Activity at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project continues. For a blow by blow description of the changes over the last two weeks, see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

GEORGIA (Chris Sharpe)

Search General Assembly Audio/Video - "Search through the sound tracks of audio and video files from the Georgia State Legislature." From 2001-2008

MAINE (Alex Burnett)

Bill Tracking and Text Search - Database of bills in the Maine Legislature since the 112th (1985) Legislature. Includes basic information about bills.

MICHIGAN (Michael McDonnell)

Trail or Pathway Search - You can search for information on a trail by name, by county, by feature or accommodation, or activity. You can also search from an interactive map. The site does not include many small county and city trails. Be sure you reset the search parameters after each search.

TEXAS (Ann Ellis)

Manufactured Housing Report Options - For those interested in information about manufactured homes in the state of Texas, this database provides records for ownership history, retailer data, tax information, and title, license, and inspection reports.

UTAH (Susanne Caro)

Statewide Warrant Search - First and last name required for searching The Utah Statewide Warrants file (SWW) is designed to provide information on individuals wanted in the state of Utah. The warrant information comes from courts that send in data to the Utah Criminal Justice Information System (UCJIS) via electronic transfer, which means that the data viewed is the direct result of court activity. As with any warrant system, caution must be used when viewing data from this file. Accuracy and timeliness are critical factors when acting on warrant information, as this system is dependent upon timely entry and removal of records by the courts.

The Spring 2012 issue of DttP:Documents to the People has an article that shows the power of librarians working together:

Laster, Shari. Crossing Institutional Boundaries to Build a Digital Collection. Dttp: Documents to the People, v.40, no. 1, p.25.

The article describes a project by the Ohio Government Documents Roundtable to build a collection of digitized publications from the War Relocation Authority.

What distinguishes this article from others about building digital collections is that this was done under the umbrella of a state government documents roundtable with the support of a number of Ohio libraries. I find this to be an exciting model for collaboration elsewhere.

According to Ms. Laster, future plans of Ohio GODORT include adding new collections, which will probably require the development of a process for distributed digitization. All of us at FGI wish them well in that work and hold up Ohio as an example of how other state GODORTs might be able to collaborate on projects of statewide interest.

While it has been nearly a month since my last report on the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases, our volunteer document specialists have stayed active.

WIKI ACTIVITY

For a play by play of the last two weeks worth of activity, see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Below are some highlights:

HEALTH CARE PRACTIONER DATABASES

Lynn McClelland did link checking this past week fixing a significant number of links for Arkansas, Maryland, New Mexico and Oregon, among others.

NEBRASKA

Beth Goble checked links and added a database of legislative transcripts.

NORTH CAROLINA

Jennifer Davison reorganized the page and fixed some broken links.

UTAH

Susanne Caro added the following database:

State History Publications Online - Full text for Utah State History and the Utah State Historical Society publication beginning with the first issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1928. Includes books, periodicals,professional and technical literature searchable by keyword, date and table of contents.

OTHER ACTIVITY

Daniel Cornwall (Alaska) touched on the SADATFS project in a webinar titled "Databases By Alaskans" which can be viewed at http://library.state.ak.us/is/info_services_training.html.

We have had a chance to review the new Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report Federal Depository Library Program: Issues for Congress (Petersen) available at from the Federation of American Scientists, Project On Government Secrecy web site.

While we believe it serves as a useful overview of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), the report has a few significant problems. Members of Congress should consider the following before using this report as a basis for modifying the FDLP:

Report appears to take Ithaka S+R report at face value

Pages 6-11 of the CRS report concern the findings of the Government Printing Office (GPO) commissioned Ithaka S+R FDLP Report (Housewright) and GPO's ultimate rejection of the report. We are concerned that CRS has taken Ithaka's conclusions at face value and have not considered the many criticisms of the Ithaka report. Some of these criticisms included:

• The report made broad statements about users without sufficient consultation with actual end users.
• The report focused on the value of the program to libraries and not to users.
• The report apparently ignored corrections from law librarians and others so that errors in draft documents carried over to final documents.
• The report excluded serious discussion of digital deposit and local digital collections of federal information.
• The report failed to account for risks of implementing its recommendations.

We wrote extensively during the Ithaka S+R report period. We were not alone. A complete set of comments that Ithaka S+R received on its project web site is available from GPO. Yet the CRS report authors do not appear to have considered the public comments that questioned a number of Ithaka S+R's findings.

