Severe Weather Awareness Week

I’m a bit late in bringing this to your attention, but this week is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Alabama.  Each day this week a particular severe weather topic has been highlighted – for instance, Wednesday was Tornado Awareness Day, and Monday highlighted Severe Thunderstorms and Damaging Winds. Tomorrow (Saturday, February 28th) the National Weather Service office in Calera will be having an open house (free of charge) – there are plenty of neat events planned, so you might want to check it out!  (You can find more resources on severe weather from usa.gov. )

Something to keep in mind if you’re ever in Gorgas Library during a tornado warning: head to the first floor, and NOT to the Lower Level.  While this does seem to go against everything we are told about tornadoes, that is the safest place in this building.  The University of Alabama’s severe weather guidelines provide guidance on what to do while on campus during severe weather events.

Stimulus Update – What’s going where?

StimulusWatch is a site which includes information on stimulus funding by state, program type, etc. Alabama projects are available here.   The site’s intent is “to help the new administration keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend.”

If you have more information about a project, or if it’s located in your town, keep an eye on it and contribute to the discussion.  The site gives you a project description, which you can then add to; you can also comment on the project and “vote on whether you believe it is critical or not.”

The data comes from the “MainStreet Economic Recovery Report” which was produced by the United States Conference of Mayors.  If you have further questions about the purpose of the site, and/or its creators, visit the site FAQs.

Update: According to the Tuscaloosa News, there will be a web site produced by the Alabama government which will include more details on the funds in the stimulus package that will be coming to the state.

State Website to Detail Government Spending

Governor Riley signed an executive order today that directs the Comptroller’s Office to create a database of state government spending – and to make it publicly accessible.  According to the official press release, EO 46 “orders the creation of a publicly accessible website that details all spending, grants and contracts done by state government. The public information will include the amount of funds being spent, the date of the expenditure, the agency spending the money and the funding source.”

The site is supposed to be live no later than March 1st, and will include “information on spending from fiscal year 2008 and with monthly reports of expenditures incurred in the 2009 fiscal year. Software that makes the database searchable must be in place by September 1.”  I think it’s excellent news – basically, usaspending.gov on the state level – and I’ll be very interested to see what the product looks like when it’s available.

Update, 2009-03-03: The web site, Open.alabama.gov, is now available.  It’s a good start (especially given that the folks had less than a month to pull everything together) – I’ll be interested to see how the site moves forward (and becomes even easier to use).

Government and YouTube

Last month Congressional leadership announced that they’d made a deal with Google to have House and Senate channels on YouTube, allowing Members of Congress to communicate directly to their constituents via video.  So far, two members of the Alabama delegation have their own channel: Rep. Aderholt and Rep. Bachus.

You probably know that the White House has its own channel…and now comes the news that executive branch agencies are in negotiations with Google to have their own YouTube channels.  (Negotiations are necessary in order to remove ads from official government channels, etc.)  According to Sheila Campbell, manager for government Web best practices and co-chairwoman of the Federal Web Managers Council, “…under the agreement, which federal agencies will be free to sign once it is completed, agencies will be able to set up their own partner channels on YouTube. They will have full control over the channels. She said the government is negotiating with other popular video-sharing and social media sites, including Vimeo, Blip.TV, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn.”

I think that allowing government officials and agencies to use social media tools such as those listed above, to communicate with their constituents/citizens is a great move – but as a librarian, I can’t help but wonder how some of these communications will be preserved once the technology changes – or the private entity hosting this content decides that it’s no longer profitable.  And, of course, whether they’re worth preserving.  It should be really interesting to watch this continue to evolve!

Defining Moral Turpitude

You may recall that during that last election season, there was confusion about the definition of the term ‘moral turpitude.’  For, while those who have been convicted of crimes of moral turpitude are unable to vote in elections, there’s not a clear definition of the term on the books.

Enter the Alabama Legislature.

Currently there is legislation in Montgomery to define moral turpitude.  In the Senate, SB168 and SB299 (both intending ‘to create the Definition of Moral Turpitude Act’) have been introduced – and are very different in terms of the specific crimes mentioned.   (Just look at difference in the length of the lists!).  In the House, HB327 and HB436 appear to be nearly identical (and very similar to SB299).

According to the Calendar, HB436 is on the agenda for the House Constitution and Elections Committee meeting tomorrow (February 11th) at 9 am in room 603.  Neither Senate bill is on this week’s agendas.

