[UPDATE: I spoke too soon. Seems that these are "early access" documents that "will be removed from this database, to be replaced by the fully edited version in the appropriate digital edition in the Rotunda American Founding Era collection."]

Nice work U of Virginia! You can access the papers here. I hope this makes it into the FDLP digitization registry.

More than 200 years after they were written, some 5,000 previously unpublished documents of the founders of the United States — including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison — are at long last available to the public at no cost.

The Documents Compass group of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia has spent much of the last year proofreading and transcribing thousands of pages of letters and other papers.

The documents are now available online for free at the University of Virginia Press’ digital imprint called Rotunda...

...The online project is a federal pilot study that aims to expand public access to the papers of America’s founders. It is funded by a $250,000 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is a division of the National Archives.

[Thanks Resource Shelf!]

In September 2009 we at Free Government Information (FGI) started the "lost docs blog" at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info to collect your receipts from GPO about the fugitive documents you reported through GPO's lost docs form at www.fdlp.gov/lostdocs or through GPO's Help system at gpo.custhelp.com.

Here is the November Lost Docs Report and Appeal:

REPORT

Thanks to the continued generosity of documents librarians, we posted 60 reports of fugitive documents submitted to GPO. These receipts were a mixture of old receipts and items actually reported in November 2009.

Of these 60 reported items, 17 items have been cataloged by GPO. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with November 2009 dates. We are appreciative of these new records.

In our view, only one of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in November were either out of scope for the Catalog of Government Publications or were already in the catalog. You can view this item by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with November 2009 dates.

APPEAL

If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:

1. If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month.
2. Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
3. Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
4. Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/
   or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.

Noah Shactman's cool Danger Room blog (from Wired) posted recently about the CIA's declassified Lost Magic Manual that has just resurfaced. In 1953, the CIA hired professional magician John Mulholland to adapt his techniques of stealth and misdirection to the craft of espionage. According to the BBC News, "the guide was part of a larger CIA programme, called Project MKULTRA, aimed at countering the Soviet mind-control techniques of the Cold War era." The classified manuals were believed to have been destroyed in 1973, but Intelligence historian H. Keith Melton and retired CIA officer Robert Wallace discovered a copy in 2007 in the CIA Archives. The Boston Globe has a great visual summary of some of Mulholland’s best tricks. Get a copy from isbn.nu. A great addition to any library. In fact a bunch of them already have a copy!

At the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency paid $3,000 to renowned magician John Mulholland to write a manual on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft. All known copies of the document — and a related paper, on conveying hidden signals — were believed to be destroyed in 1973. But recently, the manuals resurfaced, and have now been published as “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception.” Topics include working a clandestine partner, slipping a pill into the drink of the unsuspecting, and “surreptitious removal of objects by women.”

January 1, 2010 is Public Domain Day, according to the Open Knowledge Foundation. And on January 1, the works of 563 authors will enter into the public domain! See OKFN's public domain database. You can change the year on the end of the url to see list of public domain works for other years or search/browse by person or work. Pretty cool. Some of the more famous authors whose works will be released to the public domain include Sigmund Freud, Zane Grey, Sidney Howard, Ford Hermann Hueffer (aka Ford Madox Ford), Edward Sapir, Constance Lindsay Skinner, and William Butler Yeats.

[Thanks Open Knowledge Foundation!]

Google announced recently that Google Scholar searches would now include legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate, and supreme courts. There is an early review of this service at LLRX:

• Bridging the DiGital Divide: A New Vendor in Town? Google Scholar Now Includes Case Law. By John J. DiGilio, LLRX (November 18, 2009).

Is Google Scholar a replacement for the more expensive case law providers on the market? DiGilio says not really, but that it does offer is an amazing place to start case research.

The Columbia Journalism Review "Audit" section (which reports on the business press) has created a guide to information about big federal spending programs. It has lots of links and explanations of what you can find. This is a great starting point for tracking down information on the Bailout and Stimulus.

• BAILOUT! STIMULUS!—YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE, Columbia Journalism Review, "The Audit."

In a specially commissioned study, The Audit here takes a look at online resources tracking the bailout and stimulus money, from government web sites to independently run operations. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s pretty good.

According to the White House Blog (Making A List, Checking It Twice, by Katie Stanton, November 23, 2009):

Today we’re launching a list on the official White House account on Twitter which will make it easier for people to follow U.S. Government Twitter feeds. We’ve included a variety of accounts from Cabinet Secretaries, Agencies and Departments.

The list address is http://twitter.com/whitehouse/usg.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched Health IT Buzz, a new blog for the discussion of Information Technology (IT) issues, particularly electronic health records.

