State Agency Databases Activity Report 2/10/2013

This was a mostly quiet week at the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases [1]. Quiet enough that I would not normally put out an activity report, but there are two notable things I wanted to share with you.

ORPHANS - THE FINAL FOUR?

The adoption of Florida is pending. That 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 [2] and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com [3] with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting.

CALIFORNIA'S DATABASE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

As most government information specialists are aware, local government documents are probably the most elusive of all. California has taken a step to try to make their local government documents easier to find and use. I (and any other user of the State Agency Databases wiki) was made aware of this by Joel Rane, the volunteer for California. Here is his annotation of California [4]'s new resource:

California Local Government Documents [5] - An extensive database of local government documents across the state; if a document is not online, a scanned copy is hosted by the Berkeley IGS. Includes access to local municipal codes and charters, searchable by city; documents related to land use and development issues, searchable by jurisdiction, type of planning document and year (at both county and city level); and budgets and financial reports for Bay Area cities, county budgets and annual financial reports, and annual reports from county grand juries, all searchable by keyword. A tremendous resource.

Hats off to UC Berkeley for putting this together and thanks to Joel Rane for making the rest of us aware of this new resource for one state's local documents.