Another curiosity is CRS's omission of GPO's reasoning for rejecting the Ithaka S+R report. The authors simply note that "GPO did not provide a detailed, publicly available explication of its decision." It seems to us that it would have been appropriate and useful for CRS to have contacted Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) Mary Alice Baish and interviewed her about GPO's rejection of the Ithaka S+R report. In doing so, CRS could have expanded the existing public record with more details from GPO as to why the report was unacceptable and given the report an additional depth of understanding. Given the GPO rejection of the Ithaka S+R report and the amount of criticism of the report from the library community, CRS's reliance on the report results in a description of the FDLP that is both limited and slanted.

Threats to access to digital government information

Pages 13-14 of the CRS report address "Access to Digital Government Information." The section concludes with the following:

The use of the FDLP Electronic Collection may raise the following concerns in the context of digital information:

• Where do FDLP Electronic Collection data reside?
• Are current data management protocols sufficient to ensure no loss of data availability, and assured access?
• Are those protocols similar in GPO, other federal agencies, and non governmental partners that provide content?
• What backup, and information distribution and assurance policies, are in place?

Although these are legitimate questions, CRS left out bigger problems within which these questions are merely details of implementation. These bigger problems stem from the GPO-centric model of the FDLP in which GPO has usurped from libraries the roles of both preservation and access. By replacing libraries, GPO has endangered the long-term future of information preservation and free-public access to that information in many ways. Three of the most important of those are, uncurated access, the term we call "silent withdrawals," and the very real potential of inadequate funding of GPO along with the complementary danger of replacing of free access with fee-based access.

Uncurated access

Access to government information has been a key tenet of the FDLP for 200 years. CRS averred that fact when they stated, "emergence of digital delivery of government information outside the FDLP program may offer increased access to government information to those who might not be able to visit depository libraries." But the key point missed by CRS is the idea of uncurated access. By only discussing access, but not preservation, CRS ignores the processes carried out by depository institutions to *preserve* govt information. We have said many times on FGI that access today does not equal access in the long-term. Libraries have begun to put processes in place to assure long-term digital access (University of North Texas Digital Library, LOCKSS-USDOCS, Archive-it collections, End-of-term crawls etc). Librarians can and should continue their curatorial responsibilities in the digital realm. We can't expect GPO and other government agencies -- especially in this budget crisis climate -- to have the long-term vision necessary to assure long-term preservation. Curation and content control will be key issues going forward. These issues were merely glossed over by the report.

Silent Withdrawals

One of the many strengths of a distributed depository system is the way its very structure protects information from intentional or unintentional loss, censorship, or erasure. Without this protection, information can too easily be withdrawn "silently" -- that is, without public announcement or review. That FDLP works is evident when one compares information in the depository system to information not in the depository system. The number of documents that have been sent to depository libraries and later withdrawn is relatively small and the reasons for the recalls are usually not controversial.

• Federal publications recalled from libraries. (1981-2010). Stanford University Library.

Contrast this to information that has been withdrawn from the web, reclassified by agencies, and documents that have had open access restricted by agencies after their release:

• Less Access to Less Information By and About the U.S. Government (1981-1998).
• Chronology of Disappearing Government Information (1998-2002), Compiled by Barbara Miller for ALA/GODORT Education Committee With special assistance of Karrie Peterson.
• No URL Left Behind? Web Scrub Raises Concerns, by Michelle R. Davis, Education Week, 22:3 (9/18/2002), 1-2.
• Homefront Confidential. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Sixth edition (September 2005)
• The Age of Missing Information. By Steven Aftergood, Slate (March 17, 2005).
• Army Blocks Public Access to Digital Library, by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (February 13th, 2008).
• DOD withdraws embarrassing report, FreeGovInfo (2009-05-13).
• Secrecy Report 2011. OpenTheGovernment.org.

The reason for the success of the depository system is that it has checks and balances and procedures that must be followed when an agency wishes to withdraw a publication ("ID 72" GPO 2005). In the world of physical deposit of print documents, withdrawal of a previously deposited document requires the compliance of tens or even hundres of libraries that actually have physical possession and control of copies. While depository librarians have a legal obligation to comply with withdrawal and destroy orders, there have been cases where this step triggered complaints about unreasonable withdrawal requests. Such questioning has led agencies to withdraw requests that seemed based on embarrassment or paranoia rather than error or true security needs.

