Wikipedia now legitimized

At OPL, we have included links in our "Best of the Web" describing Oakville's population. This is because we know that some customers only use open web sites such as Google or Wikipedia for their information needs. Here is encouraging news from Research Buzz:

WIKIPEDIA is now politically correct to use as a reference resource
The full report, from 8th December 2007, ResearchBuzz noted:
"OCLC Hooks Up With Wikipedia"
. . . " search over a billion items in
over 10,000 libraries around the world."

Historical Boundary Maps for Halton - Oakville

This is from the Town of Oakville's website.

Reports on climate change

Two lengthy and weighty reports have recently been released on climate change:

1. From the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the fourth assessment report was issued on 17 Nov.
   www.ipcc.ch/
2. From the British government, the Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change is available at www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm#Top

BPL live on Youtube!

Check out this very informative look at an innovative library!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wuq6Y6N8SE

Community Profiles on OurKidsNetwork

This is a great site for learning about your local community. Les

Just Play Blog

This new feature in Blogger permits a never ending play of photos mounted publicly.

http://play.blogger.com/

Taken from the FAQs:

Blogger Play will show you a never-ending stream of images that were just uploaded to public Blogger blogs. You can click the image to be taken directly to the blog post it was uploaded to, or click “show info” to see an overlay with the post title, a snippet of the body, and some profile information about the blogger who uploaded it. We also wrote a Blogger Play FAQ with more information.

Bloglines - Top Ten Facebook Apps for Librarians

Bloglines user lesliesutherland@oakville.ca has sent this item to you.

LibrarianInBlack resources and discussions for the "tech-librarians-by-default" among us...

Top Ten Facebook Apps for Librarians By Sarah Houghton-Jan Yet another great list of resources from iLibrarian: the Top Ten Facebook Apps for Librarians.  If your library is dabbling in Facebook, check out this list for a great way to add some pizzazz to your profile.  The list came in a series of three posts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Bloglines - Public school indicators, 1998/1999 to 2004/2005

Bloglines user lesliesutherland@oakville.ca has sent this item to you, with the following personal message:

From Statistics Canada's Daily

---

Statistics Canada, The Daily The Daily

Public school indicators, 1998/1999 to 2004/2005 The report "Summary Public School Indicators for the Provinces and Territories", released today, provides a comprehensive examination of public school indicators for the provinces and territories during the academic years from 1998/1999 to 2004/2005.

E-LAWS - official yet?

Excerpt from SLAW : One of our Legal Research and Writing professors came in to talk to me today because by her reading of s.35(1) Official Copy of the Legislation Act, it seems to say that e-Laws will still not be official until they are in the format proscribed by the regulations. (It then refers to s.41(1)). She wanted me to double check that this is a true reading of the Act. I contacted the Ministry of the Attorney General's Office and spoke to the Legislative Counsel who is very heavily involved with both the e-Laws website and the drafting of the Legislation Act. She confirmed that e-Laws will not be official until further regulations have been passed in accordance with s. 35(1) and 41(1). She did not have an ETA for when such regulations would be filed. She stated that the e-Laws website will look different on July 25, to reflect the new law, however the disclaimers will stay until regulations which bring the Legislation Act into effect have been filed.

I thought everyone should know.
Thanks!
Annette

An article from globeandmail.com

L. MS (sudsyles@gmail.com) thought you would be interested in the following article from globeandmail.com, Canada's leading source for online news:

"Census data will outline impact of aging boomers"
Canada's population is aging - and the impact that baby boomers are having on the country will be revealed tomorrow when Statistics Canada releases the second wave of information from last year's census.
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070716.CENSUS16/EmailTPStory/>

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Get the news delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our daily News Update:
<http://www.globeandmail.com/newsletter/>

Good site for student research - the Committees Page of Parliament. Reports created for Senate annd House Committees provide excellent backgrounders for current issues.

Water a Commodity? Read about the Great Lakes

Is water a commodity? According to Peter Lougheed, former Premier of Alberta, it is. In a 2005 speech given to Calgary's Canadian Club, Lougheed is quoted as saying:

We should not export our fresh water. We need it and we should conserve it," Lougheed said in a speech to the Calgary branch of the Canadian Club Wednesday. "We should communicate to the United States very quickly how firm we are about it."
Lougheed says Canada's water is vital to its economic success and needs to be protected, and he'd like to see an all-party declaration in the House of Commons affirming a refusal to allow bulk exports of its fresh water supply.
Lougheed says even though bulk water exports are specifically excluded from the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement, he says the United States would use that mechanism to get to the resource.

a rebuttal ( or commentary) to this argument is found in a recent Policy Initiatives Branch brief found in the DSP archive: http://policyresearch.gc.ca/doclib/SD_BN_Water%20Tradable_e.pdf.

