Radreffies' blogs

So a radical leftist ultrarunner heads to an army base to run a .995 mile loop course for 24 hours. What could be more fun?
It was an absolute blast.
GUTS put on an awesome race, Operation Endurance 24 hour (with 12 and 6 hour options too). The aid was amazing – some of the best I’ve had at an ultra. Aid stations featured water and powerade (which I mixed with water) and it was really nice to not have to carry a bottle. The food included pizza, grilled cheese, quesadillas, soups, mashed potatoes, Easter treats, the usual snacks, cookies, chips, pretzels, gummy bears, Moon pies, hamburgers, and so much more. It really was really a fantastic selection and I never felt like they didn’t have what I wanted or needed at any given moment.
The course is flat, almost a mile. It’s soft dirt with some small crushed gravel (not really gravel but those tiny little rocks) and was really nice to run on. Some people complained of slippage, but I thought it was a soft surface and my feet under the toes on the ball did not hurt one tiny bit. Wooooh!
It’s also completely lit up so you don’t need to wear a headlamp which is wonderful. There are port-a-potties RIGHT next to the course (which was great so you didn’t waste time going to the bathroom, unless you were having kidney issues which are another thing). There were cots to nap on under a tent, rows of tables under tents (so your stuff wouldn’t get wet) with seats, seats, glorious seats. There was plenty of spot to set up a table, a tent, arrange your stuff. The course had trees and bushes around part of it, with a little creek/water area. I saw an armadillo, several deer, tadpoles, and saw some other animal I couldn’t identify.
Interesting, fun, and a great race.
The only negative I’d say is that it is completely exposed so you will get very sunburned if you’re not careful/a Northerner. I could really feel the heat – it got into the 70s.
I started the race a little fast. Um, a lot fast. Wait, wtf am I running sub 8s? I slowed down and ended up getting in a groove with a nice guy, Hong. We ran 8:30s. STILL too fast.
My tummy felt off from the start – never a good thing. I ran with Hong for a few hours and then decided to slow things down. I kept running, but slowed the pace. And began feeling even crappier way too soon.
So I backed off. I began drinking more – a mixture of powerade and water. I felt like hell, my legs felt like crap, and I just felt exhausted.
Now, please note – from Monday – Friday before the race, I had been sick with what I realize was some sort of virus or minor flu – exhaustion, sore throat, headaches, achiness. I went home from work early Monday and Thursday, took a half sick day from Tuesday (and worked a few sporadic hours from bed) and worked at home Wednesday. Thursday I felt like utter crap. (Don't tell Ray K this - he'll say, "I've changed lots of babies' diapers and you don't feel like crap.") I was feeling a lot better by Friday but was still taking medicine and feeling pretty wiped out. Friday night before the race I slept over eight and a half hours and slept an hour and a half in the car – and I was STILL tired. So I definitely was not in top shape to run a race. I should have taken a more conservative approach, incorporating more walk breaks early on. With a flat course, it’s hard to find an excuse to walk. Later in the race, I’d stop by the aid table, grab a quick snack and walk on through, munching. Or walk and sip a drink. Or just walk right by there to give my legs something different to feel.
I felt progressively worse. Tears in my eyes worse. I definitely was not running 120+ miles today. My lead was gone and I was now feeling death march-ish.
Enter Ray K to the rescue. He was doing a fast shuffle around the track (The Ray K shuffle is a pace in between a very fast walk and a run.) and would run hard-ish at the mile mark to the quarter mile mark. I joined him and a really nice funny guy Keith for a while, and the combo of walking/running was a lot of fun. We laughed, told stories, and Keith and I developed a rapport of eye and facial expressions about Ray’s stories. Ray told us stories abt Gary Cantrell (aka Lazarus Lake), Barkley Marathons, Fred Lebow, Ted Corbitt, Jimmy Carter, duct tape on socks and ER visits, and other interesting ultrarunning tales. It was a lot of fun and I was honestly sad when Keith finished the 12 hour. I missed him.
