Tag Archives: databases

This was a mostly quiet week at the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. Quiet enough that I would not normally put out an activity report, but there are two notable things I wanted to share with you. ORPHANS - THE FINAL FOUR? The adoption of Florida is pending. That leaves us with just four states waiting for volunteer government information specialists/enthusiasts to adopt them:

• Hawaii
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Oklahoma

If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting. CALIFORNIA'S DATABASE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS As most government information specialists are aware, local government documents are probably the most elusive of all. California has taken a step to try to make their local government documents easier to find and use. I (and any other user of the State Agency Databases wiki) was made aware of this by Joel Rane, the volunteer for California. Here is his annotation of California's new resource:

California Local Government Documents - An extensive database of local government documents across the state; if a document is not online, a scanned copy is hosted by the Berkeley IGS. Includes access to local municipal codes and charters, searchable by city; documents related to land use and development issues, searchable by jurisdiction, type of planning document and year (at both county and city level); and budgets and financial reports for Bay Area cities, county budgets and annual financial reports, and annual reports from county grand juries, all searchable by keyword. A tremendous resource.

Hats off to UC Berkeley for putting this together and thanks to Joel Rane for making the rest of us aware of this new resource for one state's local documents. Continue reading →

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This week at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases: NEW VOLUNTEERS AND A STATE HAND-OFF This week we officially welcome three new volunteers to our project:

• Susan Paterson (University of British Columbia) - District of Columbia
• Siu Min Yu (Rice University) - Maryland
• Flora Shrode (Utah State University) - Utah

Flora is taking over the management of the Utah page from Susanne Caro who recently took over the Montana page. Susanne had been one of two volunteers with two state pages. I (Daniel Cornwall) am the other. In addition to my home state of Alaska, I also do my best to maintain the Arizona page. If you live in Arizona and would like to take over the page, let me know. ORPHANS: THE FINAL FIVE With the successful adoption of Maryland and the District of Columbia, we now have five states up for adoption:

• Florida
• Hawaii
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Oklahoma

If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting. DATABASE ACTIVITY For a full listing of activity over the past week, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are some highlights: DATABASES ADDED OHIO (Audrey Hall) Empowerment through Education county highlights] Summary of program activities for each county. Additional keyword searching available. NEW RESOURCES ON THE "NOT DATABASES" PAGE The following non-database resources were added to the South Dakota section of our "not databases" page:

• Adoption Resources in South Dakota
• South Dakota Resource Directory for the Elderly

A LOOK AT THE VOLUNTEERS BEHIND THE STATE AGENCY DATABASES PROJECT We recently surveyed our project volunteers about who they were, where they worked and where they updated their pages from. About 70% of our volunteers responded to the survey. Here are the demographic findings: What best describes your current job position? Librarian - 77.8% Paraprofessional - 8.3% Library Student - 2.8% Other (please specify) - 11.1% Responses from the "other" category included: Circulation Manager Assistant Director with background in Government Documents Library consultant Archivist with a library degree working in a library -- What best describes your current workplace? Academic Library - 63.9% Special Library - 2.8% State Library - 33.3% Other options were offered on the survey, but only the three categories above had non-zero responses. -- Are you allowed work time to edit your page? Yes - 88.9% No - 11.1% The project coordinator is one of the people whose currrent job description is too far outside the project work to justify using work time to maintain his pages or write these reports. In full disclosure, I have not asked to. -- Where do you edit your page? Work - 58.3% Home - 11.1% Home and Work - 30.6% -- Do you live in the state of the page you edit? (If you have more than one state, choose "other" and note which state you live in.) Yes - 77.1% No - 17.1% Other (please specify) - 5.7% In addition to the demographic questions above, volunteers were asked several narrative questions. We'll be bringing those questions and selected responses to you over the next three weeks. Continue reading →

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This week at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases: ORPHANS: AND THEN THERE WERE SIX With the pending adoption of the District of Columbia, we now have six states up for adoption:

• Florida
• Hawaii
• Kansas
• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Oklahoma

If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting. DATABASE ACTIVITY For a full listing of activity over the past week, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are some highlights: DATABASES ADDED ARKANSAS (April Sheppard) Child Care Provider Search - Search for licensed child care providers and ABC and Headstart facilities by name, facility number, location, child age, hours and voucher acceptance. UTAH (Susanne Caro) American Indian Collection - Part of a database of Utah publications, this section includes information on the Ute (Uintah and Ouray), Dine' (Navajo), Paiute, Confederated Tribes of Goshute, Northwestern Band of Shoshone, Skull Valley Goshutes, Ute Mountain Ute (White Mesa). NEW RESOURCES ON THE "NOT DATABASES" PAGE As mentioned in some previous activity reports, our project volunteers occasionally find useful materials out of scope for our main project pages. Usually this is either a state produced resource that is not a searchable database or it is a searchable database not produced by a state agency. These resources live on our Not Databases page. This week Janice Wilson, our Connecticut added Veterans.ct.gov, which contains information about CT and federal services and benefits available to veterans. Continue reading →

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New volunteers and ongoing work marked this week at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. NEW PROJECT VOLUNTEERS Our project welcomed four new volunteers this week: April Sheppard - Arkansas Stephanie Martin - Indiana Mary Sauers - Nebraska (A hand off from departing volunteer Beth Goble.) Ed Sperr - South Carolina In other volunteer news, Susanne Caro adopted the Montana page. She also maintains the Utah page. SEVEN REMAINING ORPHANS With our additional volunteers, our list of orphan pages now stands at seven: District of Columbia Florida Hawaii Kansas Maryland Minnesota Oklahoma If you are interested in adopting one of these pages, please read our volunteer guide and make sure you can accept the responsibilities of a project volunteer. Then contact project coordinator Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com with a statement of interest and your favorite database from the page you are adopting. DATABASE ACTIVITY For a full listing of activity over the past week, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Here are some highlights: DATABASES ADDED ARKANSAS (April Sheppard) National Register of Historic Places (AR) - Searchable by county, city, name and description. SOUTH CAROLINA (Ed Sperr) Most Wanted - is a listing with photographs of the most wanted, absconded criminals. TEXAS (Ann Ellis) Texas Higher Education Data - This site contains information organized for policymakers, parents and students, media, institutions and researchers, and educators. It includes forms, maps, charts, graphs and reports. Texas legislative issues related to higher education are included. WYOMING (Karen Kitchens) License Types and Fees - Search for current Wyoming fishing and hunting license fees by type (species) and resident or nonresident. Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Continue reading →

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