One noteworthy example of this comes from 2001 when the CIA put pressure on the Department of State to destroy already-printed volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, V. 16, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. But those volumes were in the possession of GPO and slated for deposit with FDLP libraries (Aftergood). The volumes were not destroyed and were distributed (S 1.1:964-68/v.16).

Another example comes from 2004 when the Justice Department demanded that depositories destroy copies of five publications that dealt with, among other things, how citizens can retrieve items confiscated by the government. The American Library Association objected, the Justice department rescinded its order, and GPO allowed libraries to keep copies and also replaced copies already destroyed. (Lee)

GPO's policy does have good procedures to prevent "silent withdrawals" even of information that is not physically deposited with libraries. But when GPO does not deposit digital copies with libraries, depositories are cut out of the procedures and an important safeguard is missing. Withdrawal decisions and their execution stay wholly within the federal government -- making it easier for the government to remove items from public access. The "LOCKSS-USDocs" private LOCKSS network project is beginning to replace this safeguard, but more work is needed to ensure digital deposit with more libraries in order to guard against silent withdrawals.

Budget Problems

The current GPO-centric model of digital access described, and apparently unquestioned, by CRS has a single point of failure. If Congress decides it is no longer worthwhile to adequately fund information dissemination in general or GPO in particular, users and libraries will lose access to material unique to GPO's servers. Even the maintenance of so-called "persistent" URLs (PURLs) could be endangered by something as simple as inadequate funding.

Digital information requires long-term, consistent funding. Neither digital information preservation nor access can be accomplished passively: both require constant attention and renewal and resources. Even budget cutbacks can cause loss of information or loss of access to information. The single-point-of-failure GPO-centric model of preservation and access is a system in which even inadequate funding means loss of information.

Reduced funding can also lead to privatization of government information access. This can occur if the fee-based private-sector takes over the delivery of services that GPO drops because of inadequate funding. It can also occur if Congress mandates that GPO use a fee-for-service model. In both cases, free access will be lost and people and libraries may be unable to afford adequate access. (Jacobs)

An April 10, 2012 Federal Times demonstrates that GPO is already feeling a lot of pain:

At risk of needing a congressional bailout 18 months ago, the Government Printing Office slashed its workforce, cut employee benefits, rented out excess office space and took other steps to stabilize its finances.

To make ends meet, GPO is also focusing on money-making activities like making secure credentials for the FBI. At its heart, the FDLP is a cost center. It has no opportunity to make GPO profit. This is right and proper, but will continue to make the FDLP a tempting target in future budget reductions. (Jacobs)

Summary

Any discussion of disruptions in user access needs to acknowledge the above facts. As long as digital storage is centralized in GPO, free and permanent access is only a Congressional Act away from being disable or terminated. The report does ask a key question: what solutions might create a more robust FDLP that is better equipped to meet the demands of providing government information to American citizens." We at FGI and many allies in the FDLP community have been working on that question (see Letter to Deputy CTO Noveck: "Open Government Publications," Rethinking the Cloud, and Achieving a collaborative FDLP future to contextualize the issues involved).

The report written by Petersen, Manning and Bailey provides a useful historic overview of the FDLP. We feel that it somewhat mischaracterizes recent efforts at building consensus. Most seriously, the report leaves out major barriers to free, permanant public access to government information that MUST be addressed in any meaningful reform effort.

References:

• Aftergood, Steven. State Dept Mulls "Book Burning." Secrecy News (September 21, 2001)
• Housewright, Ross, and Roger C. Schonfeld. Modeling a Sustainable Future for the United States Federal Depository Library Program’s Network of Libraries in the 21st Century, Final Report of Ithaka S+R to the Government Printing Office, Ithaka S+R, May 16, 2011, Including "Statement from the U.S. Government Printing Office" by Mary Alice Baish (August 5, 2011)
• Jacobs, James A. Privatization of GPO, Defunding of FDsys, and the Future of the FDLP, FreeGovInfo (2011-08-11).
• Lee, Christopher. Justice Dept. Rescinds Order to Pull Publications.
  Washington Post (August 5, 2004) page A17.
• Lipowicz, Alice. Digital information may strain GPO and library system, CRS says, Federal Computer Week(Apr 11, 2012)
• Petersen, R. Eric, Jennifer E. Manning, and Christina M. Bailey. Federal Depository Library Program: Issues for Congress by Petersen, Congressional Research Service CRS Report R42457 (March 29, 2012)
• Reilly, Sean. Cost-cutting saves GPO from financial crisis, chief says. Federal Times, (4/10/2012).
• Replacement copies of five DOJ documents for depositories that had removed them. Judith C. Russell, Superintendent of Documents (August 5, 2004)
• U.S. Government Printing Office. Managing Director, Information Dissemination, Superintendent of Documents. Information Dissemination Policy Statement 72 (ID 72). "Withdrawal of Federal Information Products from GPO’s Information Dissemination (ID) Programs." Effective Date: June 21, 2005, Supersedes No.: SOD 72 Dated: 07/22/02.
• LOCKSS-USDOCS private LOCKSS network: The Digital Federal Depository Library Program.