A more thorough analysis of Great Lakes initiatives can be found in SOLEC documents, which is an international agency affiliated with the Environmental Protection Agency. Our library has print copies of the latest reports:

http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/solec/index.html

Legislative Library Holdings via OurOntario

Andrew Hubbertz's Update 2007: Collection and Preservation of Web-Based Provincial/Territorial Government Publications, mentions that the Legislative Library of Ontario is planning to make public digitized versions of their collections. The funding for digitization would come from Knowledge Ontario (KO).

I e-mailed KO as to when that might happen and what the scope of the collection would entail. The response from Loren Fantin, Project Manager, OurOntario.ca ( subset of KO) was:

The government documents will be made available
through the OurOntario site - http://www.ourontario.ca.
The projected time frame is late fall. I'll send an announcement out to
various list-servs and will post the information on the Knowledge
Ontario website as well.

It would be great if the digitized collection remains permanent and covers all legislation, committee reports and other papers from at least 1980 forward. Smaller libraries then will not have to worry about keeping print copies in perpetuity for their customers. Exciting news!

2007 NAICS Codes

The 2007 NAICS Codes are no longer provided to Selective Depositories in print. The Weekly Checklist indicates that it is 771 pg in electronic form. The URL is:

http://dsp-psd.communication.gc.ca/Collection/Statcan/12-501-X/12-501-XIE.html

LMS

Legislative Bills lost in session

The Second Session of the 38th Parliament prorogued on June 5, 2007, and the government does not reconvene until after the fall election. More than 100 Member Bills will lose ground as a result. For example, Bill 12, No Tuition Hikes Act, 2005
Rosario Marchese , a Bill to freeze tuition at universities and colleges beyond that approved in the 2005/6 calender year, is now lost as it was only in First Reading. Bill 19, which amends the Education Act by permitting the minister to require that students complete no fewer than 60 hours of community involvement activities before receiving their Ontario secondary school diploma - has now been shelved. It seems an enormous waste to have these issues sent back to the drawing table but that is political reality. An explanation of what Prorogation means is on the home page of the Assembly. LMS

News from GOVINFO

Amanda Wakaruk at York sent this news:
May 27, 2007

PITTSBURGH-The University Library System (ULS) of the University of
Pittsburgh will receive the entire European Union depository
collection-the most extensive collection of public European
Community/European Union documents and publications in North
America-from the Delegation of the European Commission to the USA in
Washington, D.C., and make it available intact to patrons of Pitt's
Hillman Library. See http://mac10.umc.pitt.edu/m/FMPro?-db=ma&-lay=a&-format=d.html&id=2942&-Find

ULS also will digitize a large portion of the collection and upload it
onto the Internet as part of Pitt's Archive of European Integration (AEI).

Census 2006 tool

Hello all,
Please have a look at the Illustrated Glossary tool that has been updated
for the 2006 census on the Stats Can website site.
How to find it www.statcan.ca
select Census on the left.
The page will have the icon of the census. Scroll down to the bottom
of the page and you will see 3 boxes 2006 census 2001 census, 1996
In the 2006 census select Reference material, select about geography
select Illustrated Glossary.
Also could use the search feature and type in 92-195

What does it do:
Provides a plain language definition an illustration of the definition.
A detailed definition and in what census it was used in.
Try looking at Dissemination block . This is a new term that was used
in the 2006 census.
Karen Young
BPL
census 2006

Clarkson Airshed Study from the Ministry of the Environment

On Wednesday, May 9, 2007, Halton's Medical Officer of Health presented the Ministry of the Environment's Clarkson Airshed Study to the Regional Council. This study analyzed 22 months of data gathered from six air monitoring stations spread throughout Halton and Peel to assess air quality measured by particulate count. The conclusion - no surprise - air quality is compromised in Halton. Four of the six monitoring stations - all within Halton, found levels of respirable particulate matter that surpassed acceptable standards. The cause? Vehicular traffic. Even when local industrial facilities ( which account for as much as 25 percent of normal particulate emissions) are in compliance with current air quality standards, the airshed is still "taxed" due to overall impact of various sources. Dr. Bob Nosal, Halton's Chief Medical Officer concluded - air quality human health and climate could be negatively impacted by an increase in emissions associated with buildings, vehicles and workplaces. Something to watch with Halton's growth in the next decade....

