Happy Washington’s Birthday, President’s Day, etc.
I'm sitting at my desk at work because today is not a holiday at the University of Pittsburgh. Why not? I remember when I was a small child in Pennsylvania we had no school on Feb. 12, Lincoln's birthday, or Feb. 22, Washington's birthday. Somehow in the 20-odd years during which I didn't live in Pennsylvania that changed.
Here's the scoop on today's holiday. It is a national holiday called "Washington's Birthday" as spelled out in federal law at 5 U.S.C. § 6103(a) . But this holiday status applies only to employees of the federal government - executive departments, independent agencies, and Government corporations, including their field services. Washington's Birthday (Feb. 22) has been a national holiday since 1879 but in 1971 it moved to the third Monday in February instead of Feb. 22.
In my state of Pennsylvania, today is also a state holiday called "Presidents' Day" as spelled out in Pennsylvania state law 44 P.S. § 11 . Both Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays were once state holidays, but in 1968 the Washington's Birthday holiday was moved to the third Monday in February instead of Feb. 22, and in 1978 the Lincoln's Birthday holiday was eliminated. And again, this only applies to state government employees and banks. For the rest of us, employee manuals tell us that companies generally balance internal work requirements and employee morale against federal and state holiday schedules and the prevailing practices among other local employers.
There is an entertaining and informative article on the National Archives website that gives a detailed history of today's holiday.
Global Warming Debate online
The founder of the highly respected Arts & Letters Daily Web site has created a new site Climate Debate Daily - a forum for both sides in the "heated" controversy over global warming. The site's dual format sheds a scholarly light on this heavily politicized battle. According to the website, Climate Debate Daily is intended to deepen our understanding of disputes over climate change and the human contribution to it. The site links to scientific articles, news stories, economic studies, polemics, historical articles, PR releases, editorials, feature commentaries, and blog entries. It includes arguments and evidence generally in support of the IPCC position on the reality of signficant anthropogenic global warming - and also includes material skeptical of the IPCC position and the notion that anthropogenic global warming represents a genuine threat to humanity. As a matter of editorial policy, Climate Debate Daily "maintains a studied neutrality", allowing each side to present its most powerful and persuasive case. The goal is to allow readers to form their own judgments based on the best available information. The issue of climate change will remain important because it is affecting government policies on a variety of issues worldwide.
Continue readingWe Salute MnCOGI
Our media monitoring for mentions of FGI recently pulled up the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information at http://www.mncogi.org. According to the organization's About page, it's mission is "promote public access to government activity and information." The page also carries their guiding principles which we at FGI agree with almost entirely:
MnCOGI carries out its mission through uniting, informing and enhancing the impact of organizations and individuals committed to open access to public records.
It is the active responsibility of government to promote public participation supported by open access to accurate public information by and about the government.
Documents/records produced with public funds, regardless of physical format, are part of the public record.
Compliance with open meeting and public records laws must be monitored and enforced by responsibility authorities and institutions that are held accountable.
Because collection, maintenance and preservation of information are the responsibility of each government office each must be held accountable.
Research and education are essential to preserve and improve access to public information.
Education and support for all Minnesotans about their rights and responsibilities is best accomplished through a broad-based coalition of informed advocates for open access.
Preservation of public records is a critical part of achieving accountability to be encouraged by MnCOGI.
MnCOGI will link with and support parallel efforts at the federal level while maintaining a specific focus on the free flow of information on public policy matters at the state and local levels in Minnesota.
About the only quibble we have with MnCOGI is that we believe that collection, maintenance and preservation of information are responsibilities too important to be left to each government office. They must be assisted in those tasks by third parties with fewer axes to grind, like libraries. But this is a minor quibble given the level of involvement by libraries in MnCOGI.
One last thing we appreciate about MnCOGI is that they have signed up nonlibrarian organizations like the MN Newspapers Association to their efforts. Congratulations on that. Keep up your important work!
Continue readingDaily maps from National Geographic
A map a day keeps the doctor away right? Well now you can browse through history with National Geographic's daily maps site of historical news events and milestones. And they've even got an RSS feed.
Your feed reader getting too full? Thunderbird slowing down because of too many feeds? Then do what I do: tag it to your del.icio.us account with a tag like "daily." Because each tag has an RSS feed, you can simply add the feed to your Firefox toolbar as a live bookmark. Just click on the orange icon (
in your location bar (upper right). That's how I read GOVDOC-L too! Continue reading
And in other news…
Blake over at LIS News has published his "10 Non-librarian Blogs to read in 2008" which were nominated by his blog readers. On the list are many of our own favorites, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, Lifehacker, and Open Access News.
A belated shout out to Prof. Kip Currier and the terrific students in his Government Information Resources and Services class at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science. I spoke to the class this week about finding federal legislative information and they admitted to being followers of FGI blog - and they knew I'm a guest blogger this month! Keep reading, y'all, and please add your comments, we love to hear from you! Especially since you are learning how to be govdocs librarians in the 21st Century, you have a unique point of view that is valuable to all of us who work with government information.
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