Author Archives: dcornwall

While we haven’t posted a report for awhile, activity has been buzzing at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

For a full listing of the activity for the past two weeks, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

DELAWARE (John Stevenson)

Delaware Public Archives Collection Gateway – Search indexes of some of the public collections by name or keyword. Collection descriptions are added or updated quarterly.

GEORGIA (Chris Sharpe)

Wage and Salary Survey – Search the results of the most recent three years the DCA Wage and Salary Survey. Information includes the pay range, number of full time employees, and the number of hours worked each week for over 160 different local government jobs.

MASSACHUSETTS (Jennifer Ekblaw)

Lead Inspection Histories – You can look up the inspection history of a property by entering a street name or street name and number. The database will indicate whether a property has ever been inspected for lead, has had any lead hazards, or has a letter of compliance.

MINNESOTA (Paul J McDonough)

Offender Locator – Public information about adult offenders who have been committed to the Commissioner of Corrections, and who are still under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections

SOUTH CAROLINA (Ed Sperr)

SCDOT Street Finder – Search the over 41,000 miles of SCDOT-maintained roads by county and municipality. Shows results on a map.

SOUTH DAKOTA (Brenda Hemmelman)

Commercial Fertilizer Licenses in South Dakota – Search by company or city.

WEST VIRGINIA (Jenn Zuccaro)

Vista Lite – vendor payment search, Vista – requires creation of free account – provides detailed vendor information, state & city reports, state employee compensation, FOIA request form.

DATABASES REMOVED

ARKANSAS (April Sheppard)

School Report Card, formerly available at http://normessasweb.uark.edu/schoolperformance/School/School.php

DELAWARE

Delaware DataMIL (Data Mapping and Integration Laboratory), formerly available at http://datamil.delaware.gov/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home. Information about the former database remains available.

HISTORICAL NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE INDEXES UPDATED

Zimmer Newspaper Indexes – From the website, “The main index generally covers the years 1878-1937, although there are selected entries for earlier and later dates. Entries include obituaries, coverage of political events, speeches, dedications, visits of foreign dignitaries and general news events. The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Journal, and Boston Transcript were indexed most consistently, although there are entries for other newspapers as well. A later index, covering the years 1960 to 1983, includes articles from the Boston Globe and Boston Herald which are primarily political or governmental in nature.” Database consists of scanned index cards. Database may be browsed by subject or searched by card title/headline.

With the June quarterly link check looming next week, activity continues at the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. For a full listing of activity in the past week, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are the customary highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

CALIFORNIA (Joel Rane)

Nautical Fiction List – An annotated bibliography of novels, along with some short stories, poetry and drama, on the subject of the oceans or seafaring. Searchable by author.

Georgia (Chris Sharpe)

OASIS (Online Analytical Statistical Information System) – Set of interactive tools used to create maps, tables, or charts from Georgia’s health data repository. It is currently populated with Vital Statistics (births, deaths, fetal deaths, induced terminations, pregnancies), Hospital Discharge, Emergency Room Visit, Arboviral Surveillance, Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS), STD, Motor Vehicle Crash, and Population data.

TEXAS (Ann Ellis)

Texas Medical Board “Look Up a Doctor” – Within this database, patients, consumers, doctors and other health care professionals can locate health care providers and institutions, medical suspensions, various rules and regulations, statistical reports, and practitioner demographics arranged by date.

NEW MISSOURI RESOURCES ADDED TO BIOGRAPHICAL DATABASES

Despite the page name of Biographical Databases, this page also contact static biography resources because project volunteers thought this would be valuable. Missouri volunteer recently added these resources to the page:

Governors – Chronological list of the governors of Missouri with party, term, home county, and dates of birth and death.
Lieutenant Governors – Chronological list of the lieutenant governors of Missouri with party, term, home county, and dates of birth and death.
Secretaries of State – Chronological list of the secretaries of state of Missouri with party, term, home county, and dates of birth and death.
State Auditors – Chronological list of the state auditors of Missouri with party, term, home county, and dates of birth and death.
State Treasurers – Chronological list of the state treasurers of Missouri with party, term, home county, and dates of birth and death.
Attorneys General – Chronological list of the attorneys general of Missouri with party, term, home county, and dates of birth and death.
State Legislators – Alphabetical list of state legislators including party, office, county/district elected, and years served. Covers 1820 – 2000.
Officers of the Missouri Senate and House – Chronological list of officers, including President Pro Tem-Senate, Secretary of the Senate, Speaker of the House, and Chief Clerk of the House, for each session. Covers 1820 – 2011.
Judges of the Missouri Supreme Court – Chronological list of judges with home counties and terms served. Covers 1820 – 2011.
U.S. Representatives – Alphabetical list of Representatives of the U.S. Congress with district, party, and year elected.
U.S. Senators – Alphabetical list of Senators of the U.S. Congress with party and year elected.

