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.

The Washington Post has an RSS feed called, The POTUS Tracker. It lists events location and events for the President of the United States.

There is also a more traditional Calendar view of the President's activities and you can view events by issue, type, and attendees.

The Law Library of Congress's Global Legal Monitor has added more than 300 topic and jurisdictional RSS feeds.

Topics include the Census, Freedom of Information, Government Publications, Intellectual Property, Libraries, and Secrecy!

There is also an RSS for all articles in the Global Legal Monitor too.

Tip o' the hate to Resource Shelf.

RSS & Email, Law Library of Congress

The Law Library of Congress now offers an RSS feed for THOMAS: Daily Digest: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/rss/dd.xml .

It's pretty bare bones. Just a link to full text, but it is a start!

Hat tip to John Wonderlich!

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) now has its on blog, "a place where you can learn about and have real input into the policymaking process as it relates to science and technology."

OSTP Blog

And, yes, there is an RSS/ATOM feed!
http://blog.ostp.gov/feed/
http://blog.ostp.gov/feed/atom/

OMB Watch "exists to increase government transparency and accountability; to ensure sound, equitable regulatory and budgetary processes and policies; and to protect and promote active citizen participation in our democracy." They have been around form more than 25 years and are an excellent source for information about government openness and transparency and information policy. Their redesigned web site has a page listing their RSS feeds including one on Government Openness.

They also have a blog, The Fine Print.

"The General Services Administration announced that it has delivered on a promise to use Web 2.0 technology to give citizens electronic access to government information. The USA.gov Web site now is offering a governmentwide news feed service and a gallery of gadget applications....

"Additions to the USA.gov Web site include the Government News Aggregator, which is designed to use RSS feeds to deliver news and information from across the federal government."
    -- Feds' Web site gets Web 2.0 makeover, By Sharon Gaudin, Computer World, January 27, 2009.

• Breaking Government News, USA.gov. "Breaking news from the U.S. government."
• Government Gadget Gallery. USA.gov. "You can embed these gadgets in personalized home pages, blogs, and other sites."

Josh Tauberer at GovTrack.us, our hero and a prince, has created an easy way to follow new videos posted at Congress's YouTube sites. (See Congress on YouTube).

• Tracking YouTube Videos which aggregates all videos posted by Members to YouTube. The RSS is here.
• Pages for Members at GovTrack.us now highlight their latest YouTube video at the top of the page.
• Feeds/Trackers at GovTrack.us for Members (which you can subscribe to directly, include with your other trackers, or get email updates for) now include their latest video postings.

Read more: Track your representative’s YouTube videos, Josh Tauberer, Jan. 13, 2009.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) now has its own channel on Youtube: youtube.com/fema and its own twitter feed: twitter.com/femainfocus. And, of course, it has a number of RSS feeds, fema.gov/help/rss.shtm.

More here:
FEMA In Focus: Where FEMA Was, Is Now, and Where FEMA Is Going, FEMA Press Release HQ-09-004, January 7, 2009.

FEMA starts channel on YouTube, By Alice Lipowicz, FCW.com, Jan 08, 2009.

grants.gov, "a central storehouse for information on over 1,000 grant programs and provides access to approximately $500 billion in annual awards," started a blog back in August. It is available at at the commercial, (not dot-gov) site: http://grants-gov.blogspot.com/

I found both the grants.gov site and the blog a bit confusing. It was not clear to me who the audience was. Maybe I should have spent more time evaluating it. But this site has had its problems being user friendly. See Should Grants.gov Be Abolished? and Grants.gov is Windows-only.

Smithsonian: Blogs is a good place to find all the blogs, podcasts, and RSS feeds from the Smithsonian Institution.

Did you know that The Smithsonian Institution Libraries is participating in Library Thing? I didn't until I read it on the Smithsonian Libraries blog. (SIL Joins LibraryThing, Oct 1, 2008.) It is one of a dozen SI blogs.

And the podcasts look great! The Folkways Collection, Global Sound Live Vodcast Series, and more!

And, there are almost two dozen RSS feeds in addition to the feeds from the blogs and podcasts!

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now has a page of "Latest Numbers" RSS feeds. There are feeds available for: BLS Principal Federal Economic Indicators, Business Employment Dynamics, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), Consumer Price Index, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, Employment Cost Trends, Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, Productivity and Costs, Mass Layoff Statistics, Import/Export Price Indexes, Producer Price Indexes, and regional statistics.

Two new blogs appeared on the USA.gov Blogs from the U.S. Government page recently:

• Arctic Chronicles, by Jessica Robertson, Public Affairs Specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey. She will be documenting her journey to the Arctic as she accompanies scientists on an expedition to map the seafloor.
• The Energy Savers Blog, which aims to provide "a place for consumers to learn about and discuss energy efficiency and renewable technologies at home, on the road, and in the workplace."

While the Energy Savers Blog is apparently provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), it is hosted on a .com website. That creates a variety of problems for long-term access and preservation. (See more examples of government information on .com sites here.)

Both blogs have RSS feeds.

One of my favorite web sites is The Memory Hole, which exists "to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known." It has been offline for a while, but is back with a new URL. This is a project of one person, the dedicated Russ Kick, winner of the Project on Government Oversight’s “Beyond the Headlines” Award 2005. Check out his first new post.

We have updated the FGI blogroll with the new addresses and items from the Memory Hole feed appear again in the FGI aggregator of feeds and in the category of Blogs from organizations of interest to FGI.

MultiMedia RSS Feeds - State of California State of California.

From the Air Resources Board to the Legislative Analysts Office, to New Opinions from the U.S. Court of Appeals 7th Circuit, lots of RSS feeds!