Confused about the New Health Care? Have patrons with questions you can't answer? Here’re four links to help you get better informed.
H.R.4872 Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010: Text of the bill, history, voting records and other basic legislative information. This is from Thomas: "In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, legislative information from the Library of Congress."
HealthReform.gov The government Health Reform website managed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Health care reform bill 101: what the bill means to you” from the Christian Science Monitor.
"Health Care 2010: Tracking the national debate on health care system overhaul" from the Washington Post.
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Freedom of Information: Your Key to Open Government
I attended the Jane Kirtley lecture “Freedom of Information: Your Key to Open Government.”
Dr. Jane Kirtley is the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
March 16th is National Freedom of Information Day, chosen because it’s James Madison’s birthday, and he’s known as the Father of the 1st Amendment. The week around March 16th is Sunshine Week, sponsored by the American Association of Newspaper Editors, which is “a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.”
The 1930s was when the Freedom of Government Information story really begins. Previously, the federal government was fairly small and relatively weak, and keeping information secret was not as important. In the 1930s, with the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Federal Government expanded very quickly and grew more and more powerful. Information started to really be the coin of the realm, and so to be a power base and subject to a hoarding mentality.
On July 4, 1966 The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was signed into law. It “is a law ensuring public access to U.S. government records. FOIA carries a presumption of disclosure; the burden is on the government - not the public - to substantiate why information may not be released. Upon written request, agencies of the United States government are required to disclose those records, unless they can be lawfully withheld from disclosure under one of nine specific exemptions in the FOIA. This right of access is ultimately enforceable in federal court.” National Security Archive.
FOIA gets amended roughly every 10 years. The 1996 amendment ordered government agencies to put information online. Unfortunately it was an unfunded mandate. Here’s the text of the current FOIA law at the Department of Justice.
If a person or entity wants a piece of federal government information that the agency in question does not want them to have, the person files a FOIA request with that agency. It’s up to the agency to prove that they don’t have to provide the information based on current FOIA law. If the agency denies the request, the requester then has the option of taking the agency to court if they feel the request was denied unfairly. Given the number of courts authorized to hear FOIA trials, the agency can almost always find a judge who’s sympathetic to them and will decide in their favor.
Unfortunately, FOIA does not always work as intended. There are often delays (the oldest open FOIA request is from 1992), sometimes because an agency doesn’t want to release the information, but more often because of things like bureaucratic delays, lack of clarity in the law, and lack of resources.
The largest users of FOIA are commercial concerns that are looking for a financial advantage. They can also more easily afford to pay for court costs if their requests are denied.
Government agencies are required to report on their FOIA activities. The DOJ puts together an annual compilation of Annual FOIA Reports Submitted by Federal Departments and Agencies and Annual FOIA Litigation and Compliance Reports. Also, every year the National Security Archive at George Washington University does a FOIA audit for the departments of the Federal Government.
After 9/11/01, a lot of government information was hidden with national security used as the reason. Personal privacy is the current popular reason for withholding information. Kirtley says there are 2 ways to deal with concerns about general access to information that is potentially sensitive. You can suppress it, which she feels is short-sighted – you’re treating the symptoms, not the disorder, or you can pass very carefully worded laws that criminalize the misuse of such information and create a judiciary that vigorously enforces them. She prefers the latter option.
President Obama promised a new era of open government, explained in the White House’s Open Government Initiative. There are also new guidelines for FOIA. Unfortunately, there’s very slow progress getting them implemented in Federal Agencies.
The legislature is considering the Faster FOIA Act of 2010, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), “which will establish an advisory panel to examine agency backlogs in processing FOIA requests. Under the legislation, the panel, named the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays, will be required to provide to Congress recommendations for legislative and administrative action to enhance agency responses to FOIA requests. The panel will be required to identify methods to reduce delays in the processing of FOIA requests, and will be charged with examining whether the system for charging fees and granting fee waivers under FOIA should be reformed in order to reduce delays in processing fee requests.”
Minnesota’s answer to FOIA on the state level is the MN Data Practices Act.
Here’s an Abbreviated Fact Sheet and a Data Practices Overview.
Dr. Kirtley stressed the importance of legacy or traditional media. One of the great media roles is watchdogging the government, an example of which is the creation and sponsorship of Sunshine Week. With legacy media’s decline, these efforts also decline. Now the American Association of Newspaper Editors have so little money that most of the content on this year’s Sunshine Week website is recycled from last year.
Her last point was that we need to contact our elected officials and tell them we want them to take open government seriously and to get judges who will enforce laws vigorously and not just let things pass.
