Wednesday, February 27, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 13, 2008 No. 08-06 GPO MEDIA CONTACT: GARY SOMERSET 202.512.1957, 202.355.3997 cell UIC MEDIA CONTACT: LINDA NARU 312.413.0394 GPO AND DEPOSITORY LIBRARIES PARTNER TO OFFER ONLINE REFERENCE ASSISTANCE
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) joins the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Federal Depository Libraries around the country to provide an online reference service to the American public. This unique free web based "Ask a Librarian" service will give the public an opportunity to ask librarians questions about government resources. An example of how this service works: with the current process in the Presidential elections, the public may have questions about the primaries, caucuses and Electoral College process. A librarian is available at <http://govtinfo.org> to answer those or any other questions about the government.
"This service enables GPO and the depository libraries to help Americans answer questions about their democracy by connecting them to the expertise offered by Government reference librarians," said Ric Davis, Acting Superintendent of Documents. "This is another example of the strong partnership GPO has with the Federal Depository Library community in their commitment of Keeping America Informed."
UIC will manage and maintain this service called "Government Information
Online: Ask a Librarian". GIO is supported by nearly 20 public, academic and state libraries throughout the country. Librarians are specialized in finding government information on any topic.
"GIO promotes and complements the growing digital initiatives of both UIC and GPO as well as the digital Government information provided through the Federal Depository Library Program," said Mary Case, University Librarian at UIC. "We are pleased to be able to collaborate on this exciting initiative with GPO, our Committee on Institutional Cooperation colleagues and a growing number of depository libraries around the country."
About GPO:
The GPO is the Federal Government's primary centralized resource for gathering, cataloging, producing, providing, authenticating, and preserving published U.S. Government information in all its forms. GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three Branches of the Federal Government.
In addition to publication sales, GPO makes government information available at no cost to the public through GPO Access (www.gpoaccess.gov), and through partnerships with more than 1,250 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit <www.gpo.gov>.
About UIC:
UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world. UIC also is one to twelve research universities in the Midwest with membership in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which strives to advance academic by sharing resources and promoting and coordinating collaborative activities across the member universities. For more information about UIC, please visit <www.uic.edu>

Sunday, February 24, 2008

The Washington Affairs Office <http://www.aallnet.org/aallwash/> of the American Association of Law Libraries <http://www.aallnet.org/> is pleased to announce its new blog <http://aallwash.wordpress.com/> [http://aallwash.wordpress.com <http://aallwash.wordpress.com/> ]! The blog, named AALL's Washington Blawg, will highlight bills we're tracking in Congress, Action Alerts, news and resources, events we're participating in, and more. We will address important topics such as access to government information, digital authentication <http://www.aallnet.org/summit/default.asp> , copyright, and open government issues.
You can keep up with our regular updates by subscribing to the RSS feed <http://aallwash.wordpress.com/feed> , signing up for email updates <http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=1707127&loc=en_
US> , or by visiting the blog for the latest news. We hope the blog
serves as another way to keep you informed about the Washington Affairs Office.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Terri Russell, reporter for KOLO, reseaching a story in the periodicals department of the Downtown Reno Library.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Rand has posted the final report of their Counterinsurgency Study series. The central question the study attempted to answer was "How should the United States improve its capabilities to counter insurgencies, particularly those that are heavily influenced by transnational terrorist movements and thus linked into a global jihadist network?"
War by Other Means -- Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency. RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Final Report
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG595.2.pdf
The Defense Science Board (DSB) has posted their latest report
"The Defense Science Board Permanent Task Force on Nuclear Surety:
Report on the Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons."
The report is available directly at
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2008-02-Nuclear_Weapons_Surety.pdf or from the DSB report site - http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports.htm
"The Task Force report is an independent assessment of the systemic causes of the August 30 unauthorized movement of nuclear warheads from Minot AFB, North Dakota to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. Based on the information and insights gained from investigating and assessing these systemic causes, the report includes 16 recommendations to strengthen nuclear weapons surety."

Thursday, February 07, 2008

National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission has just released their final report which is available on their website,
http://www.transportationfortomorrow.org/
A New Treasury Site
Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities (in billions of dollars) http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt
This covers major holders by country by billions of dollars for the current and previous 12 months (i.e. Nov 2007-Nov 2006)
The general site is:
Treasury International Capital System - Home Page http://www.treas.gov/tic/