Date	Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...
May 27, 2021	Researching State Legislation: Why You Need to Put on Your Detective Hat
April 22, 2021	Navigating the World Trade Organization (WTO): Locating and Opening Doors
March 18th 2021	Researching Law in Europe
February 18, 2021	APIs of Data.gov (Reboot)
January 21, 2021	Current Population Survey: the Labor Survey for the United States
November 16, 2020	Help! Hits One Hundred: Gov Info Professional Development in a Virtual Future
October 13, 2020.	Census Microdata: What, Why and Where
September 15, 2020	Food, Energy, Water, Health, & informaciόn en espaňol Web Guides Featuring U.S. Government Web Sites—Plus Why and How to Create Your Own Topical Guides
July 16th 2020	What were they thinking?! Exploring America’s voting preferences and attitudes using the American National Election Study
June 18th 2020	Librarians Respond to Coronavirus: Critical Resources for Business and Government
May 28, 2020	FAQs and Helpful Tips about the FAFSA and DREAM Act Applications
April 20, 2020	Your City, Your Issues - Civic Engagement Workshops for Staff and Students
April 3, 2020	Navigating the Labyrinth of UN Documentation: An Overview for people new to the world of UN documents
January , 30 2020	World Bank Online Resources Every Government Librarian Should Know About
November 18, 2019	Mapping the Stanford Libraries and San Mateo County Civic Data Ecosystem and Opportunities for Partnerships, November 18 2019.
October 4, 2019	Advertising Government Documents: Simple and Easy Ways to Raise Awareness of Collections
September 19, 2019	Industry Research Using The Economic Census
July 18, 2019	Congressional Research Service Reports
June 7, 2019	The New Log Into North Carolina (LINC)
May 1, 2019	An Introduction to Researching Canadian Federal Documents
March 25, 2019	The PEGI Project Takes Flight!!
March 15, 2019	Government Information for Social Workers: From Students to Professionals
February 8, 2019	Census sources outside of American FactFinder
November 7, 2018	Presidential Research Resources
October 17, 2018	North Carolina Government Documents – historic, current and available online
July, 24 2018	Providing Health Information Services STAT
June 7, 2018	Census Bureau Data Access
April 18, 2018	Resources from the National Agriculture Library
March 28, 2018	Gov Info in the Golden State
November 29, 2017	Government in the Sunshine State: Where and How to Dig for State Information in Florida
September 26, 2017	Deep in the heart of Texas: government information stars within the Portal to Texas History
August 16, 2017	State Agency Databases Project, finding and sharing agency databases by subject
June 14th, 2017	The road to BREXIT, and the paths beyond
June 8, 2017	Preserving the Environment: Information Resources of the EPA
April 19, 2017	NOAA Digital Coast
March 29, 2017	Saving government data: A conversation with the future
March 20 2017	The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Linking Publications to Data
February 27, 2017	Finding geological materials through the U.S. Geological Survey
January 18, 2017	Introduction to Research Data Management for Librarians
December 19, 2016	Promoting government documents in your community
November 14, 2016.	International Government Survey Data: How to Find and Use It
October 31, 2016	Making Elections Great Again: Finding the Right Data
September 19, 2016.	The National Science Foundation: Statistical data and grantseeker resources
August 8, 2016	Climbing Capitol Hill Redux: The Basics of Congressional Research
July 26, 2016	The APIs of Data.gov
June 15, 2016	The Rules Rule: Understanding and Researching Congressional Procedure
May 17, 2016	Legal Research Basics Redux
April 25, 2016	State Government Information and the copyright conundrum
March 18, 2016	Get App(y): Government apps and mobile sites
February 17, 2016	Statistics Canada data for researchers beyond the Canadian borders
