Radreffies' blogs

author:  Mucha, Corinne

It's always neat to see a zinester or minicomics artist publish a book.

reviewdate:  Feb 9 2012 isn:  978-0-9819733-6-4

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The Lower East Side Librarian Library of Congress Subject Headings of the month for Month 1, January 16, 2012 are (the stuff I'm pissed about is at the bottom, so scroll down if you're impatient)...

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author:  Whitney, Daisy

I almost put The Mockingbirds down after the first clumsy page or two, but I stuck with it, and am glad I did. It's the story of date rape and students taking the law into their own hands because the school administration is too impressed with itself to acknowledge and address the school's imperfections. The rapist is a water polo player, for dog's sake!

reviewdate:  Feb 8 2012 isn:  978-0-316-09053-7

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author:  Larbalestier, Justine

Even though I don't generally like them, I can handle an unreliable narrator. What I don't like is a manipulative author. Liar is an enjoyable read, but you end up irritated with it in the end. Therefore, I don't know whether to recommend it or not.

reviewdate:  Feb 6 2012 isn:  978-1-59990-519-8

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NextGov reports on the challenges of turning raw government data into commercial products:

• Turning government data into private sector products is complicated business, By Joseph Marks, NextGov (02/09/2012).

  "The theory behind Data.gov was, let's move forward when it comes to sharing data," says Josh Green, chief executive officer of Panjiva, a company that crunches customs data for U.S. businesses that import some of their raw materials. "I think that's right in terms of what would be good for entrepreneurship, but realistically I don't think that has filtered down to the agency level." While Panjiva relies on some Census data, which it downloads directly from the Census Bureau, the company uses mostly Customs and Border Protection data on CD-ROMs that it pays to have delivered every day by FedEx.

  ...Data.gov is laudable, Rossmeissl says, but developers' biggest hurdle with government data isn't finding it, but getting it quickly and in a form they can use. "That wasn't the focus of Data.gov and, in general, it isn't the focus of agencies producing data," he says. "That's not because their intentions aren't great, but they have a history of producing data in a very specific way that goes back to the Federal Register and quarterly releases."

  ...The Data.gov team also meets regularly with about 400 agency "data stewards" to change the way government data is initially created so that it requires less translation and reformatting on the back end.

See also:

• The Federal Government Must Reimagine Its Role As An Information Provider.
• Private Sector Supports Public Data.

The Western Farm Press has a nice write-up about the historical Census of Agriculture web site, a collaboration between the Albert R. Mann Library at Cornell University and the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• USDA releases historic census of agriculture reports, by Amanda Pomicter, NASS Archivist, Western Farm Press (Feb. 10, 2012).

  "The Census of Agriculture reports contain aggregate data, on the county-, state- and national-level, for almost every facet of American agriculture, including number of farms, acres of farmland, totals for agricultural production, value of farm production, demographics and much more. The census reports are popular resources used by researchers, historians, genealogists, law professionals and others who want to know more about American agriculture and how the industry has expanded and changed over time."

• USDA Census of Agriculture Historical Archive, Albert R. Mann Library, Cornell University.

  "The site serves as a public archive of Census publications published prior to 1987. These publications are primarily scanned print material now available in PDF format.

  "This site is an ongoing work in progress as we digitize and structure the Census of Agriculture from 1987 back to 1840. We have met our goal of past census back to 1925 online by the end of 2011. Our next target is to complete the censuses back to 1840 and to refine our search results to include sorting by regions, states, and years."

Also see: Census of Agriculture, USDA - National Agricultural Statistics Service.

How someone laughed. The twinkle in their eye. How they tickled you when you were small. The space they took up.


And what you don't realize...

The space they leave behind seems even vaster than you ever thought possible.

Daniel Schuman went to the hearing today on budgets for GPO, LoC, GAO, and CBO. On the Sunlight Foundation blog, he reports on the tiny room, the lack of space for the public, and he posts documents that were handed out:

• An almost live look at today's H. Leg Branch Approps hearing, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation, (Feb. 7, 2012).

The new acting Public Printer, Davita Vance-Cooks, gives her opening remarks.

