Help! is getting the love

The NCLA Government Resources Section

The North Carolina Library Association’s Government Resources Section has been crazy busy with our webinar series. We just finished our 20th on UNdata and it was a hit! Our Vice-President also was featured at the Depository Library Council Meeting and Federal Depository Library Conference in October. He talked about the success of Help! and how you can start your own webinar series.

Great times! Get help!

Getting to know the House Un-American Activities Committee

We have a fab new Help! webinar coming up in September. Come learn about research HUAC!

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents… Researching the House Un-American Activities Committee

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was one of the most controversial government organizations in American history. Founded in 1938, it would spend nearly four decades seeking out real and alleged subversives before its disbandment in 1975. HUAC’s most famous witnesses would include former communists such as Whitaker Chambers, Hollywood film stars and screenwriters, and  even athletes such as Jackie Robinson. The committee’s publications offer an invaluable source of primary materials on such topics as American political culture during the Cold War, the history of American Communism, and civil liberties during a period of external threat. In this webinar out how to trace the history of HUAC through its most famous documents, as well as historical background on the committee and its activities and other relevant federal documents resources.

David Durant is Federal Documents & Social Sciences Librarian at J.Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University.

We will meet together for Session #19, online on September 19 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EDT). Please RSVP for the Session by May 10 at 5:00 pm using this link:  http://tinyurl.com/grs-session19

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Blackboard Collaborate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

July = 2 New Help! Webinars

Help!, the NCLA Government Resources Section webinar series, is hitting a milestone. It is turning 18! Well, we are hitting our 18th webinar. The 19th webinar is also in the works and more information about that soon. Both will be in July and you should join us!

At the June webinar we learned how to find and report those pesky fugitive documents.  It was excellent. Become a fugitive hunter! Recording and slides will be available on our website soon.

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … Mooooooore Data at the USDA!The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them. This webinar is jointly sponsored by the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology.

Join us on Thursday, July 12 at 12:00 pm (ET) for a session on the US Department of Agriculture’s resources. The USDA website provides a wealth of data for users. Of course, much of it is about agriculture, but the USDA is also a great source for data you might not expect such as nationwide broadband adoption, food insecurity, and weather. The USDA also provides access to data from other agencies, such as population data, in forms easier to use than the source. However, the depth of content on the USDA site comes at the cost of ease of use. This session will highlight the diversity of data available from USDA and provide tips for navigating the site in order to locate datasets and databases within.

Amy West has been the Data Services Librarian at the University of Minnesota since 2007. From 1999 to 2006, she was the Electronic Government Publications Librarian at the University of Minnesota. As a result, she has particular expertise in US government data sources.

We will meet together for Session 18, online on Thursday, July 12 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EDT). Please RSVP for the Session by July 11 at 5:00 pm using this link:  http://tinyurl.com/grs-session18

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

Help! webinar series is one year old and still kicking!

The “Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian” series marks its one year anniversary and is still in full swing. Yesterday Jim Church gave an awesome presentation on International Organizations and their documents. You can see the slides on the NCLA GRS page. The recording will be up soon.

We have hosted 15 sessions in one year with 20-50 attendees in each session. I’d say it has been pretty successful. In the coming year we will feature sessions on fugitive documents, the ASERL centers of excellence project, and much more. If you have an idea for a session, get in touch with me. And join us for webinar #16 on the American Community Survey. Woohoo govinfo!

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents…The American Community Survey on May 4

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

The release of more 2010 decennial census data has more users inquiring about “decennial long form” data.  In 2010, there was no long form.  Instead the American Community Survey is collecting those kinds of variables.  But the ACS has a very different methodology than the decennial census and data are not comparable between the two.  This presentation will focus on the differences between the two surveys and will provide tips for users.  Expected audience is anyone new to using the American Community Survey or anyone who wants to know more about how the ACS differs from decennial long form data.

Michele Hayslett is the Data Services Librarian at the University Library of UNC at Chapel Hill.  Previously, she was the Librarian for Data Services and Government Information at the NCSU Libraries from 2005 to 2008, and the Demographics Specialist at the State Library of North Carolina from 2000 to 2005.  Census data has been a significant focus of her work throughout this time.  At UNC, she is also one of the co-chairs of the Data Management Committee, which is working with campus partners to benchmark data management practices on campus and to assist researchers in formulating their data management plans for grant proposals.  M.S.L.S., 1999, UNC at Chapel Hill; B.A. with honors, 1990, Earlham College.

