LISNews: Librarian News

Government Documents librarians are joining the "biblioblogosphere" Here are two relatively new blogs that are helping raise awareness of "news you can use" government information sources:

• Government Publications Library--University of Colorado at Boulder
• Red Tape Blog (Michigan State Univ)

The Red Tape blog is more Michigan focused, but still carries items of interest to all. The Colorado blog was started around Thanksgiving 2005 and uses a conversational document/gov web site of the day format.

Both blogs allow comments, although I didn't see comments on either blog.

Kolkata Newsline - New Delhi,India Reports WHILE a staff crunch has come in the way of implementing the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 in the country’s oldest and biggest library, the National Library, Kolkata, the Act is already in place at the regional office of the Shipping Corporation of India.

All government offices and institutes were supposed to have implemented the Act by October 12. ‘‘We just have the bare minimum staff to run the daily affairs of the library. The implementation of the RTI Act requires a lot of effort in preparing the manuals and documenting the data of many years. Where is the staff strenghth for all this work?’’ asked one of them.

Daniel Phelan sent over an interesting Globe And Mail article on plans to put Canadian Govt. topographic map data on the Internet where companies and individuals would be able to access the information, either free or for a fee, and then print it or pay a professional printer to do it.John Dawson, acting director of Natural Resources Canada's Centre for Topographic Information, figures that people are upset about the proposal because it is the latest in a series of changes to the map-making business that depart from the philosophy of the original craftsmen who treated cartography and map reading as an art.

Several members of a new electronic records advisory committee, appointed by U.S. Archivist Allen Weinstein, will gather later this month to gain deeper insights into the federal Electronic Records Archives (ERA) program.

As part of ERA's next phase, the committee members will meet in Washington, D.C. "This is our first opportunity to see how it works," said David Carmicheal, president of the Council of State Archivists (COSA) and a committee member.
More @FCW.com.