GPO Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 7, 2012 No. 12-10

ACTING PUBLIC PRINTER PRESENTS APPROPRIATIONS REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013

WASHINGTON-Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks presented the FY 2013 appropriations request for the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) today before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations. GPO is requesting no increase over the level of funding the agency is receiving for FY 2012 due to savings garnered from cost-cutting activities last year as well as projected workload changes for FY 2013. GPO's budget request also includes a significant shift in funding away from conventional printing and distribution toward digital systems. The current level of $126.2 million is a 6.6% reduction from FY 2011 and about a 15% reduction from FY 2010. GPO's funding level for FY 2013 is provided through three separate accounts in the annual Legislative Branch Appropriations bill:

. The Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation covers the cost of information products in digital and print formats that GPO produces for Congress. About 70% of this cost is for preparing the electronic files used for both digital access and printing. For FY 2013, GPO is requesting $83.6 million, a decrease of about $7 million.

. The Salaries and Expenses Appropriation of the Superintendent of Documents primarily covers the cost of the Federal Depository Library Program, which works in partnership with 1,220 libraries nationwide to provide public access to Federal Government information. For FY 2013, GPO is requesting $34.7 million, a decrease of about $300,000.

. The GPO Revolving Fund receives appropriated funds for specific technology investment and facility improvements. For FY 2013, GPO is requesting $7.8 million. The request includes funding for the continued development of GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) to support increased online access to congressional and Federal agency information as well as other digital information technology improvements.

GPO achieved significant savings in FY 2011 by reducing unnecessary overhead expenses and conducting a buyout that helped reduce staffing by about 15%. As a result, GPO achieved positive net income of $5.6 million for the year. The agency, whose information production and dissemination operations have transitioned to digital technologies, is currently operating with its smallest workforce in more than a century.

"GPO is doing more with less in meeting the digital information needs of Congress, Federal agencies, and the public," said Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks. "GPO's plan of reducing costs while continuing to expand services to our customers is working and showing real and measurable benefits."

 

My blogging buddy Anna- the feminist librarian- just informed me about the event of my dreams — Out of the Attic and Into the Stacks: Feminism and LIS: the Unconference. According to Anna’s blog the unconference  will be a “meeting of practitioners, scholars and aspirants in the field of library and information studies to explore feminism as theory, boundary, ecology, method,flavor, relationship, and epistemology — among others.”

It will take place at the University of Milwaukee from March 9-11th.  I’m really disappointed that I can’t attend- especially given the fact that I will be in the Midwest two days later for a different library conference!

The registration fee is very reasonable – $25!  Anyone interested in attending can sign up here.

Lots of really great looking events are on their way for those of us who like to hold pieces of things bound together in our hands and talk to the person who gathered and created:

FEMINIST ZINE FEST: Saturday, February 25 @ Brooklyn Commons

2012 CHAPBOOK FESTIVAL: Wednesday-Friday, March 28-30 @ the CUNY Grad Center and the Center for Book Arts

BROOKLYN ZINE FEST: Sunday, April 15 @ Public Assembly

I'll be tabling with copies of all issues of The Borough is My Library and as the Brooklyn College zine librarian at the zine fests, and hope to be exploring at the Chapbook Fest.

Who knew we'd love Lima so much? My Spanish teacher said it was boring, Lonely Planet didn't make it sound exciting, others yawned through it...but four times wasn't enough Lima for me!

My fourth time was really fun, though I received some extremely sad news halfway through it. My uncle died. He had been diagnosed with cancer on 8th of December, so much of my time I felt quite sad. Otherwise, the trip was good.

We arrived late, of course, because Taca sucks, and I was still weak with food poisoning. But we were happy. We unpacked a little, walked around, found someplace terrible to eat. Let's just say that even if you did pay 20 soles for your food, if it's a taco served in a plastic bag, it's not good. Oh my....and the pisco sours tasted like margaritas!

We headed out to see el Circuito del Magico Agua which sounds really stupid but it's really awesome (and the Dutch and German girls we met in Lake Titicaca were SO right!). It's a giant park of all these different fountains with lights and music...SO fun! We had a blast...