In addition to the changes mentioned above, Joel Rane, volunteer for California also added a large number of links to California university library catalogs.

Activity continues at the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. For a full listing of all activity during the past two weeks visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

MARYLAND (Siu Min Yu)

Maryland Vital Records — Search for death records in the State of Maryland. Please read the Vital Records Indexing Project information before starating your search. To search, click the link “Search MD Vital Records” from the upper left hand side of the page.

WASHINGTON (Marilyn Von Seggern)

Search Case Records – Search for a case by court date, case number, or personal or business names associated with a case. A separate Name Search looks across court levels, and an Attorney Search finds district and municipal court proceedings associated with a Bar Number.

WYOMING (Karen Kitchens)

Wyoming Legislation – This library of legislative materials contains journals, or digests of the journals, from the first territorial legislature that convened in 1869 up to the present. It also contains digitized bills from 1873 to 2000, in addition to bill actions—a record of actions done on each introduced bill—from 1957-2000.

LET US KNOW ABOUT PRESENTATIONS OR DERIVATIVE PROJECTS

If you have used information from the State Agency Databases Project in a presentation or in a derivative project, we would love to hear from you! Send an e-mail to the project coordinator at danielcornwall@gmail.com and we will note and/or link your talk/project from our page.

The past two weeks have been active ones at the State Agency Databases Project (http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases). For a full listing of activity during the past two weeks, see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

ALASKA (Daniel Cornwall)

Alaska Geologic Data Index – From the website: “AGDI includes information about industry reports and maps, field notes, drill logs, and other unpublished geology-related data. The archived data are held and controlled by government agencies, institutions, and private companies; the index points to the physical location of the data, provides a basic description, and contains information on accessibility.” Data can be selected by clicking on a map or conducting a search. The “more options” search allows one to search by keyword, author, title, project, year range and location. The search may be limited by data source, data set type, themes or commodity.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (Susan Paterson)

Legislation Information Management System – The Council’s Legislative Information Management System (LIMS) is available for the public to view the status of a Bill or Resolution, Legislation by Council Member, Legislation by Committee, Text of a Bill or Resolution, A Council Member’s Voting Record, Contract Summary, Legislation by Co-Sponsor, A List of Legislation, Text of an Act, Legislative Meeting Agendas. You can search for legislation by keyword.

MARYLAND (Siu Min Yu)

Attorney Listing – Search for attorneys admitted to practice in the State of Maryland by name.

MISSOURI (Annie Moots)

All Contributions & Expenditures Search – Search for campaign contributions, expenditures, and committee to committee contributions multiple ways back to 2002.

WEBINAR USING PROJECT PAGE POSTED

This past week project volunteers were happy to see a presentation on Alaska agency databases and other information resources that relied heavily on our Alaska project page. The webinar is titled Databases By Alaskans and the archived version is viewable at http://library.alaska.gov/is/video/databasesbyalaskans2013.html.

It was another busy week at the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

For a full list of last week’s activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are the week’s highlights:

PAGE REORGANIZATION

April Sheppard reorganized the Oklahoma page into the project’s standard format. We hope this will make Oklahoma resources more directly comparable to those listed for other states.

DATABASES ADDED

COLORADO (Samantha Hager)

Minority and Women-Owned Businesses – a searchable database of minority and women-owned businesses from the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. Find businesses by name, topic, or NAICS.

MARYLAND (Siu Min Yu)

Waste Kitchen Grease Transporters Search – From the website, “Search here for certified transporters of waste kitchen grease. You may search by the type of certificate, the name of the company registered, or the license plate of the vehicle registered.”

SOUTH CAROLINA (Ed Sperr)

State Salaries Over $50,000

WYOMING (Karen Kitchens)

Wyoming State Trademarks – This database covers state trademarks issued between 1906-current located at the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office. New applications and renewals are added monthly. This database will ultimately include the inactive applications and mark images for Wyoming trademarks located at the Wyoming State Archives, back to the first state trademark in 1881.

PROJECT WIKI SEEN AS USEFUL TO JOURNALISTS

We were pleased to learn that State Agency Databases Project got a brief shoutout from staff at NPR Stateimpact. At around the 52 minute mark of Basics of Data Journalism (April 11, 2013) at http://vimeo.com/63929281, the “State Agency Databases wiki” compiled by ALA is cited a very useful resource. We’re happy to see the news of this project get beyond the library community.

Finally, this will be the last activity report for April due to some vacation time. We expect the next activity report will be May 5th.