DLC Proceedings now available

Last month I attended the Federal Depository Library Conference and fall meeting of the Depository Library Council.  Proceedings from that meeting are now available.  Additionally, I have some notes from the conference that I am intending to post here – hopefully by the end of this week.

New Surgeon General is Alabamian

Today the Senate confirmed Dr. Regina Benjamin as the new Surgeon General of the United States.

The Surgeon General’s website has not yet been updated to reflect the change – however they do link to the White House’s profile of Dr. Benjamin.

Daylight Saving Time 2009

Just a quick reminder – daylight saving time ends this Sunday, November 1st.  For more info, see this post I wrote around this time last year.  Enjoy the extra hour!

Haunted Happenings in Alabama

It’s October, which means that Halloween is coming up!  In preparation, the Alabama Tourism Department has issued a list of the different ‘haunted’ experiences available in the state.

Unfortunately, none of the activities on the list are in/near Tuscaloosa!  Last year the UA SGA, Tuscaloosa Preservation Society, and Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group teamed up to offer a bus tour of haunted places in town -  but I haven’t yet determined if they’ll be doing something similar this year.  If you know of anything, please leave a comment!

New Alabama Area Code – 10-digit dialing

In March I wrote about the new area code for areas in North and East Alabama – and the fact that users would have to begin dialing all ten digits in order to make a local call.  This week the Alabama Public Service Commission announced the compliance schedule for implementing the new area code, 938.

According to the Birmingham News article, “permissive dialing of 10 digits for local calls in the 256 area code will begin Nov. 7. Customers who dial seven digits will still have their calls completed, but 10-digit dialing will become mandatory June 5.  The new 938 area code will begin July 10.”

Helen Keller Statue Unveiled

Today the Helen Keller statue that I wrote about earlier was finally installed in the U.S. Capitol.  The statue, a bronze of Ms. Keller at seven years old, is the first statute of a child to be installed in the Capitol.

Governor Riley and his wife Patsy were at the unveiling, along with students from the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind.

Fire Prevention Week, 2009

In case you weren’t aware, this week is Fire Prevention Week, 2009 – it began on Sunday (the 4th) and ends on Saturday (the 10th).

I  grew up in a family of firefighters.  My dad, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousins, etc. are all volunteer firefighters in their towns in MD and DE – it’s definitely something that I’ve grown up with!  When I was in elementary school, one activity associated with Fire Prevention Week was getting to ride around town on the top of a fire truck – definitely the highlight of the week! (Apparently that’s not allowed these days – kids have to ride in the truck instead.)  We also had fire safety lessons in school – drew pictures for the ‘art contest,’ etc.  However, I never really learned the history of the week.  Did you know that NFPW was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire?  That’s why it is always in October – the fire began on October 8, 1871.   Pretty interesting.

For tips on how to better prepare your home and family to deal with a fire, check out firesafety.gov.  In addition to games and puzzles for teaching kids how to stay away from fire, there’s also information on creating a fire escape plan and what to do after a fire.  The National Fire Protection Association (the sponsors of Fire Prevention Week) has a good deal of information on their website as well.

Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Tool

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education recently launched a new tool, the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool. The tool allows users to retrieve data from one institution or a group of institutions. The data is supplied by institutions, who are required to do so by the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act – and there is contact information given for the person who is responsible for the survey data.

The site includes information on the number of participants per team, the number of coaches per team and their average salaries, and revenues and expenses per team.  Individual institutions can be searched for by name, state, undergraduate enrollment, type of institution, etc.  Aggregated group data can be searched for by similar criteria.  (For example, I was able to retrieve data for all schools in the Southeastern Conference, the conference that the University of Alabama is a member of, in order to compare our institution with our SEC peers.)

I retrieved institutional data for the 2007-08 year; aggregate data for groups of institutions was available for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.  I was also able to download selected data for the SEC, as well as the entire data sets from academic years 2000-01 through 2007-08. [Note:  The Excel files include a "sportscode" which is a number from 1-38. I could not find documentation that indicated which sport the number indicated - but users may be able to determine that from comparing the downloaded data with the institutional data online.]

I had a lot of fun playing around with the tool – and checking out the data for UA, of course.  I found the breakdown between men’s and women’s athletics to be interesting – especially the revenues and expenses data!

Census 2010 and why you should fill out the form

Admittedly, I’m a bit more excited about the upcoming decennial census than your average person – or even your average government documents librarian!  Earlier this year I attended a meeting of State Data Center affiliates, which was all about Census 2010.  There I learned some interesting information about how much the Census means to local governments – especially in terms of funding.  So I was very glad to see a column in the Washington Post a few weeks ago about the economics of the census.

From a Census FAQ:  “Every year, the federal government distributes more than $400 billion to local, state and tribal governments based on census data.”  Think about that number!  That’s a lot of money distributed locally – and each person who’s correctly counted equals a larger amount of money to your particular community.   (Also – if you do the easy thing and fill out the form and return it, you won’t have to worry about a Census worker showing up and asking you the same questions.  That’s a little bit of money saved by the federal government.)

You’ll probably hear more from me as we get closer to April 1, 2010 – especially if I keep hearing people (including members of Congress, who should know better) talking about why they won’t fill out their form!

Senate Health Care Bill

Earlier today Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) introduced his health care legislation, named America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009.  The text of the bill is available in pdf format from the Senate Finance Committee’s site and available in html via OpenCongress.  [Note: this bill is approximately 223 pages, as opposed to the 1000+ page H.R. 3200]