Thursday, May 31, 2007

The decline of the bee?

Much has been said recently in the news media about the surprising die offs of bee colonies in the United States. At this point there is no single culprit that has been identified as a cause. The US Department of Agriculture has gathered many of the newspaper, radio and government documents on this decline in a single site.

On March 29th, there was even a Congressional hearing "Public Hearing to review the colony collapse disorder in honey bee colonies across the United States" (scroll down to March 29th for the witness statements).

Want to learn more about beekeeping? Check out the beekeeping website from the Department of Agriculture. It has links to in-depth publications as well as quick fact sheets, such as "Beekeeping for Beginners."

Want print materials to take home and read through as you wait for the honey to flow? If you are here in Colorado, we have a number of publications you can borrow from the library. Try such search terms as "bee culture" (another word for beekeeping), "bees and agriculture" or "bee culture Colorado."

Still want more resources on agriculture? Check out the library's guide.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Look what's been discovered ... from the CRS

It's Tuesday and once more we can look at Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports. The CRS is a research agency for the U.S. Congress and writes reports at their request. This week brings us reports on the appropriations, climate change, terrorism, and much more. This is NOT a complete list of recent reports, only members of Congress have access to a complete list, but these are reports requested from Congress by members of the public, like you. If you want to request a report, just talk to your local Representative or Senator. These are the reports that OpenCRS and Secrecy News found and released this week:

Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916.

Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has created a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Memorial Day

President Bush paid tribute to veterans today with a visit to the tomb of the unknown soldier. You can read his statement online (where you can also watch or listen to it from the right sidebar).

The Department of Defense has set up a special page to honor Memorial Day. From this page you can view memorial day tributes as well as press releases from various government officials.

Want to find more military information? Check out the library's guide.

Friday, May 25, 2007

From the Government Accountability Office

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is often called the investigative arm of Congress. This week they investigated a variety of issues, such as mining, homeland security and education. If you would like to know more about the GAO, check out the library's guide.

Reports
Testimonies
Correspondences

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

World Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the group concerned with health within the United Nations System. They deal with health issues from AIDS to Avian Influenza.

There are two major areas of their web site that might be of interest to those of you looking at world health issues. The first section is the Countries page. On this page all the members of the United Nations are listed and on each page is some basic statistics, including life expectancy. There are also links to any programs or outbreaks dealing with health.

The second section of interest is the Health Topics page. This page links to in-depth looks at health issues on a global scale. There is information in here on the topics you might expect such as AIDS and tuberculosis, but there is also links to information on topics you may not expect to find, such as Alcohol and Drinking water.

Finally, the World Health Organization produces a number of publications, many of which are freely available online. Today they released World Health Statistics 2007. This third edition includes a section with 10 highlights of global health statistics for the past year as well as an expanded set of 50 health statistics for all 193 UN member countries.

Want some more health information? Check out the library's guide.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Living on Food Stamps for a week

House Representatives Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Tim Ryan (D-OH), and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) spent this week attempting to live on food stamps. This was part of an effort to illustrate their quest for an increase in food stamp funding. They are all co-sponsors of H.R.2129, "To strengthen the Food Stamp Act of 1977. "

Want to read about their varying levels of success eating on $3 a day? They started a blog where they link to articles on the experience as well as discuss the hardships. (Rep. Ryan had his peanut butter and jam confiscated at airport security and had only cornflakes for the last day.)

Interested in knowing more about food assistance? Food assistance is provided by the Department of Agriculture, here is their web page on Nutrition Assistance Programs.

From CRS this week

It's Tuesday and once more we can look at Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports. The CRS is a research agency for the U.S. Congress and writes reports at their request. This week brings us reports on the military, freedom of speech, trade, and much more. This is NOT a complete list of recent reports, only members of Congress have access to a complete list, but these are reports requested from Congress by members of the public, like you. If you want to request a report, just talk to your local Representative or Senator. These are the reports that OpenCRS and Secrecy News found and released this week:
Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916.

Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has created a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Friday, May 18, 2007

From GAO this week

It is time again for the list of weekly releases from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is often called the investigative arm of Congress. This week they investigated a variety of issues, such as mining, homeland security and education. If you would like to know more about the GAO, check out the library's guide.

Reports
Testimonies
Correspondence
Presentation by the Comptroller General
  • "Keeping America Great: Doing Your Part," by David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, at commencement ceremonies for the Kogod School of Business and the School of Public Affairs, American University, in Washington, D.C. GAO-07-887CG, May 13. [text]
    http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d07887cg.pdf

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Congress passes budgetary plan

Congress took another step towards funding the government for Fiscal Year 2008. Both the House and Senate passed a concurent resolution laying out the budgetary plan. You can read the concurrent resolution online.