NO MORE ORPHANS!

Thanks to Alex Burnett publicly claiming the Maine project page and Sabrina I. Pacifici publicly claiming the Maryland page, it is my happy duty to inform you all that the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States Project is now fully staffed. Every state page linked from http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases now has a documents specialist to care for it.

I'm making a big deal of this because this is the first time in the history of our project that all states have been staffed.

WIKI ACTIVITY

As I say nearly every week, our volunteers kept busy. For a full list of our past week's activity, see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs.

DATABASES ADDED

ALABAMA (Paula Webb)

Alabama Inmates on Death Row - a database of current inmates on death row in Alabama correctional facilities.

CALIFORNIA (Joel Rane)

Weed Identification Key - Use this database of images to identify weed species, especially the most common weeds found in California lawns. Because flowering parts are often mowed and not seen in turf, this key was developed using vegetative characteristics. The key goes from general to specific images of the plants; work through the key until you get to a summary page of your weed. The summary pages include control methods. There are related keys for invasive ants, aphids and other pests.

IOWA (Julie Thomas)

Lobbyist Information - Includes searchable databases of lobbyists, clients, contact information, functions, and declarations on bills.

LOUISIANA (Rita Franks)

Louisiana Office of Tourism Imagebase - This project is designed to make the Office of Tourism's complete collection of 35 mm slide images available to the Travel and Tourism industry around the world. The collection of over one thousand images have all been digitized and stored as high-resolution Kodak PhotoCD (.pcd) format files. Smaller, lower resolution jpeg (.jpg) images are used within their web site to preview these images. The PhotoCD images average between 3 and 5 Mb in size, and are available for download, provided you provide the Office of Tourism with some information about how these images will be used, and you agree to abide by the Office of Tourism's Image Use Policy

NORTH CAROLINA (Jennifer Davison)

North Carolina Environmental Education Database - Search for camps, after school programs, University EE courses, grants, educational materials and additional resource types. Limit by distance, audience served, age groups, academic and environmental focus.

OHIO (Audrey Hall)

Ohio Secretary of State DAMs Directives, Advisories, and Memoranda - Scroll over "References" in left side-bar and click on "Ohio SOS DAMs" for DAMs related to election issues from 2002-2008. Coverage by category is uneven.

VERMONT (Paul J McDonough)

Vermont Archives Series Database Search - The Series Database is an index to records in the Vermont State Archives. Series are comprised of file units or documents that are kept together because they relate to a particular subject or function, result from the same activity, document a specific type of transaction, take a particular physical form, or have some other relationship arising out of their creation, receipt, maintenance, or use.

DATABASES REMOVED

LOUISIANA

Procedural Risk Database
Former URL - http://www.dhh.state.la.us/offices/page.asp?id=99&detail=3587

This database describes risks and hazards related to medical care and surgical procedures. It was developed by the Louisiana Medical Disclosure Panel in accordance with Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1299.40. Search by the entire database or search for risks by procedure category.

The volunteers at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases are keeping busy with link checks and new databases.

NEW VOLUNTEERS

This week our project welcomes two new volunteers - Beth L. Rowe who has taken on Rhode Island and Richard Wojtowicz who has taken on Minnesota. We're grateful to them and all of our project volunteers.

NO ORPHAN TALK THIS WEEK

Although they are listed as orphans, Maryland and Maine have tentative volunteer documents specialists. If we can get them publicly engaged with their pages, all 50 states will be covered for the first time in the project's history. An announcement will be made when this happens.