January 25, 2016	Overview of the MPC Data Infrastructure Projects
January 13, 2016	The United States Congressional Serial Set ...15577 Volumes and Counting!
November 11, 2015	Making Peace with United Nations Data: Learn to navigate UN data information sources
October 7, 2015	Friends, Enemies, and Interests: Foreign Affairs Research with Government Information
September 16, 2015	Where are those containers going? An Introduction to U.S. and Global Trade Data
August 12, 2015	Accessing Datasets for the Data Curious
June 24, 2015	Order in the Court Records: Finding Briefs, Transcripts, and other Court Materials
May 20, 2015	Money Matters: Federal Agencies and Financial Literacy
April 29, 2015	Finding Government Data on the Environment
March 18, 2015	National Institute on Money in State Politics
February 25, 2015	Accessing Federal electronic records at the National Archives
January 12, 2015	Fugitive hunters: community-based digital collection development of born-digital government information
December 11, 2014	Understanding the Budget of the United States
December 3, 2014	Data & Statistics for Researching Education
November 19, 2014	The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Part 3 (Part 3 of 3)
October 22, 2014	The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Part 2 (Part 2 of 3)
August 13, 2014	The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Part 1 (Part 1 of 3)
June 19, 2014	Emergency Preparedness:  How to Get Ready
May 19, 2014	Lights-Camera-Action! – Congressional Committee Hearings
April 16, 2014	Regulate this!  Federal Regulations
March 17, 2014	Tracking Legislation
February 21, 2014	Keeping  up with Congress
December 10, 2013	Secrets of the Congressional Record
November 18, 2013	Geocoding for Beginners
October 7, 2013	I Didn’t Know I Could Do That!
August 21, 2013	Historical Economic Data Sources & Economic Time Travel
August 8, 2013	Climbing Capitol Hill: The Basics of Congressional Research
June 12, 2013	Just the Facts, Ma’am!  Getting Started with the U.S. Census & American FactFinder
May 14, 2013	Legal Research ...Without the Law Library
April 22, 2013	Come to Your Census: the development of the U.S. Census from its inception to the present
March 27, 2013	All you ever wanted to know about Economic Indicators!
February 27, 2013	Homeland Security Digital Library
January 16, 2013	Information for International Development: Poverty Reduction, International Organizations, and Civil Society.
December 13, 2012	British and Commonwealth legal materials
November 14, 2012	United Nations Statistics and Data Resources
October 2012	Web-based Outreach to Non-Traditional Documents Librarians
September 22, 2012	Mooooooore Data at the USDA!
September 19, 2012	Researching the House Un-American Activities Committee
June 19, 2012	Hunting Down Fugitives and What to Do With Them Once You Found Them.
May 4, 2012	The American Community Survey
April 17, 2012	International Government Information:  The Basics, and a Bit Beyond
February 23, 2012	Government Resources of the European Union
February 2, 2012	The Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP)
January 5, 2012	What You Need to Know About the Creative Commons
December 9, 2011	PubMed, PubMed Central, and Medlineplus - What's the difference?
November 16, 2011	Finding your way: Maps and geospatial information from the federal government
November 9, 2011	Beginner’s Guide to Legislative History
September 21, 2011	State Agency Databases with Daniel Cornwall from the Alaska State Library
September 7, 2011	Good Health (Information) in North Carolina
July 27, 2011	Resources for Guard and Reserve Soldiers and their Families
July 13, 2011	Beyond Google: Effective Patent Searching in Every Library
June 14, 2011	The Economic Census
June 9, 2011	American FactFinder and Census 2010
May 11, 2011	Genealogy Using Government Information
April 14, 2011	The Basics