We will meet together for Session 16, online on May 4 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EDT). Please RSVP for the Session by May 3 at 5:00 pm using this link:  http://tinyurl.com/grs-session16

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

New Help! webinar on international documents!

Oh! I’m so looking forward to this one. Someone will finally explain the insanity that is the UN’s documents system  to me.

Help!  I’m an Accidental International Government Information Librarian: The Basics, and a Bit Beyond on March 8

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

This session on March 8 at 12pm will cover information sources from major international governmental organizations (IGOs) focusing on publications, documentation, and statistics. IGOs covered will include the United Nations, European Union, International Financial Institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organization, as well as specialized agencies of the United Nations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, and UNESCO.  By the end of the webinar participants should have an understanding of the uses of IGO information and be able to identify international government information sources to meet the needs of users across a range of subjects, including international law, human rights, economic development, public health, demography, gender and women’s studies, and more. Biographical Information

Jim Church is the librarian for economics and international & foreign government information at the University of California Berkeley.  He is active in the ALA Government Documents Roundtable where he served as the international documents columnist for the journal DttP for four years, and currently serves as the Secretary of the IFLA Government Information and Official Publications Section. His primary areas of interest include international poverty and development issues, statistics, human rights, NGOs, and digital archiving

We will meet together for Session #15, online on March 8 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EDT). Please RSVP for the Session by March 7 at 5:00 pm using this link: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session15

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

new Help! webinar

The newest Help! webinar has been announced. It is a bit off-topic from pure government information, but what isn’t these days. Join us!

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP), February 2, 2012

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

In this session Beth Ann Koelsch, the curator of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will discuss the history of the WVHP, describe the collection development policy for the Project, and how the collections’ materials are made accessible to researchers. She will also examine some of the intersections between “govdocs” and the WVHP archives.

The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP), established at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1998, documents the contributions of women in the military and related service organizations since World War I. The collection offers a wide range of source material, including photographs, letters, diaries, scrapbooks, oral histories, military patches and insignia, uniforms, and posters, as well as published works.

Beth Ann Koelsch has been the curator of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro since 2008. The WVHP has over 500 collections and has conducted over 325 oral history interviews with women veterans from WWII to the present conflicts in the Mideast. The Project has a strong digital component and puts the oral history transcriptions and other digitized materials online.  Koelsch previously worked as a project archivist at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University, Durham, NC.  She received her MLS from the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007.

We will meet together for Session #13, online on February 2 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EDT). Please RSVP for the Session by February 1 at 5:00 pm using this link: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session13

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

Your New Year’s Resolution…

… is to learn more, right? Then join us for the next Help! webinar in January on the Creative Commons (not just for govdocers).

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … What You Need to Know About the Creative Commons

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

In this session we will be exploring a non-government information source of importance to all librarians. The Creative Commons, formed in 2001, is devoted to expanding the creative output and intellectual property available for others to build upon and share.  The concept has grown in popularity over the last decade and is now flourishing among content creators across digital media from text, to photography to video. This webinar will look at the basics of Creative Commons, the various CC licenses and what they mean and will show participants how to locate CC licensed content for use in their own projects and how to assign CC licenses to their own intellectual property.

Rosalind Tedford is the Director for Research and Instruction at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University. She earned her BA in English and Psychology as well as her MA in English from Wake Forest and an MLIS from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In addition to managing the research and instruction programs at Wake Forest she teaches for-credit information literacy courses and is the liaison to both the Political Science and Communication departments. She has presented at LOEX, ACRL, ALA and regional conferences on issues ranging from copyright to technology trends to information literacy. In what little free time she has, she can be found hanging out with her two kids, watching ACC basketball and reading (but not at the same time).  She can be reached at tedforrl@wfu.edu

We will meet together for Session #12, online on Thursday, January 5 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EST). Please RSVP for the Session by January 4 at 5:00 pm using this link: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session12

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

PubMed, PubMed Central, Medlineplus. WTF?

Hello blog! Haven’t seen you in a while. Yes, it’s been a wild semester. More on that later, but first we have a webinar coming up! Join us!