WIKI ACTIVITY

Wiki activity has jumped with our quarterly link check.

For a full list of our last week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

Arizona (Daniel Cornwall)

School of Music MIDI database - Searchable database of public domain MIDI files from the following genres - Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, International Folk and Ethnic, Colonial American, and Pop Standards. Searchable by composer name, file title, nationality, genre, tempo (fast, moderate or slow) and by keywords. Some items also have public domain sheet music.

MISSISSIPPI (Carlos A. Diaz)

Mississippi MarketMaker - This database includes a great deal of market research information by age, household type, race, income, education, foreign born and food preferences. You can also search for farmers/ranchers, fisheries, and businesses near you.

NEVADA (Kathy Edwards)

Showgirls - Drawings and photographs of Las Vegas showgirls.

Kathy added a number of databases of historical significance to the Nevada page.

NEW YORK (Michael Tatonetti)

Historic Markers - Search for historic markers in New York State. Search by county.

NORTH CAROLINA (Jennifer Davison)

North Carolina Pedestrian and Bicycle Crash Data Tool - Learn about North Carolina police reported bicycle and pedestrian crashes. Information for almost 40,000 bicycle and pedestrian crashes with motor vehicles in North Carolina has been compiled to create an interactive database. Look for standard data tables for certain years or geographic areas, or create custom searches.

DATABASES REMOVED

MISSOURI (Annie Moots)

Exceedance Monitoring System - Search for E. coli and fecal coliform exceedances in waters of the State of Missouri by keyword, category, or search tag.

The volunteers at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases are keeping busy.

A NEW ORPHAN - MAINE

Maine has become our newest orphan. Outgoing volunteer Tim Schneider was kind enough to check the links on this page before he withdrew. He also updated a number of our "subject specific databases" pages as you'll see below.

We thank Tim for his work and hope someone will step forward and claim Maine.

If working with Maine interests you, check out our Volunteer Guide. If you can meet the basic responsibilities, send me an e-mail at danielcornwall@gmail.com.

WIKI ACTIVITY

Wiki activity ought to pick up this week because we are gearing up to do our quarterly check for broken links and hunt for new databases.

For a full list of our last week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

STATES

TEXAS (Ann Ellis)

Texas Sex Offender Registration Program - The database provides public access to the Department of Public Safety's sex offender registration program as required by the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. Six different search categories are included. Not all offenders are available in the the database.

SUBJECT SPECIFIC PAGES

BIOGRAPHICAL DATABASES

Maine Writers Database - Searchable database of writers with a relationship to the State of Maine. The connection may be birth, residency, employment or works that are set in Maine.

HEALTH CARE PRACTIONER DATABASES

Maine - Osteopathic Physician Search - License information for osteopathic physicians, searchable by name or license number.

HISTORICAL MEDIA DATABASES

Maine - Interactive Search - Searchable database of records available in the Maine State Archives in the following collections: Photographs, Maps, Movies, Newspapers.

OFFICIAL RECORDS DATABASES

Maine - Death History Search - Database of death records from 1960 to 1996. Searchable by Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Town of Death and date range. Results include name, date and town of death, age at death and death certificate number. Actual certificates must be ordered from the Maine State Archives.

PRISONER LOCATER DATABASES

Maine Prisoner/Probationer Search - Search for adult prisoners or probationers in the Maine Department of Corrections system. Search by name, gender, race/ethnicity, age, race and a number of physical characteristics.

STATE BLUE BOOKS

Maine - Added Main Statistics and made note that there is no official State Blue Book.

The volunteers at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases have continued work during the past two weeks.

VOLUNTEERS AND ORPHANS

People have tentatively agreed to take Maryland and Minnesota and will hopefully officially claim their pages in the next two weeks.

If these adoptions hold up, that will leave perpetual wallflower Rhode Island as the only state without a documents specialist to care for it.

If Rhode Island interests you at all, check out our Volunteer Guide. If you can meet the basic responsibilities, send me an e-mail at danielcornwall@gmail.com.

WIKI ACTIVITY

For a full list of our last two week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

MICHIGAN (Michael McDonnell)

Fish Contaminant Monitoring Program Online Database - The Michigan DEQ monitors contaminants in caged fish in order to identify sources of pollutants and areas of contaminant concentrations, edible portions of fish in order to develop fish eating advisories, and whole fish in order to track contaminant trends. You can search for each of these types of studies in various bodies of water in Michigan at this site.

