Presidential Transition Information and the New Congree

by Linda Johnson

This GovDocs Guy blog information was sent to me by a colleague and I wanted to pass along to you. Just this morning on NPR I heard that there are 60 days remaining in the transition period until Barack Obama takes office. Another interesting point is that no new regulations can be made after today so the Bush administration is busily working on regulations:

http://govdocsblog.kentlaw.edu/wordpress/?p=343

Another interesting thing is The United States Policy and Supporting Positions book commonly known as The Plum Book.

“This publication contains data (as of September 1, 2008) on over 7000 and Federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment (e.g. positions such as agency heads and their immediate sub ordnance policy executives and advisors and aides report to these officials). The duties of many such positions may involve advocacy of Administration policies and programs and the incumbents usually have close and confidential working relationship with the agency head or other key officials. “
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plumbook/2008/index.html

Finally, hot off the govdoc listserv is this information about the new, 111th Congress:
The New Member Pictorial Directory: 111th Congress is now available on GPO Access at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/pictorial/111th/newmems.html.

Files in the browse table are available as PDF files. The full New Member Pictorial Directory http://www.gpoaccess.gov/pictorial/111th/pdf/fulldoc.pdf is also available in its entirety, as a single PDF file.

This publication is available to the public in online format only. This preliminary version will be superseded by the Congressional Pictorial Directory for the 111th Congress, which will be printed and distributed to depository libraries in the near future.

Technology & Presidential Candidates

by Linda Johnson

From government document email list:

Now that both presidential candidates have gone on record with campaign positions on access to government information, we were struck by the similarity in their stated technology positions. The biggest difference that we could see is in their positions on transparency – Obama’s statements appear more sunshine-friendly. Below is a summary of relevant points. Complete policies are:

(McCain) here and here.

(Obama) here and here

Universal Service

McCain: federal support for locally built broadband access (whether public, private or mixed) as well as incentives for private companies’
extension into rural areas, auction wireless spectrum for private company expansion of broadband access to rural areas

Obama: encourage Universal Service reform, public/private partnerships, “unleash” wireless spectrum for private company expansion of broadband access to rural areas (possibly meaning to auction spectrum)

ALA Annual Conference Report

by Linda Johnson

ALA Annual
Anaheim California
June 2008

Federal Documents
Regional Depository Libraries & Title 44

There continues to be a great buzz about the role regional libraries play in the depository system. This was precipitated by the fact that a unique arrangement proposed by Kansas & Nebraska that would involve sharing collections between states was declared not legal under the present federal depository law embodied in Title 44.

Please see this report on responses related to regional libraries and the broader issue of Title 44.
http://freegovinfo.info/node/1924

Department of Energy (DOE) “OSTI Accelerating Science Information.”
Tim Bryne, Office of Scientific & Technical Information, gave an outstanding & funny overview of the DOE products that offer increased access to agency publications.

OSTI now offers downloadable MARC records of DOE records included in the Information Bridge (from 1991- & 172,000 records)