(NY) WWI Army recipes
A researcher came to our Reference Desk to find recipes used to feed the Army troops during World War I. I felt that we must have them, since we are an older collection. Lo, and behold! We had not only the recipes from World War I, but also for later wartime troops, and the Reserves. We also had a nineteenth century manual that advised how to use "canned goods," since they were probably "new" at the time. It was interesting to see that the author was the "subsistence" unit of the Army. Linda Braun Senior Librarian, Reference--Public Services New York State Library Continue reading
(LA) Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Preparedness Study
The Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, located here in Sims Library, was contacted by a lady from the Congressional Research Service who was looking for a copy of a report to fill a rush request from a member of Congress. The report she needed was "Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Preparedness Study" published in 1994. The folks in the Center referred the question to me. I did a Google search for the title and found it in the "Region Wide Data" section of New Orleans Hurricane Protection Projects Data. Sometimes it does pay to think like a freshman. Lori Smith Government Documents Department Head Southeastern Louisiana Univ., Sims Library Continue reading
New on FDSys: January 30, 2006 – Industry contacts, capabilities update
In the past week, the volunteers at FGI have observed a new file and a revised document at GPO's Future Digital System (FDSys) web site. The new file is called contact list and appears to be a list of attendees for FDSys' Industry Days in October 2005 and January 2006. Along with this addition, the document FDsys System Releases and Capabilities has been updated to version 2.1. According to its "document change/configuration control sheet", this revision updates Release 0 date and moved Style Tools to Content Submission. According to the document, Release 0 is "Supporting Digital Conversion Services for GPO Access" and GPO expects this version of FDSys to be available by April 2006. We at FGI wish to thank GPO's Office of Innovation & New Technology for posting more FDSys updates and hope this will continue to be a regular process. Continue reading
A bill that would give us more information
This bill puts public information at the forefront of the battle against corruption and influence peddling. It relies on new, more transparent disclosures of information to the public to make Congress more accountable. The press release about the bill (Obama Introduces CLEAN UP Act to Increase Transparency in Government, Decrease Lobbyists' Influence Monday, January 23, 2006) says that it would "require that all legislation introduced in the Senate, including conference reports, be posted on the Internet 72 hours before the legislation is voted on by the full Senate, including specific projects - or 'earmarks' - that under current law are anonymously attached to appropriations bills."
Digital Deposit in Action: Alaska State Documents via LOCKSS
Since July 2004, electronic state publications have represented about half of all documents collected through the Alaska State Publications Program. To eliminate broken URLs and to improve the preservation of electronic publications of state agencies, the Alaska State Library is storing electronic state publications on our web server and turning to a technology called LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe). LOCKSS caches (computers), including ones at the Alaska State Library, Stanford University, and Yale University collect the cataloged electronic documents stored on our server at and stores them locally. If something happens to our local server, or if the institution where the LOCKSS cache is based loses access to the Internet, the documents are served from the LOCKSS cache and stay locally available. Further information about LOCKSS can be found at http://www.lockss.org. Two sections of the web site of special interest are Answers for Library Directors and For Librarians. For information about how the Alaska State Library is using LOCKSS, please contact Daniel Cornwall at dan_cornwall AT eed.state.ak.us. Continue reading