A bill in the Minnesota legislature would allow government agencies to post official notices on their web sites instead of in newspapers and would require a "permanent record" of publications to be "maintained." Included would be publication of transportation projects, proceedings, official notices, and summaries of meetings. The bill apparently does not designate who will preserve the information nor does it specify how to preserve the information except for the caveat that the records must be in "a form accessible by the public."

• H.F. No. 1286, as introduced - 88th Legislative Session (2013-2014) Posted on Mar 05, 2013.

  Subd. 4. Record retention. A political subdivision that publishes notice on its Web site under this section must ensure that a permanent record of publication is maintained in a form accessible by the public.

We would, of course, like to see a bit more detail of the implementation, perhaps even including requirements for deposit of records in a Trusted Repository, provisions for discovery, access, use, and bulk download, and, ideally, a state-law-compliant deposit into libraries.

One section of the bill does specify that print copies of "documents" published on the web must be made available at all public libraries within the jurisdiction. This is not a bad requirement, but it does seem to us to be short-sighted to require deposit of paper copies and not require deposit of digital copies. Libraries could provide enhanced access and service over what the government could provide and could provide redundant digital preservation.

Subd. 5. Print copies. When a political subdivision publishes exclusively on the Web site, it must also make print copies of all published documents available at the main office of the political subdivision, any other government offices designated by the political subdivision, all public libraries within the jurisdiction, and by mail upon request.

Activity this week at the State Agency Databases project (http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases) was focused on renovations to the Maryland page. More on that in a moment.

ORPHANS - WE'RE STILL STUCK AT THREE, PLEASE HELP OR SPREAD THE WORD

Our tally of states in need of volunteer document specialists is stuck at three as no one came forward this week to claim any of the following:

• Hawaii
• Minnesota
• Oklahoma

If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting.

If you're NOT interested in adopting one of the states above, would you please forward this note or blog about the opportunity? Maybe someone you know would like to share or deepen their knowledge of Hawaii, Minnesota or Oklahoma produced databases. Thank you in advance for your forwards and reblogs.

DATABASE ACTIVITY

As mentioned at the top, all of the database activity this week can be attributed to Siu Min Yu, volunteer for Maryland. Some of the databases added to Maryland this week include:

Appellate Court Opinions in PDF - From the website, "Only reported opinions are available here. Reported opinions appearing on this website may not be the final, official version of the text of Appellate Court opinions/orders. Only the bound volumes of the Maryland Reports and Maryland Appellate Reports contain the final, official texts of the reported opinions of the Maryland Court of Appeals and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals."

General Assembly, Code of Public General Laws of Maryland - From the website, "The Code is arranged by subject matter and organized into “Articles” (e.g. Transportation Article), which are further subdivided into “titles”, “subtitles”, “sections”, “subsections”, “paragraphs”, subparagraphs”, etc."

Maps and Map Data - Search the GIS Map and Map Data Portal.

Water Quality Mapping Data - A searchable database containing hundreds of water quality maps.

Trademark Search - Search the Trademarks & Service Marks Database in the State of Maryland. From the website, "The list which results from your search is made up of summary information filed with the Office of the Secretary of State of Maryland. This information may not reflect the most recent information on file. The last updated date below does not necessarily pertain to the database information to be searched."

I was signed up for the Help! webinar on Homeland Security Digital Library, but unfortunately was unable to make the session. But luckily, all sessions are recorded and posted along with slides for future access on their site. This was a particularly interesting session presented by Greta Marlatt, the Outreach and Collection Development Manager for the Naval Postgraduate School’s Dudley Knox Library and the Content Manager for the Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL). Greta pointed out several interesting aspects to the HSDL site:

• Compile hearing transcripts, prepared testimonies and video links from Committee pages
• Get permissions for hosting publications from other agencies and organizations (similar to our Everyday Electronic Materials (EEMs) project described earlier)
• Weekly email alerts for targeted search strategies
• Post CRS reports
• Homeland security related blogs aggregated

I think it's especially interesting that Greta and her team are compiling govt information and hosting digital files from other agencies and organizations. I highly recommend going back and listening to this presentation and ALL of the past Help! webinars!!

Kudos to Lynda Kellam and the rest of the group of North Carolina librarians putting out these interesting and informative Help! I'm an Accidental Government Information Librarian Webinars!

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is the nation's premier research collection of open-source resources related to homeland security policy, strategy and organizational management. The HSDL is sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA.