NEW YORK (Michael Tatonetti)

New York State Physician Profile - Information about licensed physicians in New York State. Search by physician's name. Profiles contain the following information: Education, Practice Info., Legal Actions, Professional Activities, and Personal Statements.

UTAH (Susanne Caro)

Licensee Lookup & Verification System - Searchable by name, license number and profession. Currently, DOPL issues licenses in approximately 60 categories of licensure. Additionally, the majority of these license categories include several individual license classifications. For example, within the nursing profession, licenses can be obtained for an LPN, RN, CRNA, APRN, or CNM.

WASHINGTON (Marilyn Von Seggern)

AG Opinions - Subject and keyword access to the full text of Washington State Attorney General opinions from 1949 to present. A list by date and by topic is also provided.

The volunteers at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases remained busy this past week.

VOLUNTEERS AND ORPHANS

This week we officially welcome Susanne Caro to the ranks of our document specialist volunteers. She has taken on the Utah page and has begun fixing links.

With Susanne's arrival, we are left with these three states in need of adoption:

• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Rhode Island

If one of these states interests you, check out our Volunteer Guide. If you can meet the basic responsibilities, send me an e-mail at dnlcornwall AT Alaska DOT net.

WIKI ACTIVITY

For a full list of our last week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

ALASKA (Daniel Cornwall)

Alaska's Digital Sandbox (Public View) - Educator resource list of files, plans, websites and other items likely to be of value in an Alaskan K-12 classroom. Materials compiled by multiple school districts. Searchable by subject, grade level, type of resource and by keyword.

MICHIGAN (Michael McDonnell)

Data Explorer- Search this site for employment and income statistics, short and long term forecasts of employment in various professions, and population estimates.

NEW YORK (Michael Tatonetti)

Environmental Conservation Databases - Access to a variety of databases and maps. Contains the following specialized searches:

• Database of Environmental Remediation Sites and Spill Incidents
• Current Ambient Air Quality Forecasts and Data
• Oil and Gas Well Database
• Searchable On-line Mining Database
• DEC Permit Applications Search (DART)
• Water Well Contractor Search
• Docket Management System
• Certified Wastewater Facility Operators
• Issued Title V Air Permits
• Draft Title V Air Permits
• Issued State Facility Air Permits
• Draft State Facility Air Permits
• Breeding Bird Atlas Databases

The volunteers at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases remained busy this past week.

VOLUNTEERS AND ORPHANS

Utah has been tentatively adopted. Assuming all goes well, this would leave us with the following states in need of adoption:

• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Rhode Island

If one of these states interests you, check out our Volunteer Guide. If you can meet the basic responsibilities, send me an e-mail at dnlcornwall AT Alaska DOT net.

WIKI ACTIVITY

For a full list of our last week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

OHIO (Audrey Hall)

Century Farms - There are more than 850 registered Century Farms (farms within the same family for at least 100 years) in Ohio. Get a list of all farms by county or use the drop down list to select a specific county.

NEW JERSEY (Qraig de Groot)

Search for Senior Centers - Search by county and program type, city and program type, or name of facility to find Senior Centers in New Jersey.

NEW YORK (Michael Tatonetti)

New York State Nursing Home Profile - Information about nursing homes and the quality of care they provide. Search by county, zip code, nursing home name or special services.

TEXAS (Ann Ellis)

Texas Agricultural Research Project Database - This database is maintained by Texas Tech University and is designed to enhance communication about agricultural research in Texas for other research institutions, private industries, and individuals. Users may search the database by title of research project, research institution, or research problem area. The database also provides a full-text search engine.

The State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases is pleased to announce two new volunteeers:

• Michael Tatonetti, who is taking the New York page
• Jenn Zuccaro, who is taking the West Virginia page

Thanks to Michael and Jenn, we are down to these four orphan states with no one to care for them:

• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Rhode Island
• Utah

If one of these states interests you, check out our Volunteer Guide. If you can meet the basic responsibilities, send me an e-mail at dnlcornwall AT Alaska DOT net.

WIKI ACTIVITY

For a full list of our last week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

DELAWARE (John Stevenson)

The Flora of Delaware Online Database - As of January 29, 2012, the database contains 2,274 species, subspecies, and varieties (taxa), of native (1,577) and non-native (697) vascular plants known to occur in the state of Delaware.