AGIIG BLOG and related links

AGIIG is CLA's Interest group Blog moderated by Krista Godfrey from McMaster. Its mandate is similar to this one, to :

• monitor issues relating to government publishing and the availability of government information....
• To provide a forum where library workers can learn from one another or from experts in the field and can participate in other activities aimed at improving access to government information

The postings appear to be geared ( at present) to DLI libraries (full depositories) and library staff. There are very good tips about national events in government as well as links to government information of interest. A link to AGIIG is established in our sidebar. LMS

DSP - new guide

This was released in February, 2007. It is a nice, brief overview of what the DSP does and how to work with them as a government liaison for your library. Copies are available in your Central Branch. http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection/P109-6-2007E.pdf

LMS

Canada and the world series news

Hello all,
I just found out on the Canada and the world Backgrounder website
http://www.canadaandtheworld.com/
that
there online copies will no longer be indexed on E- lib or CPIQ .
There online current and back issues will be on Igloo. Igloo is a non-profit Canadian Information Portal. I checked and they are not on there yet.

http://www.igloo.org/.

Canada and the world Backgrounder publications cover many topics for example Elections in a short format 30 pages that is useful for students.
To find a listing of what we have do a series search and enter backgrounder.

submitted by Karen Young
Canada and the world, Backgrounder series

Intute - A British search directory for international resources

I just finished a course at FIS on Advanced Web Search Strategies. Apart from remembering all the features you should be utilizing in Google and Yahoo, the instructor Gwen Harris told us about Intute, from the UK http://www.intute.ac.uk/. This site has very good tutorials on different subject areas used in reference, a search engine to find them and indicates the relevance of those results. Here is one gleaned from a quick search on the keyword "government" See below:

The United Nations E-Government Readiness knowledge base provides researchers with free access to statistical data and some reports about the state of e-government readiness and delivery around the world. Primary source of data for the Knowledge Base comes from the United Nations Global E-Readiness Reports and Survey.It is possible to consult country profiles and build comparative graphs and charts of data. Topics covered include web access, E-participation and e-government services. Dates of coverage are displayed on the site. http://www.unpan.org/egovkb/

I am using Intute for learning more about business at the moment. LMS

Kudos for Statistics Canada from Profit Magazine

Look what I found while searching for information about Statistics Canada as a corporation :

5 GREAT SOURCES OF BUSINESS IDEAS :
WHERE TOP TRENDWATCHERS TURN TO STAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE .....

Statistics Canada: The Economist calls it "the world's best statistical agency." At statcan.ca, you can dive into details from the census, 35D active surveys or The Doily e-newsletter on topics as diverse as Canada's slowing population growth and our skyrocketing blueberry consumption.....

I've looked for the quote in the Economist and have yet to retrieve it online in the recent past, however, it is probably true. Users just have to know how to search for business data efficiently and relevant marketing material is available at their fingertips. LMS

Retrieved from: A., K. ([YEAR]). 5 GREAT SOURCES OF BUSINESS IDEAS. Profit, 25(6), 43-43. Retrieved Saturday, May 05, 2007 from the Business Source Premier database.

United Nations Data Liberation

The United Nations has liberated more data for free statistical searching. This site will provide demographic data comparable to that found in Encyclopedia Britannica Country Profiles, WorldBook Profiles, the CIA World Factbook, the BBC Website and more. Hopefully as it is source material for subscription databases the data will be the most current available. LMS

Article from thestar.com

Thought you might be interested in this article from thestar.com.

Please visit link: http://www.thestar.com/article/208454

Kyoto Protocol - CBC reports

A blurb from CBC breaking news:

The federal government released the specific details of its
much-anticipated emissions plan Thursday, requiring most of Canada's
industries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 18 per cent in
three years. The new plan means Canada will be at least eight years
behind meeting its requirements under the international Kyoto Protocol.

There is a good analysis of the issue from CBC's In-Depth series , but the Library of Parliament has released its own studies, including the Brief The Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. Salient speeches from Parliament and further reading can be found on LEGISInfo.

The Quality of Life for Seniors in Halton

A new 2007 report entitled "The Quality of Life for Seniors in Halton" has been released by the Halton Region. It addresses such things as income, housing, personal safety and access to information and services. It includes statistics on: projected growth for this demographic up to the year 2015, numbers anticipated to use social housing, leisure activities, transportation issues, internet use etc. Conclusions are drawn for future planning. Of note for library service is that "opportunities for cognitive, physical and social leisure activities are important to the quality of life of seniors"... and more than 59. 2 % of those aged 55- 64 have internet access. This document is worth perusing.