I began running again more. I felt like utter crap and talked to Ray. I was thinking I’d just tell Scott I was done and go back to his house and sleep. Scott had come out to do the 12 hour as a Keys 100 Test Race and realized he wasn’t trained enough and ready enough for Keys – so he dropped shortly after 6 hours and was chilling with friends, waiting for me. Scott was actually the reason I was there. He kept nudging me with Facebook messages about what a great PR course it was, how I could go 120 miles there, how it was so much fun. And once my Umstead 100 plans were thwarted by my cousin’s wedding, it would be a substitute race. And when I found out Vikena was putting it on and Ray K would be there, icing on the cake.
But I wasn’t feeling good. My whole body was aching. My feet were especially swollen. I was hallucinating like crazy – whenever I looked at the track, instead of footprints I would see fossils and hieroglyphics and Mayan carvings and sea shells and sea creatures. When I’d close my eyes (even as early in the race as a few hours in), I would see black with neon-glowing lines. When I went into the port-a-potty, the walls felt like they were closing in on me. I’ve never done acid, but from the descriptions from friends, this is probably what it is like. (And honestly, it FREAKED me out and why would you want to feel that?)
Ray said, “Why don’t you use this as a test run? Test out different methods and shoes and foods and stuff. Why don’t you try to lay down for a few hours and see if you feel better? If you don’t, you can just leave.”
That sounded smart. I was feeling like hell and I didn’t see how things could change. I put in another few laps and settled down on one of the cots with a sleeping bag provided by Scott at 14 hours.
I was cold. My body hurt.My mind was too awake. I kept seeing images. I shifted, tossed and turned. I had taken off my shoes and had my feet slightly elevated. I heard the slam-slam-slam of the port-a-potty doors, heard chatter. I couldn’t sleep. I realized I can never do a multiday b/c I just can’t fall asleep during a race. I even have trouble after. When my body is in that much pain, it is hard for me to shut off.
After less than an hour (and Ray’s suggestion was 2hrs-3.5 hrs), I decided, “Screw this. I cannot sleep.” And I felt a burst of energy. Afraid Ray would dissuade me, I quickly pulled on my socks and sneakers. And then I grabbed a grilled cheese. Mmmmmmm. One of many delicious grilled cheeses I would eat. I grabbed my headphones, which I never run with except at night during 24 hours. (It gives me energy when I’m falling asleep. I do pull off an ear bud whenever I pass a runner to say hi but many of the army dudes in the race didn’t do the same thing so you’d be talking to them and they wouldn’t hear you.)
And BOOM, I was GONE. I took off. People were staring at me. “Wasn’t she just sleeping?” “She has been in terrible shape for a while and now, wow!” (Well, that’s what I assume they were thinking.)
When I passed Ray, he was a little shocked.
I put in some good mileage. Ray told me that the 2ndplace woman was dropping with 75 miles. “You just gotta keep putting in miles and you’ll move up there.” And a little while later, the first place woman left the track, feeling hellish. (At the start she had said, “I hear we have similar time goals. We should run together.” And I thought that sounded great. Too bad our high and low points were not coordinated or we could have cheered each other on.)
The hours somehow passed. I divided 24 hour races up into four six-hour segments which helps me mentally handle it better. The last 8 hours – “This is less than a regular workday!” And the time flew.
I walked with Ray K. I realized walking hurt more than running, so I ran. I ran and walked. I finally came in an hour before, with Scott who went out on the course to find me.
“Yes, you’re first place woman. 86 laps. Second place is 84.”
Scott and I set out for two more laps. My feet were so swollen and spotted with heat rash and covered with blisters that I changed into socks and Birkenstocks. We chatted and it was so cheering to finish a race with a friend.
I finished and ran through the finish line with hands in the air, huge smile on my face. Vikena gave me a dog tag instead of a medal (Nice concept for a race on a military base.) and being 1st woman, I got an awesome North Face backpack  embroidered with “Operation Endurance 24 Hour.”
I was so happy. Scott drove up his car onto the track and we packed things up and we found an IHOP. It was one of the best meals I have ever had – it tasted wonderful. I was starving of course. As I will be for the next two days.
Overall – a fantastic race. Well-organized, great support, super friendly people, free butt slaps during the race, big clocks to countdown. I highly recommend it and yeah, I’ll probably be back.