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Researching State Legislation: Why You Need to Put on Your Detective Hat, May 27, 2021

While most of the attention is focused on the actions (or lack thereof) of the U.S. Congress, the nation’s state legislatures are increasingly deciding the issues that affect citizens most directly, including voting rights, access to health care, and education. These legislative bodies vary greatly, ranging from full-time professional legislatures to part-time institutions with limited staff, and their websites reflect these differences. This webinar will focus on researching state legislation and laws, including navigating state legislative websites that are not necessarily designed with the average citizen in mind.  It will also highlight alternative sources of state legislative information and strategies for ferreting out additional information and context on state legislation.

Presenter: Jennifer Horne (she/her) is the Business, Economics, and Government Information Librarian at the University of Kentucky. In this role, she supports the schools of business, public policy and administration, and diplomacy. She also serves as the library's forward facing contact for government information. Prior to joining UK, she spent more than twenty years in public policy research and legislative affairs for organizations that represent state and local officials, including the Council of State Governments, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. She earned her Master’s in Information Science from the University of Tennessee, a Master’s in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University, and a Bachelor’s degree in politics and Spanish from Washington & Lee University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Navigating the World Trade Organization (WTO): Locating and Opening Doors, April 22, 2021

This webinar will provide insight into how to engage trade research with the World Trade Organization. Historically, how to approach research with the World Trade Organization has been very vague. This session will provide an overview of the way that the World Trade Organization works (which will explain some of this vagueness), the materials and ways that one can engage trade research with the WTO, and a demonstration of how to search accessible collections. This webinar will be of use to those who have found this kind of research particularly challenging, to those who have always wanted to know more about the World Trade Organization, and to those who would like some insights into challenges facing the World Trade Organization.

Presenter: Katherine Rewinkel El-Darwish is the Librarian for the Library of the World Trade Organization. She earned her Master in Library and Information Sciences from San Jose State University and her Bachelors degree in English with a minor in German from Lafayette College. Prior to working at the World Trade Organization, Katherine also worked at the United Nations Library and Archives Geneva, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the International Labour Organization. Katherine is primarily responsible for technical systems and cataloguing, but also provides support for research and reference. Katherine maintains the WTO library blog, which can be found at https://library.wto.org/blog/.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Researching Law in Europe, March 18th 2021

The theme of this webinar is researching law in Europe, giving thought to what some scholars regard as the “quasi-federal” legal structure that has emerged in many European countries since the mid-20th century. However, the question will be approached from the perspective of the informed, intellectually curious scholar familiar with a common law system such as that of the United States. How does one research law in jurisdictions where the lines between “federal” and “state” are even less well defined than is sometimes the case in the US? Consideration will be given to the mixture of common law and civil law systems found across Europe, along with some discussion of the post-Brexit landscape and occasional vignettes such as what law looks like in an increasingly devolved United Kingdom. The webinar seeks to be of use to anyone who seeks to know more about law in Europe, from those colleagues with a passing interest in legal research through to experienced legal researchers wishing to learn more about legal sources in those specific jurisdictions.

Presenter: Howard S. Carrier is the Copyright Librarian and Liaison Librarian to the Departments of Justice Studies and Political Science at James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Although his work and scholarship is principally founded in the areas of copyright and fair use, he maintains strong interests in EU Law, the law of the European Convention on Human Rights, and legal systems and structure. Mr. Carrier holds an LL.B.(Hons) degree and an LL.M. in the Law of Human Rights and Civil Liberties (both from the University of Leicester), and an M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to his work as a professional librarian in JMU Libraries, he teaches JUST 301 Legal Research & Information Literacy in the Department of Justice Studies.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... the APIs of Data.gov (Reboot), February 18, 2021

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association and the American Library Association Government Documents Round Table welcome you to a series of webinars designed to help us increase our familiarity with government information. All are welcome because government information wants to be free. Have you ever heard people talking about APIs and wondered what they are and why someone would use them? Have you ever tried to use Data.gov and felt overwhelmed by all the different data formats available? This webinar aims to answer these questions by explaining APIs and their purpose, showing how to navigate Data.gov and understand the different data types offered, and explain how you can leverage APIs in your projects.

Presenter: Julia Ezzo is the librarian for government information, packaging, and political science at Michigan State University. She has a B.A. in History from Michigan State University and a MLIS and Graduate Certificate in Records and Information Management from Wayne State University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Current Population Survey: the Labor Survey for the United States, January 21, 2021

The Current Population Survey is the monthly labor survey for the USA and provides rich demographic data. It is also a rich source for many other topics including civic engagement, computer & internet use, education, fertility & marriage, food security, immunization, public arts, tobacco use, (under)banked, veterans, volunteer work, and voting. Learn about its history, changes, and how to access both summary data as well as microdata.

