The White House now has a Tumblr account:

• Whitehouse.tumblr.com

  We see some great things here at the White House every day, and sharing that stuff with you is one of the best parts of our jobs. That’s why we’re launching a Tumblr. We’ll post things like the best quotes from President Obama, or video of young scientists visiting the White House for the science fair, or photos of adorable moments with Bo. We’ve got some wonky charts, too. Because to us, those are actually kind of exciting.

  But this is also about you. President Obama is committed to making this the most open and accessible administration in history, and our Tumblr is no exception.

  We want to see what you have to share: Questions you have for the White House, stories of what a policy like immigration reform means to you, or ways we can improve our Tumbling. We’re new here, and we’re all ears.

The Government Printing Office has joined the social networking site Pinterest that "lets you organize and share all the beautiful things."

• pinterest.com/usgpo/.

The GPO press release says:

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) expands its social media presence by joining Pinterest. Connecting people through 'things' they find interesting is the founding principle of Pinterest and a natural fit with GPO's core mission of Keeping America Informed on the three branches of the Federal Government. GPO will use Pinterest to share historic photos, videos, products, and Government publications with the public. Pinterest joins GPO's other social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Government Book Talk blog.

Link to GPO's Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/usgpo/

"GPO is constantly evolving and keeping up-to-date on public trends and the popular ways to access and share information," said Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks. "GPO's expansion of social media supports our mission of Keeping America Informed. Joining Pinterest is one more way GPO can engage the public and continue to serve as the official link between the Federal Government and public."

The General Services Administration has launched two new sites: one for federal agencies to register their social media accounts and one for users to verify if a social media account is really an official federal account.

• GSA tool lets people verify genuine federal social media accounts, By Alice Lipowicz, FCW (Apr 27, 2012).

  Federal agencies need help tracking their social media accounts, and citizens need help verifying which government accounts are authentic. Now the General Services Administration has stepped in to address both of those concerns with a new online solution.

• Verify federal U.S. government social media accounts, USA.gov

  The government uses social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to connect with people and communicate official information, so it's important to know if a social media account is really managed by the government.

  We're currently working on a tool that will let you verify if a social media account is officially managed by the U.S. government. This tool will be available soon on this page.

• Check & Register: Federal Social Media Accounts, by Justin Herman, HowTo.gov (Apr. 26, 2012).

  GSA has built a federal social media registry -- a government-wide solution that gives the public a way to verify whether a social media account is official.

  It also provides a place for agencies to register their accounts centrally so they don't have to build a solution within each agency.

Hello From DC.

Here are some catchup items from the past couple of weeks that I was unable to get to when the stories were first posted over the past 10 days.

I've culled a selection of items from our INFOdocket.com site that we update seven days a week.

We hope you find them useful.

1. EPA Launches New Mapping Tool to Improve Public Access to Enforcement Information

2. Gov Docs: Enhancements Made to GPO’s MetaLib Federated Search Resource

3. Reference Resource: New Economic Indicator Database Search Available from Census Bureau

4. Canada: Government Documents: Library and Archives Canada Digitizes Past Issues of the Canada Gazette (1841-1997)
More than 150 years of content.

5. Privacy: Social Media: U.S. Congress Members Want FTC To Investigate Facebook Tracking
Includes link to full text of a letter sent to FTC.

6. Privacy: “WSJ.com Begins Tracking Personal User Information Without Consent”

7. Reference: New York City: “Detailed Crime Data Online” (New Database)

8. Online Civil War Era National Cemeteries Travel Itinerary Launched by the National Park Service

9. Recently Launched: PACER Training Site

10. A Collection of International Mobile Statistics from the ITU

11. Recently Released: Library of Congress Annual Report, FY 2010

12. Reference: Nuclear Energy: A New Science Tracer Bullet from the Library of Congress

13. New From CRS: Social Media and Disasters: Current Uses, Future Options, and Policy Considerations

14. NCES Releases Projections of Education Statistics to 2020

15. HHS Announces Text4Health Task Force Recommendations and Global Partnership

16. New CRS Report: Illegal Internet Streaming of Copyrighted Content: Legislation in the 112th Congress

17. U.S. Dept. of Energy Scientific Research Data Now Easier to Find, Datasets Now Being Registered with DataCite

18. Reference: USAID Releases Open Data and Maps on Famine in the Horn of Africa

Via INFOdocket.com

From the Medill News Service (For the Associated Press):

Eight of 10 members of Congress are tweeting and using Facebook, but only a handful use the social media sites to reach out to one of their most elusive constituent groups – Millennials, according to some experts.

“I think there is room for improvement with everyone across the board, no matter where you are ideologically, in talking to young people,” said Ron Meyer of Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth advocacy group.

The article includes two sidebar with statistics. Here are a couple of examples:

* Rep. Darrell Issa — @DarrellIssa — , R-San Diego, is the most frequent tweeter, averaging 13.6 tweets per day.

* Two-thirds of congressional tweeters predominately use Twitter.com directly. The other third uses Twitter applications. The most commonly used application is TweetDeck, with 12.7 percent of congressional offices using the application more often than not.

* The most popular day of the week to tweet on Capitol Hill is Wednesday. One member, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher — @DanaRohrabacher — R-Huntington Beach, tweets most on Sundays. He also replies the most often: 56.4 percent of his tweets are replies.

Read the Complete Article

Hello From DC (I mean Shakeytown, it Was My First Quake) Everyone.

As we prepare for our next event around hear and elsewhere along the east coast I thought it might be a good time to share a mountain of news, new resources, and other goodies with all of you.