It's been a very busy two weeks at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. For a blow-by-blow list of everything that happened, see http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are some highlights:

DATABASES REMOVED

The following searchable databases appear to have disappeared from their state web presence.

Illinois Facts - Search for business and quality of life information about Illinois. Areas that can be searched include agriculture, energy and recycling, film, industry, taxes, technology, and transportation. Formerly at http://www2.illinoisbiz.biz/ilfacts/.

Montana Statewide business directory. Formerly at http://www.b2bmt.com/.

West Virginia inpatient condensed database - Searchable databases of patient discharges. There is a separate database for every year since 2000 which can be searched by many criteria, including sex, age, diagnosis, procedure, provider type and payor group. Database includes this disclaimer, "Data elements which alone are not sufficient to identify an individual, but which in combination raise unacceptable possibilities that patients could be identified, are classified as protected. All data will be released only in cell sizes greater than thirty. Data with cells with thirty or fewer cases will be suppressed" Formerly at http://www.hcawv.org/DataAndPublic/data.htm. Some static data appears to be available at http://www.hca.wv.gov/data/Pages/default.aspx.

DATABASES ADDED

ALABAMA (Paula Webb)

Local Government Records Microfilm Database - contains records from local, county and municipal offices, such as the probate office, tax assessor, and orphan's court. Most of the original records remain in the originating office.

ILLINOIS (Blaine Redemer)

District/Official Search - Using either a mobile version or the desk top version one can enter an address or district number and find the Congressional and Legislative information superimposed on a map and detailed in a box to the side. There is also a drop down box to find contact information by County. One may also choose between road, aerial or both types of maps.

MASSACHUSETTS(Ellen Richardson and Jennifer Ekblaw)

Massachusetts Archives, 1629-1799 - 18 digitized volumes of documents from the Massachusetts Archives, ranging from international affairs to local concerns. A range of documents covers the early statehood period, religious affairs, tax records, judicial actions, legislative activities, and relations with London, other British colonies, the French colonial government, and Indian Nations, and many other things. See the http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arccol/colmac.htm volume descriptions for more information.

MONTANA (Susanne Caro)

Traveler Information Map-Search for directions and road conditions.

NEW JERSEY (Qraig de Groot)

New Jersey Mayors Directory Search - Searchable by county, municipality, or name of mayor. Provides basic contact information as well as start and end dates for each mayoral term. (Note: Added by a GODORT wiki user)

SOUTH DAKOTA (Brenda Hemmelman)

South Dakota State Parks Directory - From the website: Home to breathtaking scenery, abundant wildlife, and exciting geological wonders, South Dakota offers visitors a range of things to do and see!

ADDITIONS TO SUBJECT-BASED PAGES

OFFICIAL RECORDS DATABASES

Alabama

Alabama Church and Synagogue Records Collection Database] - This is an index to the Alabama Church and Synagogue Records Collection.

Massachusetts

Passenger Manifest, 1848-1891 - Record of immigrants who arrived by ship in Boston, MA from 1848-1891. Search by first or last name, name of ship, or date.