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Dr. Jane Kirtley is the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
March 16th is National Freedom of Information Day, chosen because it’s James Madison’s birthday, and he’s known as the Father of the 1st Amendment. The week around March 16th is Sunshine Week, sponsored by the American Association of Newspaper Editors, which is “a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.”
The 1930s was when the Freedom of Government Information story really begins. Previously, the federal government was fairly small and relatively weak, and keeping information secret was not as important. In the 1930s, with the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Federal Government expanded very quickly and grew more and more powerful. Information started to really be the coin of the realm, and so to be a power base and subject to a hoarding mentality.
On July 4, 1966 The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was signed into law. It “is a law ensuring public access to U.S. government records. FOIA carries a presumption of disclosure; the burden is on the government - not the public - to substantiate why information may not be released. Upon written request, agencies of the United States government are required to disclose those records, unless they can be lawfully withheld from disclosure under one of nine specific exemptions in the FOIA. This right of access is ultimately enforceable in federal court.” National Security Archive.
FOIA gets amended roughly every 10 years. The 1996 amendment ordered government agencies to put information online. Unfortunately it was an unfunded mandate. Here’s the text of the current FOIA law at the Department of Justice.
If a person or entity wants a piece of federal government information that the agency in question does not want them to have, the person files a FOIA request with that agency. It’s up to the agency to prove that they don’t have to provide the information based on current FOIA law. If the agency denies the request, the requester then has the option of taking the agency to court if they feel the request was denied unfairly. Given the number of courts authorized to hear FOIA trials, the agency can almost always find a judge who’s sympathetic to them and will decide in their favor.
Unfortunately, FOIA does not always work as intended. There are often delays (the oldest open FOIA request is from 1992), sometimes because an agency doesn’t want to release the information, but more often because of things like bureaucratic delays, lack of clarity in the law, and lack of resources.
The largest users of FOIA are commercial concerns that are looking for a financial advantage. They can also more easily afford to pay for court costs if their requests are denied.
Government agencies are required to report on their FOIA activities. The DOJ puts together an annual compilation of Annual FOIA Reports Submitted by Federal Departments and Agencies and Annual FOIA Litigation and Compliance Reports. Also, every year the National Security Archive at George Washington University does a FOIA audit for the departments of the Federal Government.
After 9/11/01, a lot of government information was hidden with national security used as the reason. Personal privacy is the current popular reason for withholding information. Kirtley says there are 2 ways to deal with concerns about general access to information that is potentially sensitive. You can suppress it, which she feels is short-sighted – you’re treating the symptoms, not the disorder, or you can pass very carefully worded laws that criminalize the misuse of such information and create a judiciary that vigorously enforces them. She prefers the latter option.
President Obama promised a new era of open government, explained in the White House’s Open Government Initiative. There are also new guidelines for FOIA. Unfortunately, there’s very slow progress getting them implemented in Federal Agencies.
The legislature is considering the Faster FOIA Act of 2010, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), “which will establish an advisory panel to examine agency backlogs in processing FOIA requests. Under the legislation, the panel, named the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays, will be required to provide to Congress recommendations for legislative and administrative action to enhance agency responses to FOIA requests. The panel will be required to identify methods to reduce delays in the processing of FOIA requests, and will be charged with examining whether the system for charging fees and granting fee waivers under FOIA should be reformed in order to reduce delays in processing fee requests.”
Minnesota’s answer to FOIA on the state level is the MN Data Practices Act.
Here’s an Abbreviated Fact Sheet and a Data Practices Overview.
Dr. Kirtley stressed the importance of legacy or traditional media. One of the great media roles is watchdogging the government, an example of which is the creation and sponsorship of Sunshine Week. With legacy media’s decline, these efforts also decline. Now the American Association of Newspaper Editors have so little money that most of the content on this year’s Sunshine Week website is recycled from last year.
Her last point was that we need to contact our elected officials and tell them we want them to take open government seriously and to get judges who will enforce laws vigorously and not just let things pass.
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Questions patrons may have about the 2010 Census
Q. My census form has the wrong city on it. Should I send it in?
A. Yes. ""Don't worry," Dr. Groves wrote in The Director's Blog on March 17, noting that the mailing address and physical location of a house were different for census purposes. People will be counted "in the jurisdiction where your home is physically located," the director said. Addresses in a single ZIP code were labeled using a single city name to streamline delivery for the "largest single [mailing] ever undertaken by the United States," Dr. Groves noted.
