Alabama Media Portal

Alabama state agencies now have a place to post videos and images. “Media.alabama.gov offers State agencies a place to locate any media they may have in one convenient place, online.”

Videos can also be browsed by agency or by type of content, such as commercials and documentaries.  The Governor has his own channel. Images can only be posted if agencies have already posted a video.

The site also includes a news feed that pulls together press releases from all of the state agencies who use RSS. (Side note: I’m very glad to see state agencies beginning to use RSS more - it’s a great way to push out content to interested parties!)

The service is provided by the Office of Web Services within the Department of Finance’s Information Services Division.

Goat Management Field Day - Saturday

Tomorrow the Tuscaloosa County Extension Office will be conducting a goat management field day from 10-3, at Abby Farms.  According to a Tuscaloosa News article on the topic, more people in West Alabama are raising goats, leading to an increase in calls to the Office, so they decided to host a workshop.  The day’s activities will include “presentations and demonstrations to address healthcare and nutrition, management and marketing, hoof trimming and basic care for meat goats.”  The event is open to the public, and free.

Each county in the state has an extension office.  The Tuscaloosa County Office’s annual report is available on their web site - it’s pretty interesting all of the activities that the Extension Office does!  In fact, the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service web site contains a great deal of information on agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, and even the Master Gardeners program!

Alabama State Publications

The Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) is working on a variety of projects designed to make Alabama state publications more accessible to the citizens of this state. I am most excited about their electronic collection of Alabama State Publications. This collection contains “the State of Alabama Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and various publications from the Office of the Governor. Also included are annual reports, monographs, and periodicals from various state agencies.” All of these publications are born-digital in nature (either received in an email from the agency, or harvested from an agency web site).

Another approach that ADAH is taking to preserve web-published state documents is Archive-It, a service of the Internet Archive. This tool attempts to capture an entire agency web site, not just their publications. Visit the Archive-It collections page to see all of the different Alabama sites that are available.

(For documents librarians this is quite exciting - the state of Alabama hasn’t had much of a state publications program in the print environment, so it’s nice to see folks trying to preserve what’s published digitally!)

Recipes

As I’ve been visiting various state of Alabama web sites, I’ve come across a few recipes & just had to share!

The Farmers’ Market Authority features a new recipe each month!

Wild Game Recipes from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources give you ideas for fixing duck, venison, squirrel, turkey, and more!

Alabama’s First Lady, Patsy Riley, shares some of her favorite recipes, including game day chili and chicken salad pie.

If you come across any more, feel free to let me know!

Happy College Colors Day!

For those of you who were unaware, today is College Colors Day in Alabama and a number of other states.  On August 20th Governor Riley issued a proclamation stating that

“WHEREAS, College Colors Day seeks to celebrate and promote the traditions and spirit that make the college experience great by encouraging faculty, staff, alumni, students, and fans to wear apparel of their favorite college throughout the day of August 31, 2007;”

For more information about College Colors Day, including why teams chose certain colors, check out the Tuscaloosa News.

State E-Government

E-government is a very broad term, used to label everything from filing your taxes online, to communicating with elected officials, to renewing your drivers’ license. But the federal government and different state governments are moving at different speeds to implement e-government services for their citizens.

The Congressional Research Service recently produced the report “State E-Government Strategies: Identifying Best Practices and Applications,” an analysis of existing state e-government programs. The report is based on research done by Masters Students in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, which surveyed state governments on their e-government management and strategies. The report includes an analysis of governing documents and survey results, critical factors in the evaluation of state e-government programs, and several case studies based on programs in Kentucky, Texas, Utah, California, Massachusetts, and Washington.

For examples of Alabama e-government services, visit the Online Services section of alabama.gov. More information on Alabama’s e-gov initiatives is also available.

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.)

Alabama State Websites: Department of Corrections

The Alabama Department of Corrections has put together a very nice website, full of useful information.  For starters, they have developed a handy FAQ that answers questions such as “How many prisons are in Alabama?” and “What method of execution is used in Alabama?”

They’ve also included an inmate search, where users can search for people who are currently incarcerated in Alabama prisons, and a glimpse of escapees and parole violators.  Also, monthly statistical reports on inmates go back to 2000, as do the annual reports on the site.

If you’re interested in the state of the death penalty in Alabama, there is a listing of all inmates executed - including name, sex, race, county, crime, execution date, and governor.   There is also a listing of inmates currently on death row.  And finally, a map of all Dept of Corrections locations is available.  All in all, a very usable and informative site!

Alabama State Websites: Dept of Conservation and Natural Resources

As I’ve been adding content to the 50 State Wiki, I’ve been checking out a LOT of Alabama state government web sites. While I can’t highlight them here as quickly as I can post databases on the wiki, I will try to be better about highlighting more of them. Today’s choice is the Department of Conversation and Natural Resources. This department oversees the State Parks, State Lands, Marine Resources, and more.

The site has a lot of information for those interested in the outdoors - including sections on Hunting, Fishing, and Boating, as well as License Information. Information about the various educational programs that the agency performs each year is also available.

The agency posts information on Hunting Seasons and Bag Limits. And once you’ve reached your limit, you can take advantage of some wild game recipes, for duck, squirrel, venison, quail, turkey, dove, and fish. You can also find a list of fish in Alabama, as well as fish not commonly caught in the state.

The DCNR has created a separate web site for information on Alabama State Parks. There users can find information on the 23 parks in the state - including maps, hours, facilities, and trails. At this time there is no central web reservation system, but contact information is given for each park, including phone and email address.

The site is primarily aimed at those who are looking for information on outdoor activities in the state. Rules, regulations, laws, and license information are available, along with safety tips, locations of public lands, bodies of water, and birding trails, and a map of wet and dry counties in the state. I found it very easy to use, and full of useful information.

50 State Wiki

ALA GODORT’s State & Local Documents Task Force has embarked upon a project to pull together a list of databases from all 50 states - something they’re calling State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States. The idea is that volunteers from each of the states will list the databases produced by their state government (right now it’s organized by state, and then by agency).  However…it’s on a wiki, so anyone can add or update information.

I’m the contact for Alabama - you can see I have a ways to go before the list of databases will be complete, but this project has really opened my eyes to some of the state agencies we have here!  If you know of databases to add, feel free to login & add them - or email me (vglenn AT ua.edu)