
• Congress should consider amending the Copyright Act to enable public and broadcast media to more easily contribute their archival content to the digital national archive and grant reasonable non-commercial downstream usage rights for this content to the American people.

DGI New Zealand Member Profiled in SLA Information Outlook

It's great to see government information librarians receive attention in SLA's members-only magazine, Information Outlook. The January/February 2010 issue features 10 Questions: Kevin Adams, an interview with one of our first DGI members. [You must log in with your member ID to view the article.] Kevin, librarian for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research in Christchurch, says "I'm a jack of all trades, which is what being a solo librarian is all about."

C-SPAN Archives: Free & Online

C-SPAN has now made nearly 98% of its video archives available online. As reported in a 15 March 2010 New York Times article,

The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday...No other cable network is likely to give away its precious archives on the Internet. (Even “Book TV” is available.) But C-Span is one of a kind, a creation of the cable industry that records every Congressional session, every White House press briefing and other acts of official Washington.

C-SPAN announced a new look for its index to congressional floor proceedings, the Congressional Chronicle, in a C-SPAN Video Library Blog posting last week.

EPA Chemical Substance Inventory: Free & Online

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, for the first time, made the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory available on their website free of charge. From the March 15th press release:

This inventory contains a consolidated list of thousands of industrial chemicals maintained by the agency...Until now, the consolidated public portion of the TSCA Inventory has only been available by purchase from the National Technical Reports Library or other databases. By adding the consolidated TSCA Inventory to the Agency’s website and to Data.Gov [link added], EPA is making this information readily available to the public at no cost.

Future plans for providing more chemical information are described in the press release. For example, the EPA is exploring ways to list more of the 17,000 chemicals that can not currently be identified publicly because the manufacturers have declared the substances to be confidential business information.

NY Times on International Amateur Scanning League

Sunday's New York Times reported on Carl Malamud's International Amateur Scanning League in the article Duplicating Federal Videos for an Online Archive by Brian Stelter. From the article:

The league is a small demonstration that volunteers can sometimes achieve what bureaucracies can’t or won’t. The government’s 10-year broadband plan, to be submitted to Congress this week, will include a vision for Video.gov, a proposed home for video from federal agencies. The proposal is sure to be cheered by people who want the government to put more materials online. But Mr. Malamud and his volunteers are not waiting.

Previous DGI blog post: Digitization Volunteers: The International Amateur Scanning League

For more on the upcoming broadband plan mentioned in the article, see Broadband.gov.