Pius XII Memorial Library Government Information

The upcoming crop of presidential hopefuls are stretching their (and our) intellectual muscle — tossing out historical references to the early years of the area commonly know as “North America.”  Being a mild mannered librarian, I try to avoid statements sans citation  and I wondered if I could find a .gov source to help the [...]

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With summer vacation rapidly approaching (thank goodness we don’t have to fret about having six weeks off like the lazy Europeans) let’s see what suggestions .gov is offering.  Check the Facebook page or recreation.gov today, because the funding could be cut at anytime.

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Buyer beware!  Of course all is political, but one yearns for pseudo-impartiality when searching the internet with the .gov domain.  This is now laid to rest (and I am sure these are just two of many  stumble-on examples).  Try http://www.gop.gov/ or  http://www.dems.gov/ and see if they have a bi-partisan, neutral, dot-gov style outlook.

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Didn’t Al Gore invent the algorithm?  What???  Yes, this is internet free association. A couple of typos in your favorite search engine and hard to tell what might float to the top.  But seriously, is it easier than ever to find Government Information, or is the “real stuff” just waiting for the next Wiki-Leak. And [...]

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Public Printer Bill Boarman has named Mary Alice Baish Assistant Public Printer, Superintendent of Documents, for the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).  Interesting bio includes this…  “She is among the founding members of OpenTheGovernment.org (OTG.org), an organization created to promote democracy and end Government secrecy.  She has worked with OTG.org, the White House and Office [...]

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Czar time in D.C. again.  This  supernumerary will us help keep stuff to ourselves, err,  allow us to opt-in (or is that opt-out) of  the sharing (or is that stealing) of our most personal and precious moments (i.e. bank routing numbers). The White House plans for a web security czar…   Ars Technica summarizes here.

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Just glancing through the Economic Report of the President (librarian occupational hazard) and was struck by all the comparisons with EUROPE and the Group of Seven — so what’s up with that?  For example one table (fig 7-3, page 190) shows the US of A as having higher infant mortality than the other gang of [...]

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September 17th is Constitution Day when we tout the jewel of the republic. Naturally NARA (keeper of the flame) has the inside line on the document.

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Белка и Стрелка. The two Muscovite dogs (not to be confused with mosquovites) who flew into space fifty years ago have gone viral on the WWW. Fortunately, there is a NASA link on animals in space, making the link du jour fodder for this blog!

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All the dreary economic news from the various federal agencies and quasi-governmental agencies getting you down?  Rejoice — things could be worse (and have been) and this is showcased in a Library of Congress exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color featuring fascinating photographs taken by Farm Security Administration photographers from 1939-1943.

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