Thursday, January 24, 2008

Go to http://www.maplight.org/widgets and you can get the code for widgets showing fundraising by presidential race, US Congressional district and CA races. Fun way to add content to election related pages...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

President Bush has signed the Act that you'll see referenced below that makes the deposit of government-funded health research mandatory! As you might possibly remember, the requirement that investigators using NIH money deposit their manuscipts into PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months after publication that went into effect in 2005 as a result of the efforts of Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health, was not mandatory. Dr. Zerhouni wanted it to be mandatory, but lobbyists for medical publishers watered it down until the enacting language was changed from "required" to "recommended". As a result only abvout 5% to 7% of such manuscipts have been available via PubMed Central since 2005. But with this Consolidated Appropriations Act the language is now changed to "required". This is analogous to the release of publically-funded education research via ERIC. It doesn't happen often, but we've won one! We should now all start offering training in PMC to our academic and public library customers.

Link to PubMed Central--
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pmc

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

washoe County building and safety officials continue policy of mutual aid to fernley citizens
Reno, Nevada. January 9, 2008. Washoe County personnel are part of the cavalry of local government who are assisting Fernley in their recovery efforts from last weekend’s devastating flood which affected so many residents in that area.
When the Fernley disaster initially hit, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office deployed search and rescue personnel to aid local first responders in rescuing residents from their flooded homes. Subsequently, Washoe County Building and Safety officials sent six employees to assist Fernley Building officials with damage assessment and administrative work.
Washoe County Building and Safety Director Don Jeppson spoke about his Department’s philosophy of assistance. "We have a standing policy of supporting our fellow jurisdictions during times of emergency," Jeppson states. "During last summer’s South Lake Tahoe fire, we offered help to El Dorado County, and in the past, the local building departments have also mutually supported each other during flood and snow events. We know that our counterparts would also help us out during difficult times to ensure public safety and well-being."
In addition, Washoe County’s Roads Director Bill Oroszi has offered street sweeper equipment to Fernley along with personnel to operate it. To speak to a Washoe County Building and Safety employee currently working in Fernley, please contact Building and Safety Director Don Jeppson directly at 775-328-2030.