Students, faculty and staff at UBC Library now have online access to the session laws of the Acts of the Parliament of Canada – 1926 – 2007 via the subscription database HeinOnline. Print copies are also available – covering the years 1867 – 2007 at call number KG16 .A25
Month: September 2009
Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, has just released its 2009 issue of Europe in Figures. This is freely available on-site as a Pdf download and “presents a comprehensive selection of statistical data on Europe.” It is also produced and disseminated in print. UBC Library has print copies of this annual publication from 1995 – 2008, with the 2009 on its way, at call number HA1107.5 .E976.
“With just over 500 statistical tables, graphs and maps, the yearbook treats the following areas: the economy, population, education, health, living conditions and welfare, the labour market, industry and services, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, international trade, transport, the environment, energy, science and technology and Europe’s regions. This edition’s spotlight chapter covers creativity and innovation – the theme of the European year 2009.” Most of the data from this publication cover years 1997 – 2007.
The United Nations has just announced that it will be consolidating four disparate organizations devoted to women’s/gender issues into a single entity.
“The resolution means the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) will be merged.”
The aim is for the new body to provide a more streamlined, coherent and “robust” promotion of “the well-being of women, ” gender equality and female empowerment around the world.
As yet the new organization lacks a formal “mission, structure, funding (or) oversight” but Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been tasked to provide these so that the body can be formed “as soon as possible.”
Categories
Reminder: Cyber Cemetery
In case, like me, you’ve forgotten all about the Cyber Cemetary here’s a reminder of what it is and what it does:
“The CyberCemetery is an archive of (US) government websites that have ceased operation (usually websites of defunct government agencies and commissions that have issued a final report). This collection features a variety of topics indicative of the broad nature of government information.”
The archive is maintained by the University of North Texas Libraries and the US Government Printing Office.
Other similar projects are also being carried out by the Internet Archive, Library & Archives Canada and the US Presidential Libraries System (starting with George W. Bush). I’m sure there are others – please post details of projects I’ve overlooked 😉
Sunlight Labs – “a non-profit, non partisan Washington, DC based organization focused on digitization of government data” has been running a contest to identify the top three websites offering applications that provide “easy access and understanding for the public” to US government data/information. They all make it just a bit easier to access high quality data online.
The winners are:
First Prize: DataMasher. This website allows you to select from a wide variety of data sets (mostly from Data.gov) and to then combine them into a personalized “mashup.” Mashups take the form of tables and maps. Examples of recent mashups are Health Care Coverage + Premiums; Unemployment + State Land Area; and Median Household Income + Median Monthly Mortgage Costs.
Second Prize: GovPulse. As mentioned in another blog entry below…this site provides a single search interface for all issues of the US Federal Register, from 1994 to present.
Third Prize: ThisWeKnow: This site provides access to “nationwide data sets from six different agencies in the data.gov catalog.” In practice, users browse or search for specific American communities and then view a list of fast facts about those communities. ThisWeKnow then provides links to the underlying data for each fast fact.
The US Securities & Exchange Commission has just released its public version of its full Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme. At present it’s sitting on the Commission’s homepage and the report’s URL indicates that it’s a “news” file. It’s unclear, therefore, if this is a stable URL. Only the executive summary is currently available from GPO Access, though it’s likely to wind up there eventually.
Well it turns out that we have a national cryptologic agency and it has quite an interesting website.
First, what does the agency do? CSEC provides “the Government of Canada with two key services: foreign signals intelligence in support of defence and foreign policy, and the protection of electronic information and communication.”
Website Features: provides links to the full text of various related acts & policies including the Anti-Terrorism Act, the National Security Policy and the Privacy Act. Provides extensive background information on Canada’s policies on national and governmental security as well as national privacy policy. Also provides access to Government of Canada IT Security Publications: alerts, bulletins, directives, guidance, threat assessments and reports.
“The Federal Register is the official journal of the federal government of the United States. In it, you’ll find any kind of proposal, notification, or solicitation for data that a federal agency puts out.” It includes Presidential documents – including Executive Orders; current and proposed Rules & Regulations; and Notices.
The Register is currently available online, through GPO Access, but that site does not allow you to search all available content at the same time – the current year is available in a separate database. A group of software developers has put up an alternate website that allows you to search or browse the Register from 1994 onwards in a single (much more attractive) interface. You can browse by date, topic, agency or location.