David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said on the initial posting:

With this new venture, we hope to create a forum for engagement. We plan to report on progress, and create an open dialogue among members of the health IT community. We intend to address a wide and diverse range of timely topics relevant to the “why’s and how’s” of efforts to support the secure and seamless exchange of electronic health information. We will discuss our ongoing work to protect patient privacy, secure information, and implement standards. We’ll also be using the blog to provide additional information regarding our new grant programs. And the conversation wouldn’t be complete without discussing the meaningful use rulemaking and incentive programs, clarifying our vision and addressing key challenges.

We want to hear from citizens, patients, health professionals, managers, policymakers, technology enthusiasts and technology skeptics. We can’t succeed unless we understand the wishes and concerns of the many constituencies we serve.

Libraries, Journalism, and Publishing share some common issues and face many common challenges in the digital age. It seems particularly appropriate that, as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) holds a workshop on the future of journalism, it is using digital tools to reach more people.

The FTC will hold workshops in Washington, DC on December 1 and 2, 2009, to explore how the Internet has affected journalism. The event is free and open to the public. The workshop will assemble representatives from print, online, broadcast and cable news organizations, academics, consumer advocates, bloggers, and other new media representatives.

• How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?

You can submit questions using the Twitter tag #ftcnews.

Comments can be filed online at https://public.commentworks.com/ftc/newsmediaworkshop. See submitted comments here.

A live webcast will be available on the day of the event. Bookmark this page and come back on December 1st and 2nd to link to the webcast.

Updates regarding workshops, including an agenda and panelists will be posted on this webpage, or can be accessed via RSS Feed.

Even with this year's introduction of S.Res. 118 and H.R. 3762, it is still important to encourage our Government to make Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports publicly accessible online!

Thus, I finally updated the latest list of Bills and contact information for the sponsoring Congressmen in the Delicious.com "CRS" tag Delicious.com "CRS" tag.

See also: CRS Reports to the People! Part 1 and Part 2 for more information on how to contact/write to your Congressmen.

Recently Bert Chapman, the Government Information & Political Science Librarian and Professor of Library Science at Purdue University, posted a comment (An Economic Case Against Homosexuality) on his blog (Conservative Librarian, October 27, 2009).

We disagree both with Bert's premises (that homosexuality is "aberrant " or a "lifestyle" or that it is a "threat" to "traditional sexual morality") and with his conclusions (that "the extremely high financial costs" justify imposing one's religious beliefs on others).

In fact, we do not believe that any economic argument could justify denying basic human rights to members of our society. Jonathan Swift made this point better than we ever could in his satiric piece, A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick (1729).

We understand that, in a secular country whose citizens embrace many (often conflicting) religious beliefs, we make economic and legal choices democratically all the time. Those decisions come from what we as a society value collectively, democratically. We make those choices with the understanding that the process will yield good decisions for all (including minorities). We also believe that, in this country, we have an explicit, Constitutional responsibility to refrain from imposing one religious or philosophical belief on others who do not share that belief.

Although we reject Bert's premise that economics can be used as an argument "against homosexuality," we do recognize that some people might find Bert's "economic case" convincing even if they do not share Bert's religious beliefs. For that reason, we think it important, even necessary, to address the factual inaccuracies of Bert's posting.

Our colleague and guest FGI blogger Amy West, Data Services Librarian at the University of Minnesota, has investigated Bert's claims and reports, below, on her findings.

--FGI

=============================================

Introduction
As the FGI folks say above, I'm not planning to discuss the premises underlying Bert's article. Instead, I will take his arguments as is and respond. As I look at the comments he's received on his site, on the article in Inside Higher Ed (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/13/purdue) and on professional listservs, I notice no one has systematically addressed the figures he presents, or more commonly doesn't present. So, paragraph by paragraph, here's what I found...

Paragraph One: Introduction - no factual assertions

Paragraph Two: Federal Expenditures on HIV/AIDS
Bert says that federal expenditures on HIV/AIDS related activities in 2008 are $23.3 billion dollars, but provides no citation. So, I went to the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR) from the Bureau of the Census. The CFFR provides annual reports on funds expended by the federal government. According to the CFFR, in Fiscal Year 2008, the federal government expended $3,692,496,880 on activities related to HIV and AIDS.(1) However, the total amount of federal expenditures is $4,416,612,547,616 or $4.4 trillion dollars. Thus, HIV/AIDS expenditures would be 0.08% of all federal expenditures. Yes, $3.6 billion dollars is a lot of money, but in context of the overall federal budget, it's a tiny, tiny portion of the pie. Does this really constitute an undue burden on the overall population? For some additional perspective, keep in mind that federal flood insurance expenditures for FY 2008 were $1.16 trillion dollars or 26% of total federal expenditures.(2)

Paragraph Three: Costs from pharmaceuticals and patient care as a result of sexually transmitted diseases.
Bert suggests that we should factor in costs from behaviors he's opposed to, but doesn't provide any such data himself - just implies that there must be a cost and it must be significant. However, if you look at the leading causes of death from the Centers for Disease Control, you'll see that the number one cause of death in the U.S. is heart disease.(3) Further, as of 2005, Forbes.com reported that the best-selling drug in the U.S. was Lipitor ($8.4 billion in sales in the list attached to the article), which treats high cholesterol (a factor in heart disease).(4) Given the readily available data showing that other diseases and associated treatments are significant factors in health care costs, it's going to take more than an assertion to make this point. It's also worth noting that $8.4 billion dollars in sales for a single drug for a single health condition in 2005 is more than double all federal spending on HIV/AIDS programs for 2008 as reported in the CFFR.

