A review of the FBI's involvement in and observations of detainee interrogations... 438 pgs.
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0805/final.pdf

Political Appointee Asserts Control over All Libraries, Repeals 30-Year-Old Manual
Washington, DC - Ordered by Congress to re-open its shuttered libraries, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is grudgingly allocating only minimal space and resources, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is issuing a series of edicts placing virtually every aspect of library operations under centralized control of a political appointee.
In a May 8, 2008 e-mail to EPA employee unions, the agency announced its plan for re-opening four of the closed libraries effective September 1.
The unions were given until May 22 to reply or object. The announced plan for the Chicago library, formerly the largest regional library serving the entire six-state Great Lakes area, stipulates:
* The re-opened library will be in a vacant reception area on the
16th floor of a federal building;
* The re-opened library will occupy less than one-tenth the area
of the closed library and will be only slightly larger than the typical men's restroom in that same building; and
* No provision is made to restore the unique Great Lakes
ecological collection or to recover any of the other holdings from the former library.
Similarly, the regional library in Dallas serving a five-state area will be reduced to "2 staff workstations and 1 patron workstation, each with a PC, desk, and chair". It will be open six hours a day for four days a week. The fate of its former collection also remains unknown.
"A library requires more space than a lavatory," stated PEER Associate Director Carol Goldberg. "These plans appear to violate the Congressional order that the agency 'restore the network of EPA libraries recently closed...' What part of 'restore' doesn't EPA understand?"
Adding to the disruption caused by its 20-month library closure campaign, EPA has installed one political appointee, Molly O'Neill, the Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information, as library czar, in charge of all library operations, including those serving laboratories and specialized programs.
New rules issued by O'Neill governing every facet of library operations, including detailed directives on handling research and information requests and priorities for materials disbursal or destruction, will go into effect next month. These new rules will repeal agency protocols that have been in effect since 1977.
"Even as many collections remain in crates, EPA has decided to micromanage what is left," Goldberg added, noting that the agency has still not accounted for many of the library holdings it had removed.
"Professional librarians should be making these management decisions, not political appointees."
More information available here, including the original memo, how libraries are suppose to respond to requests and more:
http://peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1051

Carol Lloyd, Head of Information Services at the Downtown Reno Library subs for storytime.

CLOSED EPA LIBRARIES TO RETURN IN LAVATORY-SIZED SPACES
Web page address: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1051

Pew's State Management Report Card for 2008


http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Grading-the-States-2008.pdf

Announcement: It All Started With Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: "Tom Peters" tapinformation@yahoo.com tapinformation
Date: Tue May 13, 2008 7:19 am ((PDT))
Greetings! Everyone worldwide is welcome to join the librarians at the Library of Congress for this free online program about the genesis of the Library of Congress. To learn more about all upcoming OPAL free online programs, please visit
http://www.opal-online.org/progschrono.htm
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 1:00 Central, noon Mountain, 11:00 a.m. Pacific, and 6:00 p.m. GMT/UTC/Zulu:
From Monticello to Capitol Hill: Thomas Jefferson and His Library
Host: Library of Congress
Online Location: OPAL Online Auditorium

After nearly two centuries, Thomas Jefferson¢s library has again been recreated at the heart of the Library of Congress for all to see. How did catastrophe vie with vision and innovation to transform Jefferson¢s library into the Library of Congress? Join us as we take you on a virtual journey across the Web, blending a nineteenth-century story with twenty-first-century technical innovation to bring you online resources that are both the oldest and the newest treasures the world¢s greatest library has to share.
Tom Peters, OPAL Coordinator
TAP Information Services
1000 SW 23rd Street
Blue Springs, MO 64015
phone: 816-228-6406
email: tpeters@tapinformation.com
web: www.tapinformation.com
Skype: tapeters4466
Maxito Ricardo in Second Life

The House Committee on Homeland Security Majority Staff have published a new report examining "Public Health, Safety, and Security for Mass Gatherings." This is a comprehensive report and it includes 30 recommendations for what should be done by levels of government as well as the private sector in the event of an act of terrorism or any other from of disaster. The report is available directly at
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20080513105623-98169.pdf .
The press release is available at
http://homeland.house.gov/press/index.asp?ID=373

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has released its majority and minority staff report entitled "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat."
It can be found at
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/IslamistReport.pdf or from the Committee's website http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/

Watching gas prices rise 15-cents overnight will frighten the hardiest of souls. Fight back with a little information.
The University of Michigan Documents Center has just launched its Gasoline Prices web page at:
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/dn08/dn08gas.html
The web page is filled with statistics on pump and crude oil prices, exchange rates, and oil reserves. Did you know there are 42 gallons to a barrel of oil? It is also addresses solutions to high prices from supply and demand to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a gas tax holiday, and regulating commodity exchanges. In case you are wondering, there IS no existing windfall profits tax!

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Majority Staff has released its report "Hospital Emergency Surge Capacity: Not Ready for the 'Predictable Surprise.'" The report is available at
http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20080505101837.pdf
For the links to the related snapshot reports for various hospitals as well as information about the hearings being held this week, go to
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1929 .

The State Department has released its latest "Country Report on Terrorism." This report is required by law and until 2004 was called the "Patterns of Global Terrorism." The html version of the 2007 is now available at
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/
Previous reports [2006-2000] can be found at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt and the archive [1995-1999] of the earlier reports can be found at http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/annual_reports.html