Vital Records 1841-1910 - Birth, death, and marriage records for all of Massachusetts from 1841-1910. Search by first or last name and/or town. Note: searching alternate spellings, e.g., Smith and Smythe recommended.

author:  Ozeki, Ruth

There's a lot to love, literarily, in Ruth Ozeki's metafictive split narrative novel, but it's not the fastest read. I was completely engaged in the parts of the book that are the diary of a bullied, out-of-place Japanese teenager, but found the second person story about the characters Ruth and Oliver (the author and her husband's real names) and their cat Schrödinger (not their cat's real name) less compelling. I didn't dislike it, but it was a struggle, like Ruth's life.

reviewdate:  Mar 30 2013 isn:  978-0-670-02663-0

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Daniel Schuman, Policy Counsel and Director, Advisory Committee on Transparency of the Sunlight Foundation, writes that Reps. Mike Quigley and Leonard Lance are leading the charge in the House of Representatives to make CRS Reports publicly accessible. They've introduced (or RE-introduced) H.Res.110 - Congressional Research Service Electronic Accessibility Resolution of 2013. Hopefully this will be the year that Congress decides to share.

Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." In 1914, an uncharacteristically foresighted Congress spent $25,000 to establish a fact-finding arm whose mission was to gather "data ... bearing upon legislation, and to render such data serviceable to Congress." A century later, the Congressional Research Service generates hundreds of analytical non-partisan reports on legislative issues each year.

CRS reports often inform public debate. A recent analysis, which found no correlation between economic growth and cutting tax rates for the wealthy, set off a re-appraisal of long-held orthodoxy about tax policy. A 2006 analysis questioning the legal rationale supporting the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping policy caused many to look at the issue with fresh eyes. CRS analyses are routinely cited in news reports, by the courts, in congressional debate, and by government watchdogs.

However, unlike its sister agencies that investigate federal spending and analyze the budgetary effects of legislation, CRS does not release its reports to the public on a regular basis. This was not always so, and even now CRS routinely shares its reports with officials in the executive and judicial branches and with the press upon request. Congressional offices also act to disseminate the reports, publishing some on their websites, frequently sending others to constituents in response to requests, and giving them to reporters (often to help push a political narrative.)

But for a member of the public, it's difficult to access reports generated by the 600-person $100 million-a-year agency in any comprehensive way. Efforts by non-profit organizations to gather and re-publish the reports online have met with limited success. The private sector has stepped in, selling access to the reports at $20 a pop, but the premium accentuates the gap between the elites and everyone else.

I run with Tony a lot. Sometimes, I'll even go as far to get up at 4am, hop on the first train upstate, just to run 10 miles with Tony on beautiful trails. Wayne thinks it's a bit much, but it's like hanging out with a friend, running, enjoying scenery (and complaining abt snow) and seeing deer. Not what I'd get in the city.

Tony mentioned the Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon, and I saw a sign for it on our run one day. He mentioned it again. And then Georgia mentioned wanting to do it, so yeah, I'll sign up. And then we got a crew, of the three of us plus Beth and Cortney.

Beth and Corntney and I hopped on a slightly-later-than-normal train and Tony picked us up at North White Plains. We debated over how many layers to run and ran nice and and easy to the race start with Georgia, who met us in the lot. We shivered at the start, waited in line for port-a-potties, and headed out on the run.

My plan was to run easy - have a steady pace. We kept a sub 8:30 pace (on average, some of the hills slowed us down at parts). Tony and I had a conversational pace, chatting, talking about races, friends, runs, etc. He kept saying "eh" and I kept teasing him that Ray Zahab was instilling some Canadian in him. I had just spent a week w my Canadian coworkers so their language was really floating around my head too.

Towards the end, my feet started hurting. I've been wrestling with some weird foot pains - primarily when I race on roads - and it kicked in around mile 9 or 10. Tears in my eyes. But whatever, we were just chilling, having fun.

We finished in 1:51 - not bad for chilling out, with lots of hills and too much wind.

Tony yelled at me for making him run too fast and then we had to hang around in the cold. We walked around the block and then by that point, met up with everyone else. We ran back, freezing cold, and quickly warmed up. We then warmed up with diner food.