Paragraph Four: HIV/AIDS in Prisons
The inclusion of this paragraph is a mystery. Rape is certainly bad in any circumstance, but the relationship of prison rape to HIV/AIDS and any economic costs is left unstated in Bert's post. Of note is the series HIV in Prisons published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics which shows that for 2006, "1.6% of male inmates and 2.4% of female inmates in state and federal prisons were known to be HIV positive or to have confirmed AIDS."(5) HIV in Prisons sheds no light on how or when the prisoners acquired HIV/AIDS because of the varied methods in which testing occurs in prisons.(6)

Paragraph Five: Domestic Partner Employee Benefits Reduce Benefits to Heterosexual Couples
Once again, there is no data here, just assertions. There is reference to an article called "Do Domestic Partner Benefits Make Good Economic Sense?" as a source of supporting data.(7) This article relies on a single study of small businesses to make arguments regarding all domestic partnership benefit packages from all employers of all sizes. Yet, even the authors of this article acknowledge that there exists no data to prove their claims when they say "To date there is very little publicly available data-and no publicly available actuarial studies-on the cost of health-care for live-in partners, for nearly 90 percent of the employers with such benefits adopted them within the past six years. Moreoever, most employers and insurers either do not track the cost of domestic partnership benefits separately, or do not disclose the information publicly. Accordingly, it is nearly impossible to accurately predict the cost of granting cohabitation benefits."(8) In fact, the study on which they rely analyzed small businesses. It may well be that adding domestic partnership benefits is more expensive for small companies than large companies, but that could just be an effect of the overall structure of health care in the U.S. According to the fact sheet "The Economic Effects of Health Care Reform on Small Businesses and their Employees" from the Council of Economic Advisers, the current structure of health care means that small businesses usually pay 18% more the same sets of benefits as large employers, regardless of what those benefits might be.(9)

Paragraph Six: Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage nationwide will increase costs for insurance, estate planning, divorce
There is no data in this paragraph; just what a "what-if" scenario. Since only five states allow same-sex marriages and federal law actively bans them, there simply is no data on which to base speculations on the effect of expanding marriage to more people with respect to insurance, estate planning and divorce law.(10) It is worth noting though that for those people who do have the option to marry, not all is rosy: nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.(11) Any increase in costs associated with marriage and divorce (if there are any) must lie with heterosexual couples because they are only ones with a guaranteed right to do both nationwide.

Paragraph Seven: Conclusion - - no factual assertions

Conclusion
Bert describes his post as a description of "substantive realities which cannot be denied". However, as I show above, he describes neither current reality nor provides indisputable data. If there is an economic case to be made against homosexuality, it's not present here.

(1) West, Amy. "HIV/AIDS Expenditures." Consolidated Federal Funds Report. https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuLB6VoqlRSidE11YVZBMFRMZFB2Uzh.... Accessed 11/16/09.
(2) Bureau of the Census. "Table 9. Federal Government Insurance Programs—Volume of Coverage Provided by State and Outlying Area: Fiscal Year 2008." Consolidated Federal Funds Report for Fiscal Year 2008. http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/cffr-08.pdf. Accessed 11/16/09.
(3) Centers for Disease Control. "Deaths and Mortality." FASTSTATS. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm. Accessed 11/16/09.
(4) Herper, Matthew. "The Best-Selling Drugs In America." Forbes.com. http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/27/pfizer-merck-genentech-cx_mh_0224topsel.... Accessed 11/16/09.
(5) Maruschak, Laura M. "Highlights." HIV in Prisons, 2006. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/hivp/2006/hivp06.htm#highlights. Accessed 11/16/09.
(6) Maruschak, Laura M. "HIV Testing in Prisons." HIV in Prisons, 2006. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/hivp/2006/hivp06.htm#testing. Accessed 11/16/09.
(7) Corporate Resource Council. Do Domestic Partner Benefits Make Good Economic Sense? http://www.corporateresourcecouncil.org/white_papers/DP_Good_Business_Se.... Accessed 11/16/09.
(8)ibid, pg. 1.
(9)Council of Economic Advisors. The Economic Effects of Health Care Reform on Small Businesses and their Employees. http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/Health-Care-Reform-and-.... Accessed 11/16/09.
(10) United States Congress. To define and protect the institution of marriage. P.L. 104-199. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_publi.... Accessed 11/16/09.
(11) Centers for Disease Control. "Marriage and Divorce." FASTSTATS. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm. Accessed 11/16/09.