The next morning we got up, went for a run along the cliffs above the beach. Of course our flight was late but luckily we checked online so we spent the day doing stuff, in between checking online. We ate an amazing lunch, walked to the beach, saw a rad street parade in Plaza del Armas, went to Museo de la Nacion, ate at a fancy cafe with a spectacular-looking sundae.

It's funny - we never expected to fall in love with Lima so much, but we did. We fell so hard we changed our flight, and our hearts are sad to leave. Oh Lima, Nelson was so right...

After the hassle to get to the place, I must admit, it was worth it.                Wayne and I woke up at 4am, had a quick brekkie at our hostel, and began the 1.25-1.5 hour (depending on your ability…obviously, we were the faster ones!) trek up to Machu Picchu. By hiking up, you save $9USD (which is a complete rip-off considering it’s probably a 15 minute drive!) and you get to get there early to ensure you are at the start of the line when entering. You don’t want all your photos to have a million people in them, so this is a great option to avoid that.                The hike was harder than we thought, all uphill, all stairs, but it felt great to hike so early in the morning. We had timed it well so we only had a few minutes at the gate (strip away layers of clothing, apply sunblock, drink water) before the gate opened. Show your passports, your tickets, and everyone rushes to take the classic photos – which of course, we quickly did. We had about an hour before we hiked Waynapicchu, so we walked around, took photos, saw some interesting animals and bugs, and then headed over to the line at Waynapicchu.                The hike was hard – pretty much all uphill, with tiny little Inca stone steps. You had to climb through these little caves, and then at the final point, pull yourself up on a rock, which I did not like. The view would have been amazing were it not cloudy, so we decided to rest and wait for the clouds to pass. We drank, ate some of our snacks that we weren’t supposed to bring in, and talked. And then the clouds passed and we got our money shots.It was beautiful. It was good to go – to see the place you’ve seen in movies, everywhere. It was beautiful, it was well-preserved, and of course, it was interesting. They didn’t use mortar. Stones perfectly fit together. It was just gorgeous.            Going down was a different story. I was miserable. I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of things I can fall through. Why I ever decided to climb that epic pyramid at Tikal is beyond me, and that was way scarier, but still, going down here was frightening. There was one point where there were little tiny steps that went down down down a really long steep while – with a sheer cliff so if you tripped, you’d fall several thousand feet. That freaked me out. Between Wayne and the Spanish guy who sat across from us on the train, I made it down, pouring sweat. Wayne’s knees were hurting on the downs, so yes, I would recommend you be absolutely fit to do this, as we are a point of two fit individuals who didn’t even have the easiest time.                   By this point, we spent our final hours walking around, taking photos, climbing steep stone steps, walking out to the bridge (Beautiful, but now closed due to a tourist falling to their death some years back.). Finally, we were beat.                But not beat enough to hop on the bus. Wayne and I hiked down, which was a lot faster than going up, but still not super easy. We entered town, chilled at our hostel, ate the yogurt that gave me food poisoning, and were glad.                We had hiked from 4:40a.m. until 1:30 p.m. We were tired, but we felt glad with our accomplishments.

