GAO Rules in favor of Boeing on Aerial Refueling Tanker

On Wednesday the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ‘sustained Boeing’s protest‘ regarding the Air Force’s decision to award a contract to build aerial refueling tankers to Northrop Grumman.

The Air Force now has “60 days to inform [the GAO] of the Air Force’s actions in response to [these] recommendations.”  As I interpret the GAO statement, there are several directions in which the Air Force could go - it could ignore the recommendations and proceed with the contract as awarded or amend the solicitation and resume the competitive bidding process.  Some in Congress believe that the Air Force should simply award the contract to Boeing - which has Alabama lawmakers a bit upset.  (When the decision was made in late February, it was big news across the state of Alabama, but particularly in Mobile, where the tankers were scheduled to be built.  The Birmingham News indicated that it would bring at least 1500 new jobs to the state. )

The GAO has not yet made the decision publicly available, “because the decision contains proprietary and source selection sensitive information.” However, the statement issued on Wednesday does include the rationale for sustaining the protest.  Among them, it appears that the Air Force did not follow its own criteria for awarding the contract, as listed in the solicitation, and made several errors in calculating life cycle costs which, when corrected, revealed that Boeing did make a lower bid.

For more background information, the Mobile Press-Register has an informative podcast up on al.com

Happy Earth Day!

April 22nd is Earth Day in the U.S. In order to educate folks as to what they can do to ‘protect our planet’ the U.S. Government has set up an Earth Day portal.  The site includes information for students and teachers, volunteer opportunities, and information on what the Bush Administration is doing to further the goals of Earth Day.

Governor Riley has also proclaimed April 22, 2008 to be Earth Day in the state of Alabama.  While I can’t find much about it on state agency web sites, I did come across the publication “Celebrate Earth Day with ADEM - Today and Everyday!“

For more on the history of Earth Day, visit the EPA’s site.

Alabama VA National Cemetery

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has chosen a name for the national cemetery to be built in Alabama - the Alabama VA National Cemetery.  Documents related to the new cemetery are available from the VA web site. A fact sheet on the ‘National Cemetery in the Birmingham Area‘ is included.

A listing of all VA National Cemeteries is also available. This Alabama VA National Cemetery will be the state’s third - behind the Fort Mitchell and Mobile National Cemeteries. (At first, I thought that this would be the only one in the state - that’s what the name implies.  But I was, of course, wrong.)

The addition of a national cemetery in Alabama is a result of the Veterans Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act of 1999 (Public Law 106-117), which “required VA to establish six additional national cemeteries in areas of the United States in which the need for burial space is greatest.”

Alabama and the AT

Alabama will soon have a connection to the Appalachian Trail (AT)! The Pinhoti Trail will officially open on Sunday, connecting Cheaha Mountain State Park to Springer Mountain in Georgia. To have Alabama marked as the official Southern terminus of the AT will require an act of Congress.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Congressional aspect of the National Trails System, or specifically on the Appalachian Trail, you might want to check out the items that can be found in the Gorgas Library Government Documents collection. Some examples:

- Appalachian Trail amendments : hearing before the Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Ninety-fifth Congress, first session, on S. 2066 … H.R. 8803 … November 1, 1977. Call number: Y4.En2:95-81

- Appalachian Trail, Tennessee and North Carolina (map). Call number: A 13.28 67

- Appalachian Trail : national scenic trail/Maine to Georgia (map). Call number: I 29.2:Ap 4/4

- Comprehensive plan for the protection, management, development and use of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Call number: I 29.2:Ap 4

Assessment of March 1, 2007 Tornadoes

Yesterday the National Weather Service (NWS) released its Service Assessment of the Tornadoes that struck Alabama and Georgia on March 1, 2007 (the same storms that struck Enterprise High School). The Assessment team was “tasked with documenting and evaluating the performance and overall effectiveness of NWS services and operational procedures for the event. In addition, the assessment team was tasked with examining 1) NWS operational and service aspects relating to how the Storm-Based Warnings approach would have affected any outcomes during this event; and 2) some of the societal impacts relating to this event, including tornado safety in residential homes, industrial plants, educational institutions, and other large facilities having the capacity to hold many people.”
From the Executive Summary:

“The safety actions of Enterprise High School during this event were a passionate topic of debate while the Team was conducting its interviews and gathering information. Some people indicated if the school had not been under Tornado Warnings for almost 3 hours (as a result, they sheltered in-place for nearly 3 hours), the school could have evacuated the buildings before the actual tornado hit. The Team was asked to evaluate if the Storm-Based Warnings approach could have improved public response by creating a shorter time that the high school was under a Tornado Warning. In most cases, Storm-Based Warnings will cause smaller areas to be under Tornado Warnings for shorter periods of time. However, in this case, three successive supercell thunderstorms moved over or near the Enterprise area during the 3 hour time period. As a result, the high school would have been under Tornado Warnings for approximately the same amount of time, even if the Storm-Based Warnings approach had been used. The Team believes that, given the ongoing danger from the successive supercell storms, the safety response of the school was the proper one and would have been the same whether County-Based or Storm-Based Warnings were used.”

The team released 6 recommendations, including the need for hardened safety rooms in large public facilities such as schools and office buildings.

FDLC Official Proceedings

The official proceedings of the fall 2007 Depository Library Conference are now available from the GPO web site.  In addition to a short recap of events (including a photo gallery), podcasts of the Council sessions are included.  Materials from the educational sessions are available in GPO’s file repository.