This week is Geography Awareness Week (November 15-21, 2009). As part of the week's celebrations, National Geographic invited all 100 U.S. Senators to draw a map of their home state from memory and to label at least three important places. Sadly, only 11 Senators responded, but some, like Richard Durbin of IL, did so with humor and historic knowledge. I guess not all Senators are as geographically adept as Al Franken, who can freehand draw the entire US surprisingly well.

While not part of the GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki, I wanted to highlight a new guide from the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau:

Tap the Power: Foreclosure Crisis

The introduction to this annotated bibliography states:

With the collapse of the subprime mortgage market early in 2007, foreclosures reached crisis level, and the crisis continues today. In answer, federal, state, and local governments have implemented programs to help alleviate the problem and stabilize neighborhoods. This bibliography presents a selection of print and online resources about foreclosure and the programs implemented by states and the federal government to help homeowners.

I think the folks at the WI LRB deliver on this promise. A few of the resources highlighted include:

Characteristics and Performance of Nonprime Mortgages / U.S. Government Accountability Office. July 28, 2009. GAO was asked to examine the nonprime mortgage market to help inform congressional efforts to deal with the problems in the mortgage industry. www.gao.gov/new.items/d09848r.pdf

Foreclosure to Homelessness 2009: The Forgotten Victims of the Subprime Crisis / National Coalition for the Homeless, et al. 2009. (347.62/N21) One phenomenon of the current foreclosure crisis is that many homeowners who lose their homes end up not in apartments, but on the street. This report examines how this happens and makes policy recommendations.
www.nationalhomeless.org/advocacy/ForeclosuretoHomelessness0609.pdf

"The Giant Pool of Money" / National Public Radio, This American Life, May 9, 2008, episode 355. This podcast of the episode, originally broadcast in 2008, provides a thorough summary of the housing crisis. Available in audio or transcript format. www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

Like the resources from the Handout Exchange, I encourage you to check out the whole guide. Regardless of where you live, I think you'll find it worthwhile. I hope you'll also find it just another example of the value that librarians offer over unorganized information.

Here is an interesting collection of officially unofficial military blogs, facebook, flickr, myspace, and delicious pages, youtube channels, twitter accounts, and more.

• DoD Social Media (Defense.gov "Registered Sites")

So, yes, the National Guard has a facebook page and COCOM - CENTCOM - U.S. Forces Afghanistan has a YouTube channel, but the disclaimer says that that they are not "endorsed" by the DoD and that the DoD does not "exersise any editorial control of the information you may find" [insert ironic "sic" here]. So, Official, but UnOfficial. Registered, but not endorsed. Good sources of information, but unedited. Consistent with the mission, but ... use at your own risk?

The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the United States Department of Defense of the linked web sites, or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) sites, the United States Department of Defense does not exersise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. All links are provided consistent with the mission of Defense.gov.

While these quasi-official social media channels are at least quasi-official, there is even more, less-official, information coming soon. A Twitter thread on Gov 2.0 has been hot recently asking the question, "What if every govt employee have a blog?" and referring to this O'Reilly post: Why Posterous Is a Smart Tool For Informal Government Blogging.

See also: Lost Conversations, Lost Decisions, Lost History.

Josh Tauberer has a follow up to his earlier post on Congressional Video.

In it he quotes and notes:

> With the exception of distinct 'direct download' links on the House
> Energy Committee page, committees' technology choices stand in the
> way of reuse or archival. Saving streams from the various proprietary
> protocols used by committees requires specialized tools which may
> violate DMCA. Given the public domain status of these videos, formats
> and technologies which encourage -- rather than defeat -- archival
> and reuse by citizen/users should be adopted.

To reiterate some of that: it may be illegal to make copies of some of these videos under the DMCA law because the videos are provided in particular proprietary formats. That is so even if the committee says it is ok to copy it.

and suggests:

* For the sake of archives and use by professional journalists, provide a stream that is high-quality (it probably exists but just isn't public).

* Similarly, provide the streams at least additionally in a format that does not make it a violation of federal law to copy (again, it's a problem regardless of whether the committee says "go ahead").

* Remove any additional assertions (e.g. House Rules) on how congressional video may be used. Either it is public or it is not. It is an affront to free speech if Congress thinks government records, of all things, should be off-limits to any part of public discourse.

* Partner with experts in the public --- e.g. Aphid and Carl Malamud --- on establishing goals for congressional video.