                Of course I wanted to go to Machu Picchu. This was the reason I was in Peru: I couldn’t decide between going to Peru and Chile, and my boyfriend picked Peru because he wanted to go to Machu Picchu. So of course I would go. It’s the #1 tourist destination in Peru.                 But it’s not easy to go. In fact, I describe the prep to Wayne as “a dark cloud hanging over our trip.”                We headed to the train station to get tickets – only to learn that was the locals’ only train. We got advice and picked up our tickets from the Ministry of Culture – we got the full deal including the hike to Waynapicchu at 7am (which is the time you want – it gets sunnier and hotter and it’s a pretty difficult hike.                Then we went to Peru Rail (as Jon pointed out to us, it’s in Plaza de las Armas in between McDonald’s (ugh) and KFC (ugh)), and the prices were absurd. $218USD for two round-trip tickets. We went to Inka Rail, where the tickets were just $160USD for two round-trip tickets. So we bought them – make sure you buy them in advance as we got the last two tickets on our train (and they weren’t next to each other, although the conductor arranged is so that we could sit together). And buy your tickets in advance as much as you can for Machu Picchu as well – we were fine because we were in the low season, but during the dry season (especially June, July, August), you really need to buy them in advance because there is a limited number of tickets per day. You can also buy them online and print out the tickets.                So it was a hassle and yes, expensive. (When you figure that I can eat a big meal for $2 or $3 USD, you understand why those costs are so ridiculous for Peru.)                The trains weren’t running direct from Cusco to Machu Picchu either – you could buy the costly Peru Rail bus to the train in Ollyantaytambo, but instead, you can take a combi (5 soles) or a collectivo (10 soles). We hopped in a cab, asking it to take us to the combis and collectivos. The driver bargained with us, and he ended up driving us all to way to Ollanta, including a stop in Salinas so we could see the salt pans (very cool).                We arrived at the main square of Ollanta and it was lightly drizzling. We had a small meal with juice, and then we walked to the local Inca ruins which were incredibly beautiful. This was the site of a Inca-Spanish battle, with the Inca winning – they let their water stores loose and flooded the fields and the Spaniard’s horses couldn’t charge. Wooohooo!                After we walked around the ruins, we still had time to kill, so we got another small meal at the amazing Hearts Café – probably the best meal we had in all of Peru. And then we walked down to the train station and boarded the scenic ride to Machu Picchu. (Actually, the town of Aguas Calientes, which is where you need to stay if you want to get to Machu Picchu when the gates open.)                                On the way back, it was a little different. We were both extremely exhausted from having woken up at 4am, hiked from 4:40a.m. until 1:30 p.m., and I was on the starts of food poisoning. Yes, food poisoning. How miserable.                We arrive and after a bit of seat shuffling, were sitting across from each other and next to these horrible middle-aged Canadian couple. The guy took up half my seat, which made my ill ride even more miserable, and they said things like, “Now, not to stereotypes, but some groups of certain kinds of people…” I wanted them to shut up as I felt wretched.                After the train ride ended, we scrambled off nearly last and ended up in a miserable collectivo ride back to Cusco. As I was really sick, I tried to pass out and focused my waking moments on not throwing up all over myself and Wayne. Lucky for us, our driver couldn’t find anyone else so we had the whole back seat to ourselves.                When we finally arrived in Cusco, I didn’t care that a place like Machu Picchu existed. I spent the rest of the evening getting sick and sleeping the miserable sleep of the sick. It was horrendous. Poor Wayne took care of me, Googling “salmonella poisoning” in between, as we wondered about those delicious pisco sours (which contain raw egg).

The hearing on Tuesday (Feb 7, 2012) on budgets for the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office is not expected to be webcast by the committee.

• Video Blackout of Hearing on Budgets for Legislative Support Agencies, Daniel Schuman, Sunglight Foundation
  (Feb. 5, 2012).

  Only the House and Senate Legislative Appropriations Committees regularly hold annual public hearings on the workings of these agencies; the oversight committees (Committee on House Administration and Senate Rules) generally do not, and the Joint Committee on the Library and Joint Committee on Printing no longer holds substantive meetings in public.

  The new House rules require that all committees provide "audio and video coverage of each hearing or meeting" that "allows the public to easily listen ... and view the proceedings" "to the maximum extent practicable." All of the House committees have at least one hearing room that is equipped with a camera, and the House Recording Studio will provide a camera upon a committee's request. Unfortunately, this hearing is being held in a room without a camera, and I've been informed that the Committee has not requested one.

Schuman notes that things could still change for Tuesday's hearing -- it could change rooms and could be webcast. He plans to attend it, and says he will post an update on the Sunlight Foundation blog if he can make it into the tiny room where the meeting is currently scheduled.

The State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases is pleased to announce two new volunteeers:

• Michael Tatonetti, who is taking the New York page
• Jenn Zuccaro, who is taking the West Virginia page

Thanks to Michael and Jenn, we are down to these four orphan states with no one to care for them:

• Maryland
• Minnesota
• Rhode Island
• Utah

If one of these states interests you, check out our Volunteer Guide. If you can meet the basic responsibilities, send me an e-mail at dnlcornwall AT Alaska DOT net.