Census of Geography: Illustrated Glossary

To take full advantage of Census data, users need to have a basic understanding of the terms relating to geography and the associated products and services. On the Statistics Canada website, catalogue number 92-195-195-XWE, staff can get clear definitions of terms such as CMA ( census metropolitan area), CSD ( census subdivision) and DA ( dissemination area). They can also contact GeoHelp online. Unlike the old days, there is no print equivalent of this tool as it is available in a phased release. Tutorials will become available in the 2nd quarter of 2007.

CODOC to Dewey/LC - the Controversy

There has been a great deal of interest of late in the GOV-INFO listservabout the purpose and end result of retroconversion projects in libraries. Specifically, whether retroconversion marginalizes government resources work and treatment of the subject matter. We started a retroconversion project at OPL many years ago to enable easier retrieving and reshelving of government materials. It is a back burner endeavor, because cataloguing staff fit it in among other, more important projects. In order to ensure that our government resources are retained for posterity and according to DSP retention guidelines, we continue to store materials in a separate area in reference and in storage. While government resource work is still ( thankfully) recognized as important at OPL, the demise of CODOC does sadden me. CODOC is so logical, as it enabled the organization of materials according to government branch in a hierarchical fashion. I would like to see future listserv discussions focus on the burden downloading e-documents has created for libraries who can ill afford to print hardcopy, particularly in color. To me, that is the real threat facing government resources, at least in public libraries.

Subscribing to ALA Tech Source Blog

One might ask why a blog to keep track of government resources would subscribe another blog's feed - specifically ALA's Tech Source http://feeds.feedburner.com/TechsourceBlog. Well - simple and short answer, it records happenings in the industry that might affect government resources. For example, on April 1, 2007 - Google purchased OCLC and all of its holdings. WorldCat was renamed "Google Library" and every work published to the system is now available for full-text searching in the system. At OPL, I'm hoping that this might aid a retroconversion project from CODOC to Dewey - where cataloguers are looking for examples of older materials classified in Dewey that aren't available in Amicus. The more interesting comments listed in the announcement is that the fate of Dublin Core is stated to be uncertain... they say that ..."The fate of the Dublin Core initiative is unknown at this time, although it is promising that it was renamed "Cupertino Core." Officials admitted that CoreRank is their best hope to keep Google ahead of the search engine pack".... As many of our government e-services digitization projects use Dublin Core protocols, I am waiting to hear from our tech people how this might play out. More to follow

Agreement reached about the Great Lakes

On April 3, 2007, the Ontario Government released a backgrounder about the Great Lakes -St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement. Of interest is the agreement about water diversion, notably:

• it provides strong protections for Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin waters....
• The provinces and the states have agreed to: ban diversions of water out of {this area} and prohibit new or increased transfer of water from one Great Lake watershed to another unless strictly regulated criteria are met...

For a comprehensive overview of Great Lakes ecological concerns, refer to State of the Great Lakes 2005 document and corresponding reports from the annual SOLEC [State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference] group. Warning! It is a huge .pdf file and takes time to load

Ontario Min. of Environment launches new site for teens and children

On March 27th the Ministry of the Environment launched 2 sites
called Obviously for teens and children.
Great site with articles, contests, homework help
relating to the environment.
check www.obviously.ca

Wait Times for Ontario Physicians

Now you can monitor the time it takes to see a surgeon and/or physician in Ontario.

Patients or physicians can check this recently updated site and
determine the waiting periods for patients for 4 key types of surgeries. (cardian,cataract surgery,diagnostic scan, joint replacement)
source (Publications Ontario News release Mar. 15)

Check:
www.ontariowaittimes.com

Social Atlas of Halton: Landscape by the Numbers

This document provides demographic data about each municipality in Halton, down to the ward level. For example, if one needs information on the ethnic breakdown of Bronte ( Oakville ), you can look online at http://www.halton.ca/ppw/planningroads/Planning/DataStudies/ByNumbers/default.htm

or consult one of the print versions at BPL or OPL. I used this recently to investigate age groups around a neighbourhood branch for administration.

Welcome to Govpublibgroup!

We are a group of govlibsters devoted to clarifying the mysteries of government resources. Access needs to be simplified for staff and public alike. That is our aim!