Greta Marlatt is the Outreach and Collection Development Manager for the Naval Postgraduate School’s Dudley Knox Library and the Content Manager for the Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL). She has over 30 years of experience working in libraries in various capacities. Ms. Marlatt has published several articles and is the author of a number of bibliographies and help guides for topics relating to Intelligence, Information Warfare, Special Operations, Homeland Security, Mine Warfare, Directed Energy Weapons, NBC Terrorism and more. She has given numerous presentations on topics related to conducting research in the homeland security and military arenas. Ms. Marlatt holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Arizona State University, a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Arizona and a Master of Arts degree in National Security Studies from California State University, San Bernardino.

Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks testified before the House Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations on Feb 26, 2013. She discussed the potential impact of the upcoming sequester scheduled for March 1, the results of the recent National Academy of Public Administration study of GPO, and GPO's appropriations request for FY 2014, which will be submitted to the House and Senate later this week. The GPO press release about the testimony does not mention the NAPA recommendation to charge fees for access to FDsys (see NAPA releases report on GPO).

Excerpt from press release, emphasis added:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 26, 2013
No. 13-07

ACTING PUBLIC PRINTER TESTIFIES BEFORE HOUSE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE

WASHINGTON - Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks testified before the House Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations today, discussing the potential impact of the upcoming sequester scheduled for March 1, the results of the recent National Academy of Public Administration study of GPO, and GPO's appropriations request for FY 2014, which will be submitted to the House and Senate later this week.

Under the sequester, GPO will see its appropriations cut by 5.3%, or approximately $6.7 million, which will affect the agency's statutory and essential functions. To offset the cut, GPO's plan is to freeze hiring, overtime, performance awards, outside training, administrative travel, and nonessential maintenance and repairs. GPO may also face a decrease in revenue from Federal agency customers who order less printing and other information services due to the impact of sequester on their budget. The extent of this revenue impact is unknown at this time. To offset it, GPO will cut back on technology and other investments, which would delay the development of digital products and services, such as mobile apps for Congress and Federal agencies, as well as other technology upgrades and projects to improve public access to Government information. If necessary, a furlough of GPO's workforce may also be implemented.

The recent study of GPO by the National Academy of Public Administration underscores the value of GPO's products and services in Keeping America Informed, and makes useful recommendations to better position the Federal Government in the digital era, strengthen GPO's business model, and build the GPO of the future. Vance-Cooks voiced support for the recommendations and said the agency is already at work on them. For FY 2014, GPO plans to request $128.5 million, a 1.2% increase over the funding currently provided for FY 2013. The request includes a decrease of $11.5 million in congressional printing costs and an increase of $12.4 million in investments for continued growth for GPO's digital systems and investments.

"Regardless of budget constraints, GPO is committed to serving as the digital information platform and provider of secure credentials for the Federal Government," said Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks. "GPO is prepared to make the necessary cutbacks in order to continue to carry out its mission of Keeping America Informed."

Thanks in part to a We the People petition signed by 65,000 people(!), President Obama's science advisor, John Holdren, issued a directive on Friday to all research funding agencies to develop plans to make the results of federally-funded research publically available free of charge within 12 months of publication. It also requires that scientists receiving taxpayer dollars to improve upon the management and sharing of scientific data. This is huge! By my rough count, that means that approximately 20 US agencies will now make the science they fund available to the public. The only thing better would be for President Obama to support FREE access to ALL federal govt publications by assuring that FDsys remains freely available (one of the recommendations of the recent NAPA report was the tremendously backward and short-sighted suggestion that GPO charge for access to their FDsys database!)

See the policy memorandum, Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research

The Obama Administration is committed to the proposition that citizens deserve easy access to the results of scientific research their tax dollars have paid for. That’s why, in a policy memorandum released today, OSTP Director John Holdren has directed Federal agencies with more than $100M in R&D expenditures to develop plans to make the published results of federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication and requiring researchers to better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research. OSTP has been looking into this issue for some time, soliciting broad public input on multiple occasions and convening an interagency working group to develop a policy. The final policy reflects substantial inputs from scientists and scientific organizations, publishers, members of Congress, and other members of the public—over 65 thousand of whom recently signed a We the People petition asking for expanded public access to the results of taxpayer-funded research.

To see the new policy memorandum, please visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ostp_publi...

To see Dr. Holdren’s response to the We the People petition, please visit: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/increasing-public-access-resul...

Michael Stebbins is Assistant Director for Biotechnology at OSTP

This week featured continued activity at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

WELCOME PAM!

Pam Crawford officially adopted the Kansas page this week and immediately got to work on a number of updates.

ORPHANS - THEN THERE WERE THREE

The adoption of Kansas leaves us with just three states waiting for volunteer government information specialists/enthusiasts to adopt them:

• Hawaii
• Minnesota
• Oklahoma

If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting.