WIKI ACTIVITY

For a full list of our last week's activity, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs. Below are highlights of the work we've done together:

DATABASES ADDED

DELAWARE (John Stevenson)

The Flora of Delaware Online Database - As of January 29, 2012, the database contains 2,274 species, subspecies, and varieties (taxa), of native (1,577) and non-native (697) vascular plants known to occur in the state of Delaware.

OHIO (Audrey Hall)

County Soil Surveys and Supplements - Click the desired county on the map for a soil survey, interim soil survey or soil survey supplement. It is recommended to use only the text included in the soil surveys. Official up-to-date tables and soil maps should be viewed or downloaded at the Soil Data Mart or via the Web Soil Survey. At the Soil Data Mart select the "generate reports" button to then select the desired tables.

NEW YORK (Michael Tatonetti)

Laws of New York - Database listing of the Laws of New York State. Searchable by title or phrase.

author:  Green, Kate

The Southern California psychic from Shattered Moon is working with the post-Rodney King beating LAPD to find a missing child. Published in 1993, this installment isn't quite as New Agey as the first in the series. There are still a lot of protective white lights being imagined around people's hearts, and Theresa Fortunato is still attracted to boorish men, so things haven't changed too much.

reviewdate:  Feb 3 2012 isn:  0-06-017984-8

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After a nice long interesting bus ride, Wayne and I rolled into Cusco into the hands of a complete jerk of a cab driver. He dropped us off a few blocks away, got pissed b/c I wouldn't pay double the price (that is normal). Ugh.
We got to our place, Hostal Suecia 2, which was a complete nightmare. The woman was completely cold and rude, wouldn't even look me in the eye, and responded to my questions of where was there wifi and where could I buy Machu Picchu tickets with, "I don't know." You don't know?! The room was also a dump, the toilet didn't work, the shower was a nightmare and there was such bad energy there. We decided to take a walk, find dinner, maybe find a new place.
And we did. San Blas Hostal was just 20 soles per night more (2.7 soles=1 USD) and a million times nicer - with a really cute room, wifi, nice location, friendly staff - yes. Yes!
So we went back to our other place, grabbed our bags and nicely, she didn't charge us. We headed back to our new place, unpacked a little, and then grabbed dinner (which of course involved a pisco sour!).
We woke up early, deciding to get the Machu Picchu tickets and the train tickets and then do everything else. We routed our morning run to the train station - which was geared towards locals, with a LONG line and a lot less trains. The schedule did not work for us, and it was confusing so we ran back. At our hostal, the guy told us where to get the entrance tickets and the regular tickets. After a wait in line at the Ministry of Culture, we got two tickets to Machu Picchu, plus the Wayna Picchu tickets. Peru Rail had very expensive tickets ($218 - in USD! - for the both of us) but we got cheaper tickets with Inka Rail ($160 USD).
Then we got the very expensive touristico boleto and totally used it. We went to the Museo Historico Regional (for the Incan art and post-Incan art), the Museum of Contemporary Art, a weaving museum (not included), Qorikancha Museum, and we hiked to nearby Sacsaywaman. Pretty full but good day, which we ended with two pisco sours and Dutch fries at a small Dutch restaurant. Yum. And then pizza which we didn't call pizza but "school cafeteria pizza." Yeah, we're New Yorkers. The next day, we got up early and headed to Ollataytambo for Machu Picchu!

House to live-stream committee proceedings, By Debbie Siegelbaum, The Hill (02/02/12).

The House is now offering live video streaming of committee proceedings online through the Library of Congress.

The Committee on House Administration announced on Thursday that the live webcasts would be available at http://thomas.loc.gov/video/house-committee.

The Library of Congress also will archive previous committee proceedings, which the panel said would create the first "one-stop shop for House committee video content."

There will be an all day conference on on public access to legislative information on Thursday, February 2, 2012, 9AM to 6PM EST, in Cannon Caucus Room, 345 Cannon HOB, Washington, D.C. It is hosted by the House Committee on House Administration.

• agenda and live webcast