The rest of the week, I've been soaking my feet and hoping my doctor's words about "you need to rest those dogs!" were wrong. I didn't have pain now, but what if - what if? The pain according to my doctor is an inflammation and I need to rest it. Sigh.

And I went into work Monday, not feeling great, but whatever. Finally I ended up leaving around 4pm, blowing off the planned errands. After a wretched commute and rain, I was miserable. I went to bed early and felt horrible in the morning, too horrible to even run a few miles. But I had to go to work! I had to! I ended up working for 2 hours, napping for three, working another 2. And today I feel better, but not heaps. Hopefully this time off from running means this was one kickass taper and I'm ready to KICK ASS Saturday at Operation Endurance!

I hope! I hope! I hope!

Here's a twofer: highlights from the SACO editorial meeting and new LCSH from February 2013...

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author:  Oliver, Lauren

I think I've read too many YA dystopias lately, because I can barely keep them straight. This one is the end of the trilogy that started with Delirium. The concept, that love is regarded as a disease, and that people are surgically cured upon turning eighteen, is pretty cool. In Requiem we find our heroine wondering if she'd prefer to be happy (cured) or free (starving in the Wilds). Frankly I often wonder the same thing, regarding how medicated we modern folk are.

reviewdate:  Mar 21 2013 isn:  978-0-06-201453-5

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NASA took its Technical Report Server (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/) offline this week, saying :

The NASA technical reports server will be unavailable for public access while the agency conducts a review of the site's content to ensure that it does not contain technical information that is subject to U.S. export control laws and regulations and that the appropriate reviews were performed. The site will return to service when the review is complete. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

As Steven Aftergood reported at Secrecy News [emphasis added]:

In other words, all NASA technical documents, no matter how voluminous and valuable they are, should cease to be publicly available in order to prevent the continued disclosure of any restricted documents, no matter how limited or insignificant they may be.

"There is a HUGE amount of material on NTRS," said space policy analyst Dwayne Day. "If NASA is forced to review it all, it will never go back online."

      -- "NASA Technical Reports Database Goes Dark" by Steven Aftergood (March 21st, 2013).

Michael L. Nelson of the Department of Computer Science at Old Dominion University investigated the availability of some of the NASA reports at other archives and reports his findings on his blog:

• NTRS, Web Archives, and Why We Should Build Collections, by Michael L. Nelson, Web Science and Digital Libraries (March 23, 2013).

Nelson found that some reports are available at http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/ which is an archive of some NASA information that Nelson helped establish after NASA websites were taken down after September 11, 2001. He notes that the removal of information from NASA servers at that time "made it clear to me that NASA information was too important to be left on *.nasa.gov computers." He found more data at the Internet Archive's "NASA Technical Documents" collection: http://archive.org/details/nasa_techdocs and in Mark Phillips NACA collection at http://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/NACA/ .

Nelson draws some conclusions from all this [emphasis added]:

...it is events like this that demonstrate the value of copying by-value and not just by-reference.

In other words, pointing to web sites is much less valuable and much more fragile than acquiring copies of digital information and building digital collections that you control. The OAIS reference model for long term preservation makes this a requirement, saying that an organization that intends to provide information to its user community for the long-term, must "Obtain sufficient control of the information provided to the level needed to ensure Long-Term Preservation." Pointing to a web page or PDF at nasa.gov is not obtaining any control.

He also makes a distinction between those things that are saved because of their popularity and things that will not be saved unless special care is taken to preserve them:

I'm not concerned about popular culture artifacts disappearing (e.g., see our TPDL 2011 paper about music redundancy in YouTube), but it is not clear that long tail content like NASA reports will enjoy that same level of uncoordinated refreshing and migration. The moral of the story: make copies of the content...

And he notes the importance of multiple copies:

...a 1994 NASA TM of mine is on at least six different hosts, none of which are *.nasa.gov.

...If NTRS was a LOCKSS participant then access would be uninterrupted...