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … PubMed, PubMed Central, and Medlineplus – What’s the difference? (Lea Leininger, Health Sciences Librarian at the University of North Carolina Greensboro)

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

Do you support health science students? Are you on the hunt for another non-Google tool for health questions from the general public? Maybe you’ve heard that PubMed, PubMed Central and MedlinePlus are great sources for reliable medical information, but you’re not sure which site is best for your needs.  If so, please attend our webinar on December 9 at 12 pm (EST).  A health sciences librarian will provide an overview of PubMed, PubMed Central, and MedlinePlus with some searches and links to additional information.  This session is designed to be a basic introduction for non-medical librarians, but librarians from all settings are welcome to attend.

Ms. Lea Leininger has been the Health Sciences Librarian at the University of North Carolina Greensboro since 2004. She is the liaison librarian for nursing, biology, public health education, nutrition, communication sciences and disorders, nanoscience, and genetic counseling. She has a BA in French, a BA in Humanities, and an MLIS from the University of Texas at Austin.

We will meet together for Session #11, online on December 9 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EST). Please RSVP for the Session by December 8 at 5:00 pm using this link: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session11

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

Save the date: Upcoming Help! webinars in November

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents …Beginner’s Guide to Legislative History (Rebecca Hyman, Reference and Outreach Librarian, and Steve Case, Access Services Librarian, State Library of North Carolina)

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to a series of webinars designed to help us all do better reference work by increasing our familiarity with government information resources, and by discovering the best strategies for navigating them.

On November 9, we will be exploring legislative history (mostly from a North Carolina perspective, but all are welcome). Legislative history attempts to answer 2 questions: (1) *What* does the law say (or, more often, what did it say in the past), and (2) *Why* does the law say what it says.  Being able to track legislation from inception to General Statute is vital to answering these questions.   This session will explain more fully what legislative history is (and is not), look at the print and online resources available, show what roadblocks may prevent patrons from finding complete answers, and provide suggestions for alternative sources of information.  Familiarity with the NC General Statutes and NC Session Laws is helpful but not required.

Rebecca Hyman is the Reference and Outreach Librarian and Steve Case is the Access Services Librarian, both at the Government & Heritage Library. Before working at the Government and Heritage Library Steve worked at the UNC Law Library for 12 years.

We will meet together for Session #9, online on November 9 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (ET). Please RSVP for the Session by November 8 at 5:00 pm using this link: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session9

Technical requirements: We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

The session will be recorded and made available after the live session, linked from the NCLA GRS web page (http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources).

ALSO, save the date for the next webinar on November 16 at 12pm with Marcy Bidney, Head of the Donald W. Hamer Maps Library at Penn State University. More information coming soon!

state agency databases webinar

I have been a bit busy this semester and forgot to post about this upcoming webinar. You still have plenty of time to sign up. Please join us!

September 21, 2011:  State Agency Databases with Daniel Cornwall from the Alaska State Library

Stop searching the web to find film locations in Nebraska, historical photos in Alaska or probate records in Delaware. Come learn about the State Agency Databases Across the 50 States project, a librarian led effort to locate and share all of the publicly searchable databases produced by state governments around the country. Exemplar databases from Alaska, North Carolina and Missouri will be demonstrated. Explore the potential of what an easily accessible database listing could mean to librarians and patrons alike. Learn how you can easily contribute to this experiment in librarian cooperation. Project page: http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases

Daniel Cornwall is the Head of Technical and Imaging Services for the Alaska Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. From 1999 – 2007 he was the federal and state publications librarian for the Alaska State Library. He was an early member of Free Government Information (freegovinfo.info) and is the project coordinator for the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States Project, a project of the ALA Government Documents Roundtable. MLIS, Beta Phi Mu, 1996 University of Texas at Austin; BA, 1989, UCLA.

We will meet together for Session #8, online on September 21 from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (EDT). Please RSVP for the Session by September 20 at 5:00 pm using this link: http://tinyurl.com/grs-session8
Technical requirements for Webinars:

We will be using collaborative software called Elluminate. It requires that you be able to download Java onto your computer, but you do not need any special software. After you RSVP, we will send you a link that you can use to test the software. If you have any questions, please contact Lynda Kellam (lmkellam@uncg.edu). You do not need a microphone as a chat system is available in the software, but you do need speakers or headphones.

These sessions will be recorded and made available after the live sessions, linked from the NCLA GRS web page.