2009 Regular Session of the Alabama Legislature

The 2009 Regular Session of the Alabama Legislature convened this week, and one of the primary issues they have to tackle is the state’s budget.

This will be the third legislative session since I moved back to Alabama, and I still am looking for better resources for tracking the activities in Montgomery.  Here’s a few I’ve found so far:

• You can listen to live feeds of the House and the Senate when they’re in session, but I haven’t found an archive of previous audio files.
• ALISON is the Alabama Legislative Information System Online – and the place where you can read the text of bills, resolutions, etc. from not only the current session, but also previous sessions.
• Usually I get my information from newspapers around the state, such as those on al.com.  For instance, the Birmingham News published information on some of the 600+ bills that were introduced on the first day of the session.  Getting a bit of press this week has been the bill that will remove the 4% state sales tax on groceries. (That’s HB116, in case you want to follow it in ALISON.)
• Capitol Journal, an Alabama Public Television show, is available for viewing online. Currently a weekly program, it is moving to 5 days a week beginning March 5th.
• Montgomery TV station WSFA has a 2009 Legislative Session blog
• There are a few political bloggers in the state, but it seems to me that most of them focus on national politics – with a little bit of the Leg. thrown in.  Here are a couple I’ve come across:
  • Doc’s Political Parlor
  • Left in Alabama
  • Red State Diaries

If you know of a good resource that I haven’t come across, please let me know!

Primary Resources from the Library of Congress

You may know that the Library of Congress has spent a lot of time providing online access to some of their extensive collections.  You may not know that they’ve begun to highlight certain primary resources in their collections, organized by state.  A sample of Alabama Primary Resources includes a map of Birmingham from 1885, an interview with Isom Mosely in Gee’s Bend, 1941 (an audio file) and a poster offering fifty dollars reward for the capture of a runaway slave in 1852.  The Library has also created a brief handout on how to use primary resources, as well as an analysis tool, for teachers who want to incorporate the use of these resources into their lesson plans.

More information can be found at the Library’s portal For Teachers.

Census Data on Older Workers in Alabama

The Census Bureau recently released a report entitled ‘The Geographic Distribution and Characteristics of Older Workers in Alabama: 2004.’  The data was compiled between 2001 and 2004, and indicates that the percentage of people 55 and over in the workplace has increased (which probably doesn’t surprise you too much!)  Also not too surprising?  Education is one of the fields with the highest percentage of older workers.

The publication isn’t very long (12 pages), but has some interesting figures and maps – and includes information on how to obtain related data.  In case you’d like to see reports for other states, they’re available on the Census Bureau’s web site.

Call for Papers: Fall Issue of DttP

At the recent Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association, I was selected to become the co-Lead editor of the Government Documents Round Table’s official journal, DttP: Documents to the People.  My term begins with the 3rd issue of this year, and my co-editor and I have decided to place a call for publications, which is posted below:

The editors of Documents to the People (DttP) announce a call for proposals for the Fall 2009 issue.

DttP: Documents to the People is the official publication of the Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of the American Library Association (ALA). DttP features articles on local, state, national, and international government information, government activities, and documents the professional activities of GODORT. All topics relevant to the mission of the journal and GODORT are welcome.

Brief proposals of 250-500 words are due by March 1, 2009. Notifications to authors of acceptance for the Fall 2009 issue will be made by March 15, 2009.

Full manuscripts of 2,500-3,000 words are due by July 1, 2009.

Style and manuscript information can be found in the DttP instructions for authors.

Please note that while this is a call for proposals for the Fall 2009 issue, we will use the pool of submissions for content of future issues – particularly Spring and Summer 2010.
Please send queries and proposals to one or both of the Dttp co-lead editors:

Beth Clausen
phone: 847-491-2891
b-clausen@northwestern.edu

or
Valerie Glenn
phone: 205-348-4971
vglenn@gmail.com

Digital TV Transition – Local Meetings

The transition to digital tv is scheduled to occur on February 17th (that’s right, less than 3 weeks from now!)  In order to clear up any misunderstandings and answer any questions you have, the FCC is holding public meetings in the area during the next two weeks.  For instance, FCC representatives will be at the Tuscaloosa Public Library on Wednesday, from 10:30-6.

Thanks to the CBS42 twitter feed for the heads up!

Update, 2009-02-07: President Obama is soon expected to sign a law into effect that will delay the digital tv transition until June 12. However, some stations will shut off their analog broadcasts on February 17th – or at some point prior to June 12th.   Those stations do need to let people know, so you’ll probably want to check out their web sites for further information.