And Aftergood concludes [emphasis added]:

The upshot is that the government is not an altogether reliable repository of official records. Members of the public who depend on access to such records should endeavor to make and preserve their own copies whenever possible.

Here at FGI, we have repeatedly argued that identifying important information that warrants explicit preservation is the age-old role of libraries in society and that it still is (or should be) the key value of libraries in the digital age. Many government agencies, including NASA and the Government Printing Office have good intentions and good programs for preservation and access, but those agencies cannot guarantee that they will always provide preservation and access. In the case of the NTRS web site, Aftergood and others speculate that the take down was a response to a demand by a single Congressman who said in a press conference on March 18 [emphasis added]:

NASA should immediately take down all publicly available technical data sources until all documents that have not been subjected to export control review have received such a review and all controlled documents are removed from the system.

-- http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=40365

The NTRS web site was taken offline on March 19.

Government agencies are subject to political activities like this and budgetary limitations. Very bad things can happen which, in cases like this can remove from access, "all NASA technical documents, no matter how voluminous and valuable they are" in a single moment.

Libraries should still be selecting, acquiring, organizing, and preserving information for their user-communities, and providing access to and services for those collections. Libraries do no one a long-term service by simply pointing to resources over which they have no control and which someone else can simply make unavailable literally at the flick of a switch.

FDLP libraries should demand digital deposit from GPO and should actively select and acquire that digital public government information that is of value to their user communities that GPO cannot deposit because it is outside the scope of Title 44.

author:  Ray, Jeanne

If it's not bad enough that menopausal women feel invisible, in Ray's world, a pharmaceutical cocktail of antidepressant, bone density, and hormone pills with a one-time spritz of Botox causes some women to actually go invisible.

Quotations: 

I'm a librarian. I have good research skills. I didn't lose my job because nobody cares whether or not librarians are invisible.

reviewdate:  Mar 17 2013 isn:  978-0-307-95551-7

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Acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks has responded to the letter by the group CASSANDRA about the recent report Rebooting the Government Printing Office: Keeping America Informed in the Digital Age by the National Association of Public Administration (NAPA). .

The report recommends that GPO should consider "cost recovery" for access to FDsys (See NAPA releases report on GPO).

The Response from Vance-Cooks says that GPO has "no intention of charging public users a fee to access content available through FDsys. GPO remains committed to no-fee access to FDsys for the public as part of our mission of Keeping America Informed."

This is, of course, good news, but we have to temper our enthusiasm with the realization that GPO's ability to meet its intentions will inevitably be dictated by Congress and its budget.

The complete response is attached below:

Link to pdf copy at Internet Archive.

The National Journal posted a story about the renovation of the White House in the years after WWII. See the photos from the National Archives via the Truman Library.

Experts called the third floor of the White House "an outstanding example of a firetrap." The result of a federally commissioned report found the mansion's plumbing "makeshift and unsanitary," while "the structural deterioration [was] in 'appalling degree,' and threatening complete collapse." The congressional commission on the matter was considering the option of abandoning the structure altogether in favor of a built-from-scratch mansion, but President Truman lobbied for the restoration.

"It perhaps would be more economical from a purely financial standpoint to raze the building and to rebuild completely," he testified to Congress in February 1949. "In doing so, however, there would be destroyed a building of tremendous historical significance in the growth of the nation."

So it had to be gutted. Completely. Every piece of the interior, including the walls, had to be removed and put in storage. The outside of the structure-reinforced by new concrete columns-was all that remained.

The Shell of the White House during the Renovation, 05/17/1950

Original Caption: The Shell of the White House during the Renovation, 05/17/1950

Created By: National Archives and Records Administration. Office of Presidential Libraries. Harry S. Truman Library. (04/01/1985 - )

From: Series: Photographs Relating to the Administration, Family, and Personal Life of Harry S. Truman, compiled 1957 - 2004, documenting the period 1849 - 2004

Contact: Harry S. Truman Library (NLHST), 500 West U.S. Highway 24, Independence, MO, 64050-1798. PHONE: 816-268-8272; FAX: 816-268-8295; EMAIL:truman.reference@nara.gov.