Want to see how your representatives voted? Check out the Congressional Votes database from the Washington Post.

Want to read about some of the politics behind it? Check out the Washington Post article "Congress Passes $2.9 Trillion 2008 Budget."

Want some more information on the budgetary process? Check out the library's guide.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Learn about the World Bank

With all the discussion in the news recently about the World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, I thought it might be time to discuss what the World Bank does. (For the report on Wolfowitz's actions in regards to a pay raise for his girlfriend, check out the report of the Ad Hoc group who investigated the actions.)

The World Bank is not a bank in the traditional sense of the word. They are a source of financial assistance to developing countries, but it is actually an international organization made up of two organizations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

The IBRD focuses its efforts on middle-income and credit worthy poorer countries by providing "loans, guarantees, risk management products, and analytical and advisory services." The IDA focuses on the world's poorest countries by providing "interest-free loans and grants."

Many people have asked whether the World Bank has been effective in helping these countries. The World Bank is actually concerned with this and has commissioned numerous independent evaluations of its efforts, some of which you can find on their web site.

Want to check out some of the products of this work? You can find freely available online some publications, data and research. For those of you interested in finding out what they do in a particular country, check out their countries pages.

For those of you on the Boulder campus, we have three databases from the World Bank:
  • Global Development Finance --This database contains statistical data for the 147 countries and country groups. The database covers external debt stocks and flows, major economic aggregates, and key debt ratios as well as average terms of new commitments, currency composition of long-term debt, debt restructuring, and scheduled debt service projections.
  • World Development Indicators --This database contains statistical data for over 575 development indicators and time series data for over 220 countries and country groups. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators.
  • World Bank e-Library This is an electronic portal to the World Bank's full-text collection of books, reports, and other documents. New titles and working papers are added to the database as they become available.
Finally, for those of you who still want more, check out the library's guide.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

CRS reports found this week!

This week the online blog, Secrecy News, posted an item entitled "CRS Director Defends Access Restrictions." This blog posting discusses a defense on restricted access to CRS reports written by CRS director Daniel P. Mulhollan. But just because there is no central location for CRS reports online they can be requested directly from your Congressional representatives.

Why do you want access to these reports? Because they give a concise (usually 10-20 pages) look at topics of interest to Congress. They have wonderful bibliographies linking to the authoritative sources on the topic and are written by experts in the field.

Are you interested now? Here is a list of the reports OpenCRS and Secrecy News found online this week (for older reports look for the databases listed under the titles):
Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916.

Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has created a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Monday, May 14, 2007

President issues Executive Order on Emmission Standards

The Supreme Court earlier this year that the EPA did not have valid grounds for not regulating greenhouse gas emissions (Massachusetts, et. al. v. Environmental Protection Agency, et. al.). Today the President issued an Executive Order, entitled "Cooperation Among Agencies in Protecting the Environment with Respect to Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Motor Vehicles, Nonroad Vehicles, and Nonroad Engines." This orders federal agencies to develop regulations on greenhouse gas emission before the end of his term.

The President made a brief statement on the decision at the Rose Garden today.

If you would like to know more, check out the Washington Post article "Bush Sets Deadline for Emissions Effort."

Want more resources? Check out the various guides to Environment and Energy from the library!

New Interface for Chinook, CU's library catalog

Chinook, CU's library catalog, is undergoing a complete redesign. The layout and design have been streamlined and simplified to make the catalog easier to use without compromising any functionality. The new catalog will debut on June 1st. In the meantime, please check out the beta version at http://libraries.colorado.edu:2082.

You will find in the new catalog a number of new features, such as relevancy ranking and spelling hints! Please feel free to send comments to the blog or click on the "send comments" in the page footer.

Friday, May 11, 2007

From GAO this week

It is time again for the list of weekly releases from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is often called the investigative arm of Congress. This week they investigated a variety of issues, such as medicare, homeland security and energy. If you would like to know more about the GAO, check out the library's guide.

Reports
Testimonies
Correspondences

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Blair announces he will step down June 27th

Today Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, announced he will step down on June 27th. I happened to be studying abroad in London when he was elected 10 years ago and remember the climate of change that came with the election, which brought the Labour party into majority.

For those of you who don't know how the parliamentary system works, it is different then the presidential system (which we have here in America). The people elect members of Parliament and the party that has the largest membership gets to select the Prime Minister. Generally when the elections are held the populace knows who is going to be selected as Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister can be changed without having another election (which is what will happen in Britain). Want to learn more about the two types of Democracy? Check out the U.S. state department's What's Democracy, the Democratic government chapter compares the two forms of government.