The material comes from posts Shirl Kennedy and I made to our INFOdocket.com site. This is just a small amount of what we post seven days a week. Plus, we also provide FullTextReports.com. New reports are listed in the left rail (Thanks Jim and James)

We both hope you find and item or two of interest in the following update. More very soon. (-:

1. Hurricane Irene: FEMA’s National Situation Daily Update Available Online & Natl. Hurricane Center Mobile Resources

2. New Web Site: Feds Launch Performance.gov, Now Publicly Accessible

3. Acquisitions: Bloomberg is Buying BNA for $990 Million

4. US Department of Labor Improves Enforcement Databases Including Visualization/Animation Tools

5.U.S. History: “Rare Footage Unearthed Online”

6. New From the Internet Archive: “Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive”

7.“Google Forfeits $500 Million Generated by Online Ads & Prescription Drug Sales by Canadian Online Pharmacies”
The full text of the statement from the USDOJ and FDA

8. Washington Post Op/Ed: “Don’t Kill America’s Databook” (U.S. Census Statistical Abstract)

9. NLRB — Acting General Counsel Releases Report on Social Media Cases

10. Back to School 2011-2012: Facts About Schools, Students and Teachers From the U.S. Census

11. 1940 U.S. Census to be Free on Ancestry.com

12. Government Information: GPO Releases API For FederalRegister.gov (Formal Announcement)

13. Teen Dating Violence: A Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography
From the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress

14. Update: More Digitized Historic U.S. Government Economic and Banking Documents and Reports via FRASER

15. A Look at a Few Resources Using U.S. Department of Agriculture Open Data

16. Cook County, IL: New online database lets anyone see who has outstanding warrants

17. Federal Agencies Take Action to Digitally Document Nearly 50 Endangered Languages

Boulder, CO based Gnip has announced they're working with LC and Twitter to deliver tweets to the archive.

During the past six months Gnip has been delivering 8 billion tweets each week to LC.

Gnip is in the real time social media biz for enterprise customers.

Much more info at:
http://infodocket.com/2011/06/09/news-about-lcs-twitter-archive-gnip-wil...

David Ferriero, the Archivist of the U.S., will be testifying next week at a hearing that will address digital preservation of White House social media.

• White House officials to explain social-media policies next week, By Gautham Nagesh, The Hill (04/28/11).

  Senior White House officials will explain the Obama administration's policy for preserving tweets and other messages sent using social networks at a House Oversight hearing next Tuesday.

  The White House's official policy states that all messages between the president and his staffers and third parties on social-media sites like Twitter and Facebook must be preserved under the Presidential Records Act. That includes all tweets as well as direct messages and replies sent to official accounts.

  But panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said it remains unclear what the administration's policies are for unofficial accounts still used for official communications, such as the personal accounts of some staff members....

I've been fascinated by the struggles with, and now the apparent embrace of, social media by the U.S. Armed Forces. When I first saw that the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs was tweeting, it signaled the military's shift towards strategically harnessing new media to advance the Armed Forces public affairs goals and "compete in an evolving global messaging space". And lest you assume that Admiral Mullen just tweets what he had for lunch, his social media strategy clearly outlines his goals to engage and expand audiences. (Incidentally, in addition to following who you'd expect, such as his wife and President Obama, Admiral Mullen also follows The Economist, Oprah, Thomas Friedman, Katie Couric, George Stephanopoulus, and UNHCR).

Below are a couple of examples of the military's web presence in the 21st C. network. Of course, while providing useful information for servicemembers, their families, researchers, students, and the general public, they are also public relations outlets. But in our rich information landscape, that's true of many "authoritative sources" (all the more reason for teaching critical thinking about information):

Department of Defense Social Media Hub
"Designed to help the DoD community use social media and other internet-based capabilities to share responsibly and effectively, both in official and unofficial capacities." See especially their "How To" guides, which explain the basics of various 2.0 tools, and highlights examples of how servicemembers are using social media.

Pentagon Channel
Head over the the 'shows' section to browse the wide range of video and audio broadcasting available online, including "This Week in the Pentagon" and the American Forces Press service weekly podcast for military news; "Battleground", featuring historic films from past wars; and "Downrange", a newscast from Iraq and Afghanistan. On the lighter side, check out "The Grill Sergeants", a cooking show featuring top chefs in the military, and "Fit for Duty: Pilates" for a good workout.

Information as Power, U.S. Army War College
To learn more about these practices in the context of security issues, check out this electronic library of academic work by and for the U.S. Army related to information as an element of national power. You'll find publications such as "Bullets and Blogs: New Media and the Warfighter", "Information Operations as a Deterrent to Armed Conflict", and "War in the Information Age".

The Office of Management and Budget has issued an interpretation of the Paperwork Reduction Act and how it applies to government agency use of social media such as Twitter.

The Center for Democracy and Technology says, "Currently, there's a burdensome process for agencies who want to do something as simple as ask the users of their website whether they are pleased with their experience - and there has been widespread confusion about whether asking users on Twitter or other social networks amounted to the same thing. Luckily for those in agencies that want to use social media or blogs to engage the public, today's guidance makes it that much easier to do, clearly stating that most uses of interactive web tools are not, in fact, paperwork."

• It's official: Twitter isn't Government Paperwork, by Heather West, Center for Democracy and Technology (April 7, 2010).
   
• Social Media, Web-Based Interactive Technologies, and the Paperwork Reduction Act (Memorandum For The Heads Of Executive Departments And Agencies, And Independent Regulatory Agencies) Cass R. Sunstein, Administrator Office Of Information And Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (April 7, 2010).