U.S. Federal and Minnesota Information on I-35W Bridge
In light of the complete collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, MN on August 1, 2007, I put together a list of links to materials on bridges generally and that bridge specifically at the Government Publications Library website. Noteworthy from a government information perspective: 1. The "2001 report" variously described as authored by the UMN Dept. of Civil Engineering and/or the MN Dept. of Transportation (MN/DOT) is cataloged by the MN/DOT Library, but lives at a non-governmental website. 2. Because the title of this report ("Fatigue Evaluation of the Deck Truss of Bridge 9340") contains no terms I first thought to use to find it, I had to spend some time on news sites in the hope of finding a link to the full text. Of course, once you've got the title right, it turns out that it's described in many places in addition to MN/DOT's catalog including the University's Center for Transportation Studies and TRIS Online. 3. Political expediency is the name of the game. Finding reports on this particular bridge even earlier today wasn't as easy as I would have liked. Throughout the day though, MN/DOT has been adding links to various reports on the bridge to their homepage. Some are cataloged by the MN/DOT Library, some aren't. I haven't read through them all yet, but I note that they have yet to link to the one definite source of negative information on the bridge, namely the National Bridge Inventory ASCII files. 4. The National Bridge Inventory ASCII files are not user friendly. They are in fixed-width format and have a zillion fields. Even if I had proper software for handling files of this type (and I don't 'cause I'm breaking in a new computer and still figuring out what I need), it would be a drag to create the setup files because of the way the record layout is, well, laid out. If there's a summary of the results, I haven't found it yet. Continue reading
Welcome Amy West, BOTM for August, 2007
Yes, as you can tell, we've been slacking off...um...taking a slight vacation from our invited bloggers of the month. But now we're back with a vengeance to introduce you to Amy West (Amy's bio) our BOTM for August, 2007. As you can see, Amy's already posted a few times, so we look forward to a long and rewarding relationship -- or at least of month full of good discussion. Take it away Amy!
Continue readingAmy West: BOTM for August, 2007
Amy West is the Data Services Librarian at the University of Minnesota, having previously worked in the Government Publications Library there for seven years. She is a GOVDOC-L moderator, has worked on the National Historical Geographic Information System, developed by the Minnesota Population Center, maintains the Government Publications Library website, is coordinator-elect of the International Documents Task Force of ALA/GODORT and currently co-chairs a group at Minnesota called the Reinventing Reference Collaborative. She is perpetually in search of the perfect handbag, shoes and software. Continue reading
GSA goes to Eagle Eye for contract, grant data
FCW.com article on grants/contracts database: http://www.fcw.com/article103323-07-26-07-Web No registration required.
The General Services Administration intends to issue a sole-sourcing purchase order to Eagle Eye Publishers for custom programming services as the agency works to put federal contract and grant information into an easily searchable public database.Continue reading
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – Estimated Costs of U.S. Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and…the War on Terrorism
CBO's report on the costs of US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other related activities (CBO Testimony) states that overall expenditures exceed 600 billion dollars. Their analysis also includes expenditures which aren't explicitly budgeted for this purpose such as Veteran's Administration expenditures. Continue reading