Circulation » LIS5661

GPO's YouTube channel

lindybr1 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:32:00 +0000

The geek in me likes that the Government Printing Office has a youtube account.

In honor of my LIS 5661 government documents class, I share with thee such splendor.

GPOAccess –> FDsys

lindybr1 — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:34:44 +0000

For those of us taking government documents/searching classes: I found today’s post at the Library Journal, Government Documents Move to Improved Federal Digital System, extremely interesting, timely and applicable to my current studies! Changes are a-coming to GPOAccess… In fact, by mid-2009, GPOAccess will be no more as the Government Printing Office’s new Federal Digital System (FDsys) will completely replace it. FDsys is supposed to offer better search capabilities, handle millions of more documents, and have a friendlier user-interface.

Speaking of the Inauguration… Who is paying for it anyway?

lindybr1 — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:55:35 +0000

I’m doing my reading for LIS5661 (government info) and one small section of my book covers financial disclosure information. (Elected officials are required to file personal financial disclosure reports every year). There are quite a few interesting resources — i.e., check out the Office of the Clerk of the House (Public Disclosure Reports), the Federal Election Commission, the Center for Responsive Politics.

Of course I’m curious about the financial reports, so to practice my reference skills, I checked out the sites. Most interesting, however, was my foray to the Center for Responsive Politics. One of the lead stories on their page that caught my eye was a great picture of our president-to-be (in less than 24 hours!) with the caption of “Who’s paying for his inauguration?” Check out the link – it is really, really interesting!

The article breaks down where the money comes from – which states, industries, organizations and even which individuals donated.

Please note that OpenSecrets.org is a nonpartisan guide “to money’s influence on U.S. Elections and public policy.” As someone very well aware of how easy it is to “spin” things in politics, I recommend bookmarking this site.

Update 1/24: One of my other favorite non-partisan/independent organizations, factcheck.org, answered a recent question about Obama’s inauguration costs versus George Bush’s inauguration: Did Barak Obama’s inauguration really cost four times as much as George W. Bush’s?

Government on YouTube

lindybr1 — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:37:50 +0000

The government is on YouTube. Check out their welcome message, starring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p83pNZdmhQ]

I’ve had a chance to peruse through the Senate and House YouTube sites and really like what I see. You can click on a state and a bubble pops up with the Senator or Congressperson’s name. Click on the name and you can see their channel. Of course I checked out Oregon Senator Ron Wyden’s page (or “channel”) and was able to read all about him, learn about his interests, constituents, etc and watch plenty of videos. I think this is a pretty cool way to learn about our government officials rather than soley reading about them.

It looks like a few officials don’t have channels or sites uploaded yet. (Curiously, I checked for the state of Illinios to see if Roland Burris had a channel yet but I realize he was only sworn in last week so I’m probably getting ahead of myself. I notice new Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley doesn’t have a site yet either… it’s probably too early).

In honor of LIS5661: Goverment Info

lindybr1 — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:40:13 +0000

I recently started another class toward my Reference & Instruction specialization: LIS 5661 – Government Information. To start it off appropriately, I would like to educate you with Schoolhouse Rock’s – How a Bill Becomes a Law.