Guide of the Week: Care for Service Members
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently identified Care for Service Members as one of 13 urgent issues facing the next President and Congress. The page on care for service members explains why this is an urgent issue:
As of October 2008, over 33,000 servicemembers have been wounded in action, resulting in serious injuries such as amputations, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We have identified a number of weaknesses with the health care returning servicemembers are receiving as well as the complex and cumbersome disability systems they must navigate.Today on Guide of the Week, we'll talk about some librarian produced guides from the ALA GODORT Exchange Wiki that can help inform citizens, Congress and President-Elect Obama on this issue. Although there is no guide currently on the wiki that focuses exclusively on Veterans Care, here are three guides that should provide helpful information to people studying this issue:
- Budget (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 2001) Last updated 3/10/2008
- Government Documents on Military History (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 1999) Last updated 3/10/2008.
- Chemical and Biological Disarmament (Grace York, University of Michigan, 2000) Last updated 1/9/2005
Informal Portal for Gov’t Comment Taking
I joined FriendFeed on Christmas Day and I've already started wondering how it could be used to promote government resources. One of the things that FriendFeed lets you do is to create "rooms" where items of interest can be shared in various ways, including imported RSS feeds. So I have built a room I called Talk Back to Uncle Sam. The room takes feeds from Regulations.gov and gov't blogs that accept comments from citizens. Please have a look at the room at http://friendfeed.com/rooms/talk-back-to-uncle-sam and share items that you find interesting. If you are a FriendFeed subscriber, please consider telling others about the room. And if you're a fellow documents geek, please consider joining me at FriendFeed. I'm using the handle alaskanlibrarian there. If you like Twitter, I think you'll enjoy FriendFeed. Continue reading
Buzzword Glossary: Cloud Computing, Virtualization, BitTorrent
Have you been puzzled by these three terms? Do you understand them, but need to explain them to non-technical colleagues? Here is a nice article that explains cloud computing, virtualization, and Torrents in easy to understand language. The article describes these as "Profound movements in computer and Internet use." Trends for 2009: Cloud Computing, Virtualization and BitTorrent, by Jack Dunning, ComputorEdge Online, (12/26/08). I particularly like the illustration of how BitTorrent works from Wikipedia. Continue reading
Miller Center Offers Nixon/Deep Throat Tapes, Transcripts
Miller Center Offers Nixon/Deep Throat Tapes, Transcripts, Expert, NewsWise, University of Virginia, Press Release: Fri 19-Dec-2008.
The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia has a repository of presidential tapes and transcripts featuring Nixon and Haldeman discussing Mark Felt. The Presidential Recordings Program (http://millercenter.org/academic/presidentialrecordings) at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs (http://www.millercenter.org) has a spectacular Watergate collection of Nixon tapes and transcripts online: • http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/transcript/nixon/watergate In particular, there's this Oct. 19, 1972 conversation between Nixon and Robert Haldeman, in which Haldeman reports that he's heard from a confidential source that Mark Felt is leaking information to the news media about the FBI's investigation into the Watergate break-in: • http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/clips/1972_1019_felt/ Nixon also mentions Felt in the June 23, 1972 "Smoking Gun" conversation with Haldeman: • http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/transcript/nixon/smoking-gun PRP scholar Ken Hughes puts the Nixon tapes in perspective in an online essay, Why Didn't Nixon Burn the Tapes? -- which also includes tapes and transcripts of Nixon-Haldeman conversations. • http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/exhibit/why-didnt-nixon-burn-tapes Also feel free to use these tapes and transcripts in your stories and online exhibits, and to link to the transcripts....Continue reading
Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer, Cheney asserts sole right of review of his records
Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer, by R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, December 21, 2008; A01.
Legal Battles, Technical Difficulties Delay Required Transfer to Archives... The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House's electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers. ...The risks that the transfer may be incomplete are also pointed up by a continuing legal battle between a coalition of historians and nonprofit groups over access to Vice President Cheney's records. The coalition is contesting the administration's assertion in federal court this month that he "alone may determine what constitutes vice presidential records or personal records" and "how his records will be created, maintained, managed, and disposed," without outside challenge or judicial review. ...The National Archives and Records Administration is supposed to help monitor the completeness of the historical record but has no enforcement powers over White House records management practices.Continue reading