The Postal Service uses multiple city names to deliver mail when a ZIP code crosses jurisdictional boundaries, he said. Each census form has a unique bar code that is used to check-in forms as they are returned by mail; the bar code is tied to a mailing address that includes the city or town associated with the physical location of the home. The director urged people not to cross off the address or bar code on their questionnaire."
Q. Will participating in the 2010 Census potentially get me in trouble with the immigration authorities?
A. No. "Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano told lawmakers that the department is "committed to working with the Census Bureau to ensure our enforcement responsibilities do not interfere" with "a thorough and accurate" census.
In a March 16 letter to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Secretary assured legislators that personal census responses "will not be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and may not be used for immigration enforcement purposes." The Census Act (13 U.S.C. §§8 & 9) prohibits the Census Bureau from revealing any personally identifiable information collected in the census and provides that personal census responses may not be used against an individual, are immune from legal process, and may not be admitted as evidence (without an individual's consent) in any judicial or administrative proceeding.
The letter followed a meeting between Hispanic lawmakers and President Obama; at that March 11 meeting, the lawmakers expressed concern that continued immigration raids would discourage immigrants from participating in the census. Secretary Napolitano reiterated that neither the Commerce Department nor the Census Bureau would ask ICE to suspend immigration enforcement during the census. She acknowledged for the first time, however, that the two executive branch departments were working together to ensure that immigration-related activities "do not affect [the Census Bureau's] ability to collect accurate and comprehensive data for the census.""
from The Census Project, Census News Brief 3/21/10
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
A. Yes. ""Don't worry," Dr. Groves wrote in The Director's Blog on March 17, noting that the mailing address and physical location of a house were different for census purposes. People will be counted "in the jurisdiction where your home is physically located," the director said. Addresses in a single ZIP code were labeled using a single city name to streamline delivery for the "largest single [mailing] ever undertaken by the United States," Dr. Groves noted.
The Postal Service uses multiple city names to deliver mail when a ZIP code crosses jurisdictional boundaries, he said. Each census form has a unique bar code that is used to check-in forms as they are returned by mail; the bar code is tied to a mailing address that includes the city or town associated with the physical location of the home. The director urged people not to cross off the address or bar code on their questionnaire."
Q. Will participating in the 2010 Census potentially get me in trouble with the immigration authorities?
A. No. "Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano told lawmakers that the department is "committed to working with the Census Bureau to ensure our enforcement responsibilities do not interfere" with "a thorough and accurate" census.
In a March 16 letter to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Secretary assured legislators that personal census responses "will not be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and may not be used for immigration enforcement purposes." The Census Act (13 U.S.C. §§8 & 9) prohibits the Census Bureau from revealing any personally identifiable information collected in the census and provides that personal census responses may not be used against an individual, are immune from legal process, and may not be admitted as evidence (without an individual's consent) in any judicial or administrative proceeding.
The letter followed a meeting between Hispanic lawmakers and President Obama; at that March 11 meeting, the lawmakers expressed concern that continued immigration raids would discourage immigrants from participating in the census. Secretary Napolitano reiterated that neither the Commerce Department nor the Census Bureau would ask ICE to suspend immigration enforcement during the census. She acknowledged for the first time, however, that the two executive branch departments were working together to ensure that immigration-related activities "do not affect [the Census Bureau's] ability to collect accurate and comprehensive data for the census.""
from The Census Project, Census News Brief 3/21/10
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Cool new Gov Doc tool: Census Mail Participation Rates for 2000 & 2010
The Census Bureau has put out an interactive mapping tool for finding out Census Mail Participation Rates for 2000 & 2010. This tool goes down to the census tract level, and will also give you a snapshot of an area using colors representing participation rates. Data is updated Monday through Friday, and is so pretty close to real time.
Right now Minnesota is at 29% with the National rate being 20%. In 2000 MN returned 78% while nationally the rate was 70%.
It's really important that MN has a high response rate for the Census; millions of dollars and a seat in the House of Representatives are at stake.
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Right now Minnesota is at 29% with the National rate being 20%. In 2000 MN returned 78% while nationally the rate was 70%.
It's really important that MN has a high response rate for the Census; millions of dollars and a seat in the House of Representatives are at stake.
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
3 Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports on Sexual Victimization in Corrections Facilities Cited in the New York Review of Books
Hello.
This came up on my Government Documents listerv. We might want to know how to find these resources in case a patron asks for them.
The New York Review of Books cited three Bureau of Justice Statistics reports on sexual victimization in corrections facilities in the March 11th issue. They provided a bibliography but not web links. Here are the reports. I cannot find any of them in CGP or in DD2's shipping list database of items distributed to depositories. But you can find them through the BJS website and using Google.
Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09
by Allen J. Beck, Paige M. Harrison, and Paul Guerino
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 49 pp. (2010)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svjfry09.pdf
Sexual Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2007
by Allen J. Beck and Paige M. Harrison
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 48 pp. (2007)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svsfpri07.pdf
Sexual Victimization in Local Jails Reported by Inmates, 2007
by Allen J. Beck and Paige M. Harrison
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 43 pp. (2008)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svljri07.pdf
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
This came up on my Government Documents listerv. We might want to know how to find these resources in case a patron asks for them.
The New York Review of Books cited three Bureau of Justice Statistics reports on sexual victimization in corrections facilities in the March 11th issue. They provided a bibliography but not web links. Here are the reports. I cannot find any of them in CGP or in DD2's shipping list database of items distributed to depositories. But you can find them through the BJS website and using Google.
Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09
by Allen J. Beck, Paige M. Harrison, and Paul Guerino
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 49 pp. (2010)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svjfry09.pdf
Sexual Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2007
by Allen J. Beck and Paige M. Harrison
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 48 pp. (2007)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svsfpri07.pdf
Sexual Victimization in Local Jails Reported by Inmates, 2007
by Allen J. Beck and Paige M. Harrison
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 43 pp. (2008)
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/svljri07.pdf
Enjoy!
Melissa.
Government Documents Coordinator.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
BYKI
Byki (pronounce BIKE-e) is new language learning software from Recorded Books (publisher of the Pimsleur language sets) and Transparent Language. It contains 85 languages including ESL for several languages. No Hmong or Somali yet, but Byki is still growing.
Byki is based on a flash card system. It is meant to be the equivalent of the first 2 or 3 semesters of college. The user can save their progress and jump around among the cards, which have words or phrases in the user's native language one side 1 and the foreign language on side 2. There are 5 main steps in the course:
1. Review It--look through both sides of the cards. If the speaker is too fast, click on the "turtle" icon below to slow them down.
2. Recognize It--See side 2 of the card and think or say side 1.
3. Know It--See side 2 of the card and type the information from side 1.
4. Produce It--See side 1 of a card in your list and think of or say side 2.
5. Own It--See side 1 of a card and type the information from side 2. Clicking on the "keyboard" icon below will re-map your keyboard to the characters of the foreign language. It will not work for syllabic languages like Chinese or Japanese unless the user re-programs their home computer to type in that language.
In addition, you can record your voice and have it graded for pronunciation. This requires a microphone, but cheap ones can be purchased for $7 or so. Recording seems to work only with Internet Explorer on Windows PCs, but if anyone is able to get it to work with other browsers let me know. Some, but not all, of the non-Latin-alphabet languages have an alphabet tab to help in learning letters or syllables.
To help the user feel part of a learning community, each language has a Facebook page, Twitter stream, and a blog. A "Word of the Day" can be sent to the user's email or RSS reader.
Users are encourage to contact Byki's Tech Support if they have any technical issues. There is also an FAQ and a video guided tour.
--Andrea
Byki is based on a flash card system. It is meant to be the equivalent of the first 2 or 3 semesters of college. The user can save their progress and jump around among the cards, which have words or phrases in the user's native language one side 1 and the foreign language on side 2. There are 5 main steps in the course:
1. Review It--look through both sides of the cards. If the speaker is too fast, click on the "turtle" icon below to slow them down.
2. Recognize It--See side 2 of the card and think or say side 1.
3. Know It--See side 2 of the card and type the information from side 1.
4. Produce It--See side 1 of a card in your list and think of or say side 2.
5. Own It--See side 1 of a card and type the information from side 2. Clicking on the "keyboard" icon below will re-map your keyboard to the characters of the foreign language. It will not work for syllabic languages like Chinese or Japanese unless the user re-programs their home computer to type in that language.
In addition, you can record your voice and have it graded for pronunciation. This requires a microphone, but cheap ones can be purchased for $7 or so. Recording seems to work only with Internet Explorer on Windows PCs, but if anyone is able to get it to work with other browsers let me know. Some, but not all, of the non-Latin-alphabet languages have an alphabet tab to help in learning letters or syllables.
To help the user feel part of a learning community, each language has a Facebook page, Twitter stream, and a blog. A "Word of the Day" can be sent to the user's email or RSS reader.
Users are encourage to contact Byki's Tech Support if they have any technical issues. There is also an FAQ and a video guided tour.
--Andrea
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)