Production Dates: 05/17/1950

Scope and Content Note: Window openings provide bursts of light into the cavernous interior of the White House, supported only by a web of temporary steel supports. The exterior walls rest on new concrete underpinnings, which allow earth-moving equipment to dig a new basement.

Persistent URL: arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=6982099

Truman Library URL: www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=22

Access Restrictions: Unrestricted

Use Restrictions: Unrestricted

Co-presenter: 

Lisa Gitelman

Ann Komaromi

Davida G. Breier

Anne Elizabeth Moore

Steve Tomasula

Event: 

OUTSIDERS: Zines, Samizdat, & Alternative Publishing

Abstract: 

I was asked to write a guest blog post for the new (great) site dh+lib this month. In the post, I talk a bit about my library heroes, and what I hope the overlaps between the digital humanities and libraries can do to further social justice. You can read the post here and I'd love to hear thoughts and feedback.

author:  Stewart, Sean

I probably shouldn't take full credit for reading this one. Basically I looked at the pictures and read only the stuff from the 3 women (vs. 22 men) with interviews in this oral history.

reviewdate:  Mar 14 2013 isn:  978-1-60486-455-7

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99% Invisible is one of my favorite podcasts. Roman Mars talks about architecture and design in a really thoughtful and compelling way. He had a recent episode about razzle dazzle ships' camouflage in which he included images from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)'s Fleet Library (which is NOT connected to the Navy in any way :-)). Check out this fascinating listen about ships and camouflage.

(Erik Gould, courtesy of the Fleet Library at RISD, Providence, RI..)

(Erik Gould, courtesy of the Fleet Library at RISD, Providence, RI.)

Becoming invisible with your surroundings is only one type of camouflage.  Camofleurs call this high similarity or blending camouflage.  But camouflage can also take the opposite approach.

(Erik Gould, courtesy of the Fleet Library at RISD, Providence, RI.)

author:  Lu, Marie

Following Legend, Prodigy is a tale of a divided, dystopic America, from the perspective of the commie side's two most notorious outlaws, both fifteen. They discover that the corporate side is no heaven either, nor is the resistance of the former that they've been drawn into supporting.

reviewdate:  Mar 13 2013 isn:  978-0-399-25675-9

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With the advent of the March updating season, the past two weeks have been very busy for volunteers at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

That is, except for Hawaii, Minnesota and Oklahoma. These pages have languished for over a year without a volunteer documents specialist to care for them.

If you would like to brighten the day of one of these pages by adopting them, read through the project's volunteer guide, then contact Daniel Cornwall at danielcornwall@gmail.com.

On to our extensive activities. For a full blow by blow report of updates and other activity for the past two weeks, visit http://tinyurl.com/statedbs14d. Here are the highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (Susan Paterson)

Recreation Centers and Pools - Find swimming pools, basketball courts, before- and after-school care programs, and other programs at parks and recreation centers in the District of Columbia. Also can find status of projects improvements and permit facilities.

KANSAS (Pam Crawford)

Photo Library - From the web site: "The KGS Photo Library is a collection of photos of different subjects from around the state. These photos may be used for any non-commercial purpose; if you use a photo, please credit the Kansas Geological Survey. To select photos to view: (1) click on one of the terms under the Subjects menu, (2) enter a term (or terms) in the Keywords search, or (3) use one of the three maps to select photos by county, physiographic region, or highway."

NEVADA (Kathy Edwards)

Teacher Licensure - Search for the credentials of a public school teacher by entering the teacher's name or license number.

NEW HAMPSHIRE (Linda Johnson)

New Hampshire Vital Records Information Network Web Query] Search for birth, death, marriage, and divorce events. Data very current for most statistics. Password required.

