EPA Regional and Headquarters Libraries to reopen

Posted on by

The EPA National Library Network Report to Congress has been released.

It is dated March 26, 2008.

http://www.epa.gov/natlibra/documents/LibraryReportto_Congress.pdf

In the report it states that the EPA will receive S1 million to reopen the following libraries, which it hopes to do by September 30, 2008:
EPA Libraries in Regions 5, 6 & 7, Chicago, Dallas, & Kansas City respectively, and the EPA Headquarters Repository and Chemical Library in Washington, D.C.

Energy Summit at National Academies

Posted on by

March 14 — The National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering held a summit on March 13 and 14 to examine the increasing importance of energy policy to the nation’s security, economic vitality, and environment. U.S. government officials and other leading experts delivered a series of presentations that will inform the upcoming study —

America’s Energy Future: Technology Opportunities, Risks, and Tradeoffs.

Summit Agenda and Presentations

News Release

America’s Energy Future Project

What You Need to Know About Energy booklet

Source: What’s New@National-Academies.org Friday, March 21.

Our Low-Carbon Future, in “State of the World 2008”

Posted on by

“Building a low-carbon economy is the central challenge of our time. Meeting that challenge will require restructuring the global energy industry through technological, economic, and policy innovations that are as unprecedented as the climate change it must address, writes Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin in Chapter 6 of State of the World 2008”

Read: Chapter 6: “Building a Low-Carbon Economy”

Source: Worldwatch Institute email newsletter, Mar. 20, 2008

Chemical Abstracts Service providing Registry Numbers to Wikipedia

Posted on by

“Under the initiative, CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) will work with Wikipedia to help provide accurate CAS Registry Numbers for current substances listed in Wikiprojects – Chemicals section of the Wikipedia Chemistry Portal – that are of widespread general public interest. The CAS Registry is one the most comprehensive collections of chemical substances and the CAS Registry Number is the recognised global standard for chemical substance identification.”

From Knowledgespeak Newsletter, March 18.

Educational Materials in Atmospheric Chemistry

Posted on by

Professor Daniel J. Jacob of Harvard University has compiled this very fine set of educational materials that deal with various aspects of atmospheric chemistry. He draws these resources from his own teaching experience, along with offering slides, presentations, and information from his own introductory textbook on the subject. Visitors can click through sections that contain resources such as Power Point presentations on halogen chemistry, aerosols, and global biogeochemical cycles. Professor Jacob has also been kind enough to include several versions of his 1999 textbook titled “Introduction to Atmosphere Chemistry” for general consideration and use. Finally, the site also contains resources on chemical transport models intended for graduate students.
Source: The Scout Report — March 14, 2008

There are also some helpful hints about presentations and writing!

EPA Libraries — Best Practices & summary

Posted on by

Environmental Protection: EPA Needs to Ensure That Best Practices and Procedures Are Followed When Making Further Changes to Its Library Network. GAO-08-304, February 29.

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-304 (60 pages)

Highlights –
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08304high.pdf (1 page)

Thanks to Ruth Gustafson from UC Davis reporting to the Environment & Resource Management Division of Special Library Association

Statistical Abstract of the United States — 2008 online

Posted on by

The US Census Bureau has been compiling and publishing this valuable resource since 1878.

It is an excellent starting place when looking for statistical data. Search the database, or browse through categories of data such as: Energy & Utilities, Geography & Environment, Natural Resources, Science & Technology. References for these data are always cited, and via the Excel spreadsheets are directly linked to the more complete resources on the web.
The PDFs give the URLs for “cutting and pasting”.

EPA guilty of unfair labor practices in library closures

Posted on by

EPA LIBRARY CLOSURES HAMPERING AGENCY WORK, ARBITRATOR FINDS
EPA Guilty of Bad Faith and Unfair Labor Practice in Shutting Agency
Libraries

Washington, DC – A federal arbitrator has found the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency guilty of unfair labor practices and acting in bad
faith in its national series of library closures, according to a ruling
posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER). EPA is ordered to bargain with affected public employee unions
before making any further changes in its library network.

During the past two years, EPA has closed or reduced access to much of
its network of libraries which serve both its own specialists and the
public. Altogether, access to EPA libraries in 23 states has been
completely lost, and several specialized collections have been
shuttered, including its headquarters library.

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:45:19 -0500
From: Lynne E. Bradley lbradley@alawash.org
From: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 28, 2008
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337

Continue reading →

Experiment: read EPA docs and describe (tag) them

Posted on by

Play Tag With Government Documents

“Free Government Information is doing an experiment for tagging government documents, and they need you to help.

The group has taken 32 documents from the EPA Web site and posted them to the Internet Archive, at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=epapilotproject . They want you to read the documents, and then describe them and tag them in del.icio.us. You can see what’s been tagged so far at http://del.icio.us/tag/epapilotproject?setcount=100 . The project will run for three months and then the data generated by users will be analyzed, with the group determining how many participated, average number of tags per document, how the documents were described, etc.”

Source: ResearchBuzz #420 — February 28, 2008
http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/2008/02/16/play-tag-with-government-documents/