OHIO (Audrey Hall)

County Soil Surveys and Supplements - Click the desired county on the map for a soil survey, interim soil survey or soil survey supplement. It is recommended to use only the text included in the soil surveys. Official up-to-date tables and soil maps should be viewed or downloaded at the Soil Data Mart or via the Web Soil Survey. At the Soil Data Mart select the "generate reports" button to then select the desired tables.

NEW YORK (Michael Tatonetti)

Laws of New York - Database listing of the Laws of New York State. Searchable by title or phrase.

Welcome to the first State Agency Databases activity report of 2012! We have a lot of activity to report from the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States Project.

STATISTICS FOR 2011 - PARTIAL YEAR

We started making note of project statistics in May 2011. This enables us to report partial year statistics (May - Dec 31) for our project pages. Here are a few highlights for 2011:

Total visits to state database pages - 73,606
Total visits to subject based database listings - 10,325

Top five states by number of visits:

Missouri 5592
Florida 3694
Alaska 3438
California 2786
Ohio 2437

Bottom five states by number of visits:

New York 478
Vermont 470
West Virginia 397
Maine 383
Minnesota 307

Most popular subject page - Prisoner Locaters - 6,239. This is also the most popular page in the entire project.

The full set of project statistics for our site can be found at http://tinyurl.com/StateAgencyDBstats2012 as a Google Spreadsheet.

NEW ORPHAN STATES FOR 2012

As a result of the yearly page review procedure put in place last year, the following states have become available for adoption:

Maryland
Minnesota
New York
Rhode Island
Utah
West Virginia

If adopting any of the above states interests you, please review our Volunteer Guide. If you think you can fulfill the basic responsibilities listed AND can start modifying your page within two weeks of receiving a wiki login, please e-mail me at danielcornwall@gmail.com.

SUBJECT PAGE ACTIVITY

Prisoner Locater Tools - An offender lookup tool for Utah was added to the page.

OTHER WIKI ACTIVITY

For a blow by blow list of changes to our project over the past 14 days, please see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

NEW MEXICO (Adrienne Walker)

The Judicial Branch of New Mexico - This online case lookup is maintained by The New Mexico Courts. This database gives access to the lower court cases of the New Mexico District Court, Magistrate Court and Municipal Court data. Municipal court data is limited to criminal Domestic Violence and DWI historic convictions from September 1, 1991 onwards. Searches can be conducted by name, case number or DWI.

NEW YORK (Orphan - Added while reformatting page)

New York State Kosher Food Registry Search - Registry is searchable by product (type or name, packaged or unpackaged), by food establishment name, by store (name or location), by name of certifier. Records for products include brand, name, size and certifying agency.

NORTH DAKOTA (Kathryn Thomas)

State Document Depository - State Documents can be searched in the library catalog. Lists of recent arrivals can be viewed by agency name and then by document title.

UTAH (Orphan - Added while reformatting page)

Utah Burials Search - Database of people buried in Utah. May be searched by deceased name, dates of birth and death, and burial place (any, county, city/town, cemetary). Records contain name, birth date, death date, burial date, place of birth (when available), place of death, grave location, source (when available), comments, when available.

Welcome to the last State Agency Databases Activity Report for 2011. As this report is written on Sundays, I'll be taking a break for Christmas and New Year's. If you celebrate Christmas I wish you a Merry Christmas, otherwise I wish you a great holiday season and hope you have a happy and informative 2012.

With our December link checking in full swing, this past week was quite busy at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

SUBJECT PAGE ACTIVITY

Health Practitioner Databases (Lynn McClelland)

With the addition of Maryland and New Mexico, Lynn McClelland reports that she has posted information on various kinds of health practitioners for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. We hope that you will explore and share this page far and wide.

If the Health Practitioner Databases page inspires you to create a subject page of your own, please let me know.

OTHER WIKI ACTIVITY

See our last seven days of activity at http://tinyurl.com/statedbs for a blow by blow description of changes to the wiki. Here are a few highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

CALIFORNIA (Joel Rane)

Online Documents Search Form - Decisions, resolutions, and rulings signed by the [Public Utilities] Commission are available online starting in July 2000, searchable by title, the type of document, date, proceeding number or the type of utility.