Presenter: Bobray Bordelon joined Princeton University as the Economics & Finance Librarian in 1993 and has led Data & Statistical Services since 2004 and is the former director of the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA). He has leadership roles in various data and library organizations including the American Library Association and IASSIST. He co-teaches “Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation” as part of the ICPSR summer program, serves on ICPSR Council and the Roper Archival Advisory Committee. He has been honored with the William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service as an ICPSR Official Representative and the Thomson Gale Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Help! Hits One Hundred: Gov Info Professional Development in a Virtual Future, November 16, 2020

The NCLA Government Resources Section “Help!” series celebrates its 100th webinar with a look back by organizers and past speakers (and maybe even a few guest stars). Panelists will describe the genesis and development of the series and offer some best practices for managing webinars. We will highlight a few favorite behind-the-scenes memories. Finally, we will discuss the place of government documents librarianship and professional development in the virtual future.

Presenters:
Lynda Kellam co-founded the NCLA Government Resources Section’s Help! Series in 2011. She is the Senior Data Librarian at the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research where she manages the CISER Data & Reproduction Archive. She was there when the Help! Series was created and has provided tech support along the way. In addition she has twisted the arms of a few friends to present for the series and is probably coming for you next. She is also the current Chair of the American Library Association’s Government Documents Round Table.

Jennifer Behrens is currently Associate Director for Administration & Scholarship at Duke Law School’s J. Michael Goodson Law Library. She was Secretary/Treasurer of GRS when the “Help!” series was developed by the executive board, and has presented three webinars in it on legal research topics. Michele Hayslett has been a data librarian for twenty years, and has worked at UNC at Chapel Hill for the past twelve. She relies on government data and sources to assist researchers of all types. As a past president of GRS and as a general GRS member, she has worked to support the Help! series over the years by suggesting topics and recruiting speakers, and has presented six sessions herself, primarily about Census data.

Mimi Curlee was at that infamous meeting of the GRS leaders when this series was hatched. She is the Government Documents Librarian at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. She has been a long time member of both NCLA GRS and the Business Librarians in North Carolina (BLINC) Section.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Census Microdata: What, Why and Where, October 13, 2020.

Heard of microdata but not sure what they are or when they might be useful?  This session will provide an overview to answer these questions and introduce a couple of freely available tools for getting them:  the Census Bureau’s new mdat tool within data.census.gov, and IPUMS USA, a tool from the Minnesota Population Center.  While the data may be of most interest to advanced researchers, librarians may want a general sense of what microdata are and what the tools can do.  

Presenter: Michele Hayslett has been a data librarian for almost twenty years.  Having received much of her early training through the Census Bureau and North Carolina State Data Center, Census data is one of her specialties and she’s witnessed changes over three decennial Censuses now.  She works constantly with a variety of tools to pull data from numerous Census surveys in multiple formats.  She is a past president of NCLA’s Government Resources Section.   

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Food, Energy, Water, Health, & informaciόn en espaňol Web Guides Featuring U.S. Government Web Sites—Plus Why and How to Create Your Own Topical Guides, September 15, 2020.
 
The initial focus will be on the presenter’s Spanish-language, food, energy, water, and health guides, which highlight government resources; the most recent one was completed in May 2020. The rationale behind the Spanish language guide and a few examples from it will be part of the discussion. The topical government guides were created to support a multi-section first year composition course. Along with showing the guides, the reasons and thought behind the formatting of them will be described. These highlight opportunities that exist to promote government resources via curricular means. Strategies for making these opportunities into reality will be discussed along with recommendations on what to consider and what to do when creating your own topical guides featuring government resources.  

Presenter:Naomi Lederer, Professor Emerita at Colorado State University Libraries (CSUL), was the Government Information Librarian at CSUL (a Selective Depository) in the years before she retired. She completed the FDLP Coordinator Certificate Program as part of the fall 2018 cohort and used government documents throughout her entire career—which began when pretty much everything was in print. When she took over as Government Information Librarian she brought the existing online guide up-to-date and added