DATABASE ACTIVITY

For a complete picture of activity on our project this week, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

FLORIDA (Wilhelmina Randtke)

CHARTS Community Health Assessment Resource Tool Set - Includes such health statistics as births, deaths, disease morbidity, behavioral risk factors, communicable diseases, chronic diseases, maternal & child health, environmental health, injury & violence, social & mental health, and population characteristics.

KANSAS (Pam Crawford)

Addiction Treatment Centers - Searchable by zip code, county, or city.

MARYLAND (Siu Min Yu)

Maryland Funding Accountability & Transparency - Search by agency making a payment, by vendor receiving a payment or by zip code of a vendor receiving payment. From the website, "This is a public web site which allows citizens of Maryland and visitors to search and view summary information on payments made to vendors that received $25,000 or more for the respective fiscal year. Information is currently available beginning Fiscal Year 2008."

If you're an aspiring (or accidental) data librarian, or just want to know more about Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), then here's a webinar for you!

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/343617266

This session will cover effective search strategies, ICPSR’s bibliography of data-related literature, our growing tools associated with the social science variables database, and more!

This session is for those who are searching for research data or teaching tools and those who are helping others to find data or teaching tools.
Title: Hands-Ons with ICPSR - Discovering ICPSR Data
Date: Monday, February 25, 2013
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Daniel Schuman of the Sunlight Foundation has a must-read post about the Government Printing Office, the Joint Committee on Printing, and The Statutes at Large:

• 
  GPO is Closing Gap on Public Access to Law at JCP's Direction, But Much Work Remains, by Daniel Schuman, The Sunlight Foundation (Feb. 19, 2013).

  The GPO's recent electronic publication of all legislation enacted by Congress from 1951-2009 is noteworthy for several reasons. It makes available nearly 40 years of lawmaking that wasn't previously available online from any official source, narrowing part of a much larger information gap. It meets one of three long-standing directives from Congress's Joint Committee on Printing regarding public access to important legislative information. And it has published the information in a way that provides a platform for third-party providers to cleverly make use of the information. While more work is still needed to make important legislative information available to the public, this online release is a useful step in the right direction.

This week featured a burst of activity at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. We saw many, many link fixes in addition to the new databases featured below.

WELCOME WILHELMINA!

Wilhelmina Randtke officially adopted the Florida page this week and immediately got to work on a number of updates.

ORPHANS - THE FINAL FOUR

The adoption of Florida leaves us with just four states waiting for volunteer government information specialists/enthusiasts to adopt them:

• Hawaii
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Oklahoma

If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting.

DATABASE ACTIVITY

For a complete picture of activity on our project, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

FLORIDA (Wilhelmina Randtke)

Accommodations Finder - makes planning your trip to Florida easy by searching accommodations and activities by category: attractions, birding, boating, campgrounds, cycling, dining, diving & snorkeling, fishing, golf, hiking, historic attractions, historical lodging, museums, natural history, parks, performing arts, romance, shopping, spas, and visitor services.

MONTANA (Susanne Caro)

Montana Place Names - This traveler’s guide, based on the places found on the 2003 Montana highway map, explores the origins of more than 1100 Montana place names, hundreds of geographic features and historical locations.

INDIANA (Stephanie Martin)

Business Entity Name Search - From website, search database to "Get information on Indiana companies, download official Certificates, order Business Entity Documents, and locate Control number."

DATABASES REMOVED

FLORIDA

Institution Search & Profiles (formally at http://www.facts.org/) - provides details on a particular postsecondary school in Florida such as admissions information, cost, degrees offered, total enrollment, or activities and sports available.

The Sunlight Foundation has just released Open States for all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The site helps the public find their state legislators, review their votes, search upcoming legislation, and track bill progress. Open States gets their Bill, legislator, committee and event data from official sources, linked at the bottom of each legislator, bill, vote, committee or event page. Check out their methodology for more. They rely primarily on scraping data from sites. Wouldn't it be awesome of all state legislatures had bulk data feeds so that 1000 sites like Open States could bloom? Join the Webinar on February 22nd to learn more about Open States.

After more than four years of work from volunteers and a full-time team here at Sunlight we're immensely proud to launch the full Open States site with searchable legislative data for all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Open States is the only comprehensive database of activities from all state capitols that makes it easy to find your state lawmaker, review their votes, search for legislation, track bills and much more.

If you're interested in your state lawmaker, you'll be able to get notifications for their actions, a map of their district, voting records, committee assignments, campaign finance records from Influence Explorer, local news articles and contact information. If you're curious about a particular piece of legislation, Open States allows you to check on its status, find the sponsors, break down votes, view bill text and all supporting documents. Our powerful search capabilities allow you to find similar topics across states and view overview pages for each state, chamber and committee.