DELAWARE (John A. Stevenson)

DOE School Locator - Search for schools associated with an address or housing development.

GEORGIA (Chris Sharpe)

[Supreme Court] Computerized Docketing System and Case Types - Search by case number,attorney's name, or style.

NEW MEXICO (Adrienne Walker)

Child Care Search - This database provides a customized, detailed search based around your needs. Searches can be performed by important criteria such as location, age of child, days/hours of care, and others is maintained by Mexico Kids and lists child care providers that are licensed or registered by recognized regulatory agencies in the state of New Mexico. The online search requires registration to log in.

OTHER NEWS

After January 1, 2012, I will be examining pages to see the last time a volunteer touched them. Any pages that haven't been edited since January 1, 2011 will be reassigned.

Our volunteers remain active and productive at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. We are in the midst of our December link checking activity.

SUBJECT PAGE ACTIVITY

Health Practitioner Databases (Lynn McClelland)

With the addition of NV and ND. Lynn now has 46 states plus the District of Columbia represented on this page. Significant new information has been added to the Minnesota and North Carolina entries, among others.

OTHER WIKI ACTIVITY

See our last seven days of activity at http://tinyurl.com/statedbs for a blow by blow description of changes to the wiki. Here are a few highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

KENTUCKY (Glen Mcaninch)

Chiropractor Search - You can search the online database of providers by last name, license number, city or county.

LOUISIANA (Rita Franks)

Central Gaming Registry - From the website, "Louisiana Revised Statutes 27:15 (B)(3) requires the Louisiana Gaming Control Board to provide a central registry of all gaming operators licensed under the provisions of various Louisiana gaming acts. Under this statute the central gaming registry is to include the name and address of all licensees, the address of any location where authorized gaming takes place and the name and address of any person who owns or controls more than 5% interest in these establishments. Data can be accessed from the left side of the Central Gaming Registry Home Page screen and is listed in several different categories. + Expand will provide all data for the individual or business accessed. (Arrow) Previous and (Arrow) Next will move you forward and back through the database. Clicking on an entry will provide detailed information on the entry. Quarterly Listings and Ownership Charts are also accessed from the left side of the Home page. Quarterly Listings are stored by year."

WYOMING (Karen Kitchens)

Wyoming Boards and Commissions - This database contains a list of statutory requirements and a brief description of purpose for each State of Wyoming board and commission. Also contains a list of all board or commission members.

OTHER NEWS

After January 1, 2012, I will be examining pages to see the last time a volunteer touched them. Any pages that haven't been edited since January 1, 2011 will be reassigned.

Our volunteers remain active and productive at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

SUBJECT PAGE ACTIVITY

Health Practitioner Databases (Lynn McClelland)

With the addition of ID, KY, LA, MA, MN and NH. Lynn now has 44 states plus the District of Columbia represented on this page.

This page has gotten so comprehensive, the wiki made Lynn split the page in two. The original page now covers states A-M and the second page covers states N-Z. This is the kind of problem I love to have as project coordinator.

OTHER WIKI ACTIVITY

See our last 14 days of activity at http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d for a blow by blow description of changes to the wiki. Here are a few highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

ALASKA (Daniel Cornwall)

Alaska Film Locations Database - Operated by Reel Scout on behalf of the Alaska Film Office. Searchable by keyword or by category/subcategory, location name, region, town or distance with zip code. Records have name of location, nearest community, id code, photos, description and general notes.

CALIFORNIA (JOEL RANE)

California Information File - This database contains more than 50,000 references to California people, places, events, and subjects.

GEORGIA (Chris Sharpe)

Georgia Procurement Registry - Able to search state governments, municipalities, county governments, and K-12 school districts

NORTH CAROLINA (Jennifer Davison)

North Carolina Board of Nursing - Database of North Carolina licensed RNs and LPNs.

OTHER NEWS

Mid-December marks our next mass link check update. This should be less extensive than our link changes in September now that our volunteers have committed to checking pages at least quarterly. Some volunteers link check once a month.

Also, after January 1, 2012, I will be examining pages to see the last time a volunteer touched them. Any pages that haven't been edited since January 1, 2011 will be reassigned.

New for 2012, we will be changing our practice of permitting state listings where it is simply one link to a page of databases maintained by a state agency such as the case for New York. This change is intended to allow the inclusion of search results for that state in the wiki search. The libraries involved will be individually notified before the end of the year.