Terrorism in the United States

For years, the FBI produced a publication entitled ‘Terrorism in the United States’ - basically an annual report of terrorist activities in the U.S. Around 2000/2001, they began to change the scope of the publication, and it was no longer produced annually. A 2000/2001 report entitled ‘Terrorism’ was produced, and that was the latest information available, until now. The FBI recently released ‘Terrorism 2002-2005,’ and according to the forward, it “provides an overview of the terrorist incidents and preventions designated by the FBI as having taken place in the United States and its territories during the years 2002 through 2005 and that are matters of public record. This publication does not include those incidents which the Bureau classifies under criminal rather than terrorism investigations. In addition, the report discusses major FBI investigations overseas and identifies significant events—including legislative actions, prosecutorial updates, and program developments—relevant to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The report concludes with an “In Focus” article summarizing the history of the FBI’s counterterrorism program.”

Reports dating back to 1996 are available from the FBI’s publications page; Gorgas Library’s government documents collection has reports from 1988-1998 (call # is J 1.14/22:year).

Yearbook of Immigration Statistics

The Department of Homeland Security has released the 2006 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. This publication, compiled annually, provides data on legal permanent residents, refugees and asylees, as well as naturalization and enforcement information. The yearbook includes a variety of data on immigrants, including country of origin, gender, age, marital status, and occupation. Selected data is available by state - for instance, if you’re looking for the total number of persons naturalized in Alabama for the years 2005-2006, table 22 has what you need (795 and 1,946, respectively). If you’re trying to find out what percentage of those naturalized in Alabama are female, or are working in the construction industry, that level of detailed data is not available.
The data tables are available as Excel spreadsheets; the reports are available as pdf files. Previous editions of the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics are also available - dating back to 1997.

DLC: Harvesting for the Future: the Indiana Light Archive of Government Information

Wednesday, October 17th, 10:30 am

4 Indiana libraries (IU Bloomington, Purdue, Indiana State Library, and U of Notre Dame) have joined forces to create a light archive for federal depository materials in the state.

Lou Malcomb (IU Bloomington) :

One trigger – increased discard lists & the realization that they couldn’t check everything
Another: space issues at IU-Bloomington (remote storage facility, alf, is preservation environment)

- used ddm to assess duplication/overlap of item selection

ALF (Auxilliary Library Facility)
- defined delivery standards, which keep improving
- alf has a scanner so that some materials can be scanned, if not borrowable
- try to deliver electronically (ie, and make this a true light archive)

had to define restricted use criteria
examining shared cataloging responsibilities and shared records mgmt

licensing – try to include ILL for print, if not electronic

reason for overwhelming support – not telling anyone they have to get rid of anything; it is a state of Indiana collection; wanted to keep the regional in place

ALF is now 80% full – ALF2 is on the way. This meant that IUB could not house anything

Distributed model – 1 archive, 4 places

In worldcat, trying to indicate whose copy is the Indiana light archive copy – this will facilitate ILL

Trying to figure out what is missing, so that it can be ‘harvested’ – from other collections, offers lists, etc.

Guidelines for disposal instruct depositories that they don’t need to list anything between 1976 and 5 years ago; - assumption that the 4 collection stewards will have allows focus on pre-76 items

Katie springer (regional perspective)

Using gpo model for state-wide needs & offers site - hosted at the state library

Lou for bert:
Q: how was sudoc collection broken up? Based on collection strength?

- see bert’s slides on determining agency steward responsibilities (ppt slides 23-32)
- determined collection strengths
- used knowledge of selective depository strengths

stewardship responsibilities do not assume that you own everything or even want everything

Cheryl truesdell - IFPW

superseded materials??
- still trying to decide what responsibilities exist regarding superseded materials
- from now on, will be keeping supserseded copies; not sure what to do about previously weeded items

role of other Indiana selectives (collaborators):

- assist in the completion of the collection in a selected sudoc area by filling in gaps
- cataloging materials in agreement with the collection steward
- provide reference and/or instruction for a selected SuDoc area
- provide or assist in professional development training in a specific SuDoc area
- assist in publicizing the light archive

Q&A:
breakdown of sudoc – not just a’s, c’s, etc. (also: a collection steward is responsible for all iterations of an agency, usually. Dates are also used)

- compiled a written history of cataloging practice w/docs in each institution

- IU’s alf – anyone can request, with just a name; 24 hour turnaround

- trying to keep the tangible in the light archive – emphasize looking for digital version first
- adding urls to catalog records
- IU negotiated for ILL access to digital serial set
- Are scanned documents available for preservation?
- Nope; don’t meet digital library standards; some larger documents are available as access copies

Goal is to create a light archive – NOT a digital library

Collection stewards – catalogers are getting together (project subcommittee)
Are talking to oclc as well
Conser, bibco, naco level
Still trying to work out cataloging of items not owned by a steward
Balancing cataloging with delivery – also wrestling with detail of records

more info about the archive is available from IU

Bridge information

Yesterday’s bridge collapse in Minnesota has lots of people wondering if the same could happen in their part of the country. In response, the Alabama Dept of Transportation (ALDOT) has produced some information on bridges in this state. Earlier today they posted a backgrounder on Alabama bridges, and information on the bridges declared Structurally Deficient by ALDOT.

One thing to keep in mind: not all bridges in the state are owned by ALDOT, and the number of bridges declared structurally deficient (240) is out of the 5,687 owned by ALDOT, not all 15,827 bridges in the state. The Federal Highway Administration numbers differ a bit from ALDOT’s - their 2006 NBI totals indicate that Alabama has 15,879 bridges, of which 2,102 are structurally deficient. (More information from the National Bridge Inventory is available on the FWHA web site.)