Want to read more about his resignation? Check out the Prime Minister's announcement with links to an image gallery. Read more on the Washington Post article "Britain's Blair Announces His Resignation: Long-Serving Labor Party Leader to Step Down on June 27" By Kevin Sullivan."

Want to know more about Great Britain? Check out the library's guide?

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Bioenergy in the news

I have talked before about the great UN agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (read the previous entry). They have released a few reports in the past few days dealing with bioenergy. There are significant benefits to farms from the growth of this industry, but the development needs to be examined. The UN released a report "Sustainable Energy: A Framework for Decision Makers" that examines this issue in more detail. For those interested in a quick summary, check out this press release.

The FAO also announced the release of the new Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) web site. This web site provides links to the work of the GBEP as well as that of other groups in this developing field. There is not a lot of information here yet, but hopefully the site will continue to expand and grow.

Want to find more energy information? Check out the library's guide.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Congressional Research Service for this week

Ah, another day another Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. The CRS is a research agency for the U.S. Congress and writes reports at their request. This week brings us reports on Iraq, drug evaluation by the FDA, and much more. This is NOT a complete list of recent reports, only members of Congress have access to a complete list, but these are reports requested from Congress by members of the public, like you. If you want to request a report, just talk to your local Representative or Senator. These are the reports that OpenCRS and Secrecy News found and released this week:
Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916.

Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has created a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Friday, May 04, 2007

This week from GAO we have ...

It is time again for the list of weekly releases from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is often called the investigative arm of Congress. This week they investigated a variety of issues, such as climate change, agriculture, and aviation. If you would like to know more about the GAO, check out the library's guide.

Reports
Testimonies
Correspondences
Presentations by the Comptroller General
  • "Transformation Challenges for the 21st Century" by David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, before the National Association of State Chief Information Officers 2007 Mid-Year Conference, in Washington, D.C. GAO-07-848CG, May 3. [slides]
    http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d07848cg.pdf
  • "Saving Our Future Requires Tough Choices Today: Fiscal, Retirement, and Health Care Insecurity," by David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, before the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, in Washington, D.C. GAO-07-843CG, May 2. [slides]
    http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d07843cg.pdf
Related Material
  • Interstate Compacts: Results of a Survey of Officials from Interstate Compact Commissions That Address Environment and Natural Resource Management Issues. GAO-07-524SP, April 3. [Internet only]
    http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/gao-07-524sp/

Thursday, May 03, 2007

State Budget signed

Governor Bill Ritter signed the state budget for Fiscal 2007-08 into law yesterday. You can check out the bill and the actions on the General Assembly web site. Governor Ritter also released a summary of the bill and a justification for his selected vetoes.

Want to learn more about the budget? Check out the Denver Post's "Ritter signs budget, notes changes in priority from Owens' tenure."

Want more Colorado resources? Check out the library's guide.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Fire danger...normal in Colorado this year

The National Interagency Fire Center has released the Wildland Fire Outlook for the United States. Colorado has normal fire concerns this year, but there is the possibility of problems due to the dead trees (thanks to the Rocky Mountain Pine Beetle) and early snow melt. (And to think I was enjoying the fact that I can now sit on my porch when I read the paper.)

You can also check out the maps and some additional data at the NICC Predictive Services web site. As the summer progresses, you can get monthly and even daily outlooks for fire danger.

Want more information on the national parks and forests? Check out the library's guide.

And finally, thanks Government News for Montana for pointing out this site.

Congressional Research Service Reports available this week

Despite the difficulties in getting Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports (there is no freely available source, you have to request them from your congressional representative). A few have made it out into the general circulation, thanks to the people at OpenCRS and Secrecy News. Check 'em out:

Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916.Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has created a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has created a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

President Bush enacts second veto

President Bush enacted the second veto of his term as President, vetoing the "Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes" bill this afternoon. This is the bill that would have enacted a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Want to know the President's reasons for rejecting the bill? You can read or watch his statement on the White House web site.

Want to read the mass media's response to this expected action? Check out the Washington Post's "President Bush Vetoes War-Funding Bill."

Want more information? Check out the library's guides to Congress and the Presidents.

Country Reports on Terrorism

The State Department has released the 2006 Country Reports on Terrorism. This report is required by Congress and examines both countries and groups involvement in terrorism across the world. You can actually go back to 1976 with this title (and it's precursor, Patterns of Global Terrorism) if you want to come into the library (here's the record in the catalog).

If you would like some highlights of this report, check out this transcript of the press briefing. If you want some analysis, why not check out the Washington Post's "Iran Leads on Terror Sponsor List" or the New York Times's "Terrorist Attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan Rose Sharply Last Year, State Department Says."

Want more resources on terrorism? Why not check out the library's guide.