Give Your Feedback on FDL Video
Today, thanks to subscribing to the "fdlp" tag on del.icio.us, I was introduced to the first video that GPO produced as part of it's "Easy as FDL" campaign: Since GPO is allowing ratings and comments on this video, I really want you to go and watch, rate and comment. You need to have a YouTube account to rate and comment, but it's easy to set up. If you'd prefer not to set up a YouTube account, please leave your name and comment and I'll post it for you. I rated the video a 3 out of 5. It's a great video for people already interested in the Federal Depository Library program. If I weren't a former depository librarian, I don't think I would have hung out until 3 minutes in when they started talking about what the program could do for me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated all the librarians and GPO staff who appeared in the video. Plus the production values were excellent and light years beyond what *I'll* ever come up with. It just didn't feel user oriented until the middle. And today's potential users won't wait that long. Here are the suggestions I left at YouTube:
I'd strongly recommend flipping the content of this video and lead off with Cindy Elkins talking about the types of questions that can be answered at an FDL, then Mary Alice and the others highlighting material (Adventures of Echo the Bat, etc) that's available. Then end with background on the program. Hook people first, then explain. Finally, the end URL should be to the Depository Directory and not GPO Access. Though you should make videos about GPO Access!GPO also posted several versions of the video and more background information at http://www.fdlp.gov/promotion/easyasfdlvideo.html. Watch the video for yourself and let us know what you think, preferably at YouTube, but here will do. Finally, despite the comments above, it is a GREAT THING that GPO is producing videos and other promotional content. Let us, the librarians who work with users every day, help them tweak what are decent products into real user creation machines. But bless them for giving us something to work with! Continue reading
Change.gov Restores Agenda Pages
As of 12:30pm Alaska time, 11/16/2008, Change.gov appears to have restored agenda pages to http://www.change.gov/agenda/. No explanation and still copyrighted. But progress. Thanks to everybody who wrote in. If you haven't and care about copyright/public domain issue, please look over Rebecca's post and send the letter or one of your own. Continue reading
Guide of the Week: Guides related to financial oversight
As promised, starting this week, Guide of the Week is supporting the "__ Days to Government Information Liberation" initiative by highlighting guides from the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki that shed light on important Presidential transition issues as defined by the Government Accountability Office's urgent issues page at http://www.gao.gov/transition_2009/urgent/. This page highlights the following 13 "urgent issues":
- oversight of financial institutions and markets,
- U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,
- protecting the homeland,
- undisciplined defense spending,
- improving the U.S. image abroad,
- finalizing plans for the 2010 Census,
- caring for service members,
- preparing for public health emergencies,
- revamping oversight of food safety,
- restructuring the approach to surface transportation,
- retirement of the Space Shuttle,
- ensuring an effective transition to digital TV, and
- rebuilding military readiness.
- Banking, Banks and Credit Unions (University of Colorado at Boulder Government Publications Library, 2008)
- Government Documents on Banking (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 1999) Last updated 3/10/2008
- Housing (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 2001) Last updated 3/10/2008
- Annual Report Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
- House Financial Services Committee
- Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
- Australia Parliament House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance, & Public Administration
- FDIC Institution Directory contains demographic data and financial profiles of each FDIC-insured depository institution derived from quarterly reports filed with Federal regulators.
- Community Reinvestment Act Database "The Community Reinvestment Act is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods." The database includes bank ratings and performance evaluations.
- Credit Union Data Detailed data on individual institutions and tool for data comparison.
Guide of the Week: Presidential Papers
Kudos to John for counting down the days to "Government Information Liberation!" In support of this great concept, I will try to focus our "Guide of the Week" series on subjects related to the Presidential transition until the week of January 20th, 2009. I'll highlight guides related to subjects from the GAO transition page and the Agenda page at change.gov once it returns. This week tho, I'd like to highlight two guides from the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki concerning Presidents and their documents:
- POTUS: Presidents of the United States (Bob Summers, University of Michigan, Internet Public Library, 2008)
- Presidential Papers (University of California, Berkeley, 2006)
- About Presidential Papers
- Biographical Information
- Guides
- Elections
- Vetoes
- Executive Orders & Proclamations
- Official Papers and Speeches
- Personal papers and correspondence
- Declassified Documents
- Selected Internet Resources
Guide of the Week: Immigration
Today's Guide of the Week from the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange comes to us once again from Bert Chapman: Government Documents on Immigration (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 1999) Last updated 6/18/2008 As Bert points out in his introduction, "Immigration has been and remains an important and controversial issue in U.S. history and contemporary public policy." After pointing helpful subject headings with which to search the Purdue library catalog, he turns to highlighting a number of sources including:
- Administrative Decisions Under Employer Sanctions & Unfair Immigration Related... HSSE DOC J 1.103:
- Immigration: Analysis of the Major Provisions of the REAL ID Act of 2005 (Congressional Research Service)
- Office of Immigration Statistics
- United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees
- New Zealand Immigration Service
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