OHIO (Audrey Hall)

Utility Information - Find utility information by street address.

NEW MATERIAL ON "NOT DATABASES" PAGE

In the course of searching for databases, our project volunteers come across interesting and/or useful resources that fall outside of our project scope. Rather than just forgetting these resources, we post them to our "not databases" page.

In the past two weeks, two resources have been added to this page:

Smart Consumer - From the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, separate pages directed toward parents and children, teens, young adults, adults, and older adults raise awareness of potential scams. Recommendations about what to know and what to do are given for various scam topics.

New York State Vital Statistics - The tables listed here provide information on vital statistics in New York State, such as mortality, birth rate, marriage and population.

Come on, you know you want to run it!!!

James and I are happy to announce that our new article appears in the current edition of D-Lib Magazine:

• The Digital-Surrogate Seal of Approval: a Consumer-oriented Standard. by James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs. D-Lib Magazine, 2013, 19(3/4). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1045/march2013-jacobs

In the last few years, there have been a series of articles, reports and proposals that rely on the promises of digitization to address issues of physical space, cost control, access, and collection management for FDLP libraries. One of the reasons we created this Seal of Approval standard is to provide a clear, consistent way to help evaluate some of these promises of digitization.

There are those who continue to insist that we have too many copies of federal documents, that preserving those copies is too expensive, that GPO is being unreasonable when it does not allow libraries to discard materials, and so forth. Although proposals to digitize FDLP collections are often couched in terms of enhancing access, libraries can digitize and enhance access without discarding paper copies. The underlying motivation of such proposals is often explicitly to weed the paper collections and, when not explicit, it is always implied. These proposals raise many questions in our minds. For example:

• Will digitizations include digital text as well as images and will the text be accurate and complete and (re)usable?
• Will the digitizations be readable and usable on modern e-book devices?
• Will digitizations create digital objects that are as good as the originals, or worse, or better?
• Will digitizations be deposited into Trusted Digital Repositories to ensure their long-term preservation and access?
• Will the library that contributes the original be in control of the digital copy, or will control be ceded to large mega-libraries?
• Will the digitizations include adequate metadata for management, preservation, and discovery?
• Will libraries develop and maintain discovery and delivery mechanisms that address the special requirements of federal documents?
• Will libraries provide adequate digital services for the digital collections?
• Will any cost savings be applied to collection management and services for these collections or will the cost savings be redirected to other collections and services?
• Will there actually be cost savings if we adequately address the above questions?

But there is one other question that is more important than all of the above. The question we must ask first is: Are the digitizations accurate and complete? If they are not, the other questions become moot or irrelevant. The DS-SOA is intended to help us answer that question. The DS-SOA denotes that a digitization accurately and completely replicates the content and presentation of the original.

The standard is designed to be easily understood and usable, not just by digitization-specialists, but also by library administrators, collection managers, service providers, preservation officers, business managers, and others who are responsible for library collections and services. It is also meant to help communicate clearly to end users the accuracy and completeness of the digitizations libraries provide to them.

We believe that libraries fulfill a unique role in society, one that is different from that of producers, agencies, publishers, authors, and vendors. We believe that the value of libraries is dependent upon the collections we select, acquire, preserve, and maintain and the services that we provide for those collections. The FDLP collections are unique; they provide a primary-source, historical record of our democracy. The FDLP print collections are not "legacy collections" as they are often called by those who wish to discard them; (the use of the word "legacy" as an adjective means "outdated" and "unwanted"). They are, however, our legacy. The use of the word "legacy" as a noun means bequest, heritage, endowment, gift, and birthright. The DS-SOA is a simple tool that libraries can use to ensure the value of their digital collections and communicate that value to library users. We believe that failure to ensure completeness and accuracy of our digital collections will reduce the value of libraries. We believe that replacing paper-and-ink books with digital copies without first ensuring and documenting that those copies are complete and accurate representations of the original would be tantamount to redacting the historical record of our democracy.