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Gov Gab: Friendly gov website talk
The folks that brought us usa.gov have established a blog of their own over at http://blog.usa.gov/roller/. The blog is called Gov Gab and is maintained by "a team of five bloggers with different backgrounds and interests, all experts on government information via their jobs at USA.gov, Pueblo.gsa.gov, or 1 (800) FED-INFO."
The blog is a week old and so far have had conversational, user-friendly postings on photo resources, gov't travel sites, apartment hunting and organic foods. If you're familar with Lori Smith's blog on MySpace, you have a sense of the tone of this blog. The sites featured are taken from federal, state and local web resources. If this week is an indicator of the quality, this will be a great resource. I hope it gets maximum promotion from librarians and other interested parts.
The blog accepts comments according to this reasonable sounding policy:
We welcome your comments and expect that our conversation will follow the general rules of respectful civil discourse. This is a moderated blog, and we will only post comments from bloggers over 12 years of age that relate to topics on Gov Gab: Your U.S. Government Blog. We will review comments for posting within one business day. You are fully responsible for everything that you submit in your comments, and all posted comments are in the public domain. We do not discriminate against any views, but we reserve the right not to post comments.
According to a reply to a comment I saw, the blogging team is very open to suggestions for future topics:
We would love to get ideas for future blog topics! You can email any of us by clicking our name above our posts and sending us a message.
Spread the word! The more the merrier around here.
Consider the word spread. Thanks much to Ray Matthews of the Utah State Library for pointing out this new blog to me. Now go and do the same for others!
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Feds are blogging, are they listening?
Update 6/24/2007 - The incredible efficient folks at usa.gov have added the Future Digital System blog to their blog directory, which I hope will expose GPO's efforts to more citizens and allow for a broader range of input than just contractors and docs librarians. The usa.gov folks added the blog a few days ago, I just haven't gotten around to mentioning it. So if you see a federal blog that should be on their list, notify them with the confidence that they are responsive. Now for the original post: ----------------------------------------- The federal portal USA.gov has started a new page of government agency blogs at http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/News/blog.shtml. The list currently stands at ten active blogs, although I know they are missing at least one because they don't have GPO's FDSys Blog at http://fdsys.blogspot.com. I have reported this oversight to USA.gov and hopefully one of our GPO readers will contact USA.gov directly. The blogs are from a range of agencies and I was a little surprised to find that a majority allow for "blog-standard" commenting. A seventh blog, Pushing Back from the Office of National Drug Control Policy surprised me by at least accepting comments on blog entries, but these seem to be mailed to ONDCP staff and never seen by the public. Rather than rant against the agencies that run blogs without public feedback, let's celebrate the agencies that understand that Web 2.0 is about interaction:
- Eye Level - Smithsonian American Art Museum
- GLOBE Program – Blog for the chief scientist of Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program.
- Health Marketing Musings from Jay M. Bernhardt, PhD, MPH - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Library of Congress Blog
- Pandemic Flu Leadership Conference - Time limited blog but very active with dozens of comments to every entry.
- Peace Corps Blog - Very unstandard looking page that doesn't really seem to have been active for awhile, but USA.gov lists it as active and it does allow comments.
A blog and feed for “governmental Alaskana”
A few years ago I started an e-mail list where I sent people listings of newly cataloged Alaska State Publications and Federal Publications about Alaska. In hopes of spreading the news about "Governmental Alaskana" and giving an example for other states to consider, I've set up a blog which may or may not replace the mailing list. Try it. If you like it, please subscribe at http://feeds.feedburner.com/GovernmentalAlaskana and tell your friends. Feedback on the blog is welcome, too. Consider commenting on the documents you see at the blog. Continue reading
Sunshine Week: Charlotte Observer Info Pros Share Resources, Answer Questions About Public Records on New Blog
It's always cool to see librarians/researchers getting a bit of the spotlight. Maria Wygand and Marion Paynter two researchers/info pros at the Charlotte Observer are publishing the, Your Right to Know blog with info about public records (what they are, where to find them, and how to use them). Impressive work and a great idea. Btw, a link to the blog also appears in the print edition of the paper and on this web page where you can find all of the Sunshine Week articles. Continue reading
State Library 2.0 – Could depositories follow?
Recently the Washington State Library (WSL), the Regional Depository Library for the State of Alaska established a blog. While it is only partly related to government information, I think this blog is worthy of study by every federal depository with any kind of Internet access and any possible Internet readership. Why? Because the Library is making some cheap and easy use of social software. If you look at the right hand side of the Washington State Library blog, you'll notice two things - "State library photos" and "New Books at the Washington State Library." The photos come from Flickr, which a number of libraries are using these days. The new books listing right on the web page comes not from their catalog, but from a free Library Thing account. I think this is clever. If your ILS won't accomodate RSS feeds, throw a subset of your collection into something that will! If you go to WSL's Library Thing catalog and profile, you'll see this statement showing how they're leveraging the exposure their subset is gaining through being on their blog and Library Thing:
Another nice thing about the WSL blog is how publications can feature cover art while being highlighted. It seems pretty inviting to me. And how much did this cost besides staff time? Pretty close to zero I expect. The LibraryThing and Flickr acounts were free. WordPress has tiered service, so I don't know whether WSL is paying for that, but they don't have to and neither do you. What about you? Does this give you ideas? Does your institution have the flexibility to carry it out? Want to customize your existing govdocs blog with these kinds of features? If you've already got a setup like this, let us know! Continue readingWelcome to the Washington State Library's LibraryThing space! Our account displays new books at the Washington State Library, as well as books selected for bibliographies and our Washington Reads program. This is not a complete or comprehensive list of our entire collection. To search our complete online catalog, to find out about our collections specializing in Washington State history, genealogy, government, and culture, or to contact a reference librarian, please visit our website.
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