Ten Organizations Praise Federal Financial Transparency Efforts
FGI joined ALA and 8 other organizations in signing a letter praising congressional and administration efforts to improve federal financial transparency.
- Ten Organizations Praise Federal Financial Transparency Efforts, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation (June 21, 2011). The organizations said the recently-introduced Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011 (or DATA Act) would "revolutionize federal spending transparency," and also praised President Obama's June 13, 2011, Executive Order as an important transparency measure. The DATA Act would establish a federal transparency board -- a successor to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board -- with the dual missions of expanding spending transparency to the entire government and identifying government-wide financial data standards... The Executive Order immediately establishes a Government Accountability and Transparency Board that, over the next six months, will develop a plan to integrate government spending data.
Begins In July: PACER Training Pilot Project From Admin. of U.S. Courts, GPO, AALL
From an Announcement by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts: A pilot project aimed at having public libraries enhance the public’s knowledge and use of the federal judiciary’s Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service begins July 1, 2011. Two libraries – the Library of Congress in the District of Columbia and the Law Library for San Bernadino, California – will kick off the pilot, but up to 50 additional public libraries may join them in future months. PACER allows users to obtain case information from federal courts without having to visit the courthouse. The service allows an Internet user to request information about a particular case or party, and makes the data immediately available for printing or downloading at a cost of 8 cents per page. In the pilot project, libraries will conduct at least one training class for the general public every three months, and offer training or refresher opportunities for library staff at least one a year. Those staff members, in turn, may assist library patrons in the use of PACER. For participating libraries, the first $50 of PACER use fees each quarter will be waived. The pilot is a joint undertaking of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Government Printing Office, and the American Association of Law Libraries. (via INFOdocket.com) Continue reading
Mobile Apps: NLM’s LactMed Database Now Available for iPhone and Android
From the LactMed Web Page: A peer-reviewed and fully referenced database of drugs to which breastfeeding mothers may be exposed. Among the data included are maternal and infant levels of drugs, possible effects on breastfed infants and on lactation, and alternate drugs to consider. INFOdocket has more info and links to the apps. Both LactMed apps are free. Continue reading
“Enhancements To WorldWideScience.org Include Arabic Translation, Mobile Capability, and Multimedia Results”
From the OSTI: Arabic has been added to the suite of translated languages at WorldWideScience.org, bringing the total number of translated languages to 10. At WorldWideScience.org, your query can be translated into the languages of the search engine’s 80-plus databases and the results can be translated into your preferred language. In addition, WorldWideScience.org has added a new multimedia search capability, including search of speech-indexed scientific videos from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and CERN. Speech-indexing is provided by the Microsoft Research Audio Video Indexing System (MAVIS). Also, a mobile version of WorldWideScience.org (http://m.worldwidescience.org) has been launched, which will mark another first in the field of federated search. Continue reading
State Agency Databases Activity Report: 6/19/2011
Activity continues at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States Project. Marlena Crenshaw of the Arkansas State Library publicly claimed the Arkansas page. Welcome Marlena! The Pennsylvania and Wisconsin pages came open for adoption. The project coordinator sent out the last of the follow up e-mails to volunteers who have not updated their pages since 1/1/2010. Next Sunday we should have definitive lists of who is continuing with the project and what pages remain orphans. We are currently studying ways to ensure that orphan pages have updated links while we recruit for documents specialists for them. You can find a blow by blow listing of this week's wiki activity by visiting http://tinyurl.com/3npd96f. Here are a few highlights: DATABASES ADDED Arkansas Arkansas Resource Information CyberCenter - Searchable database of community service information. Searchable by organization, city, county, status, hours of operation, and service offered. New Jersey Civil War Treasury Vouchers, 1861-1865 - "Includes 15,770 payment receipts for military expenditures and wartime purchases made by the State of New Jersey from 1861 through 1866. It includes soldiers' discharge certificates for final pay, affidavits of family members for pay due to deceased soldiers, and quarterly returns of the counties and cities listing the names of soldiers’ families and dependent mothers who received subsistence pay during their service." Department of Agriculture Photographs - Indexes more than 7,000 photographs, and displays more than 2,000, showing all aspects of farming, including events and celebrations, organizations, people, corporations, and more. These Department of Agriculture public information photographs range in date from the 1930s to the 1970s with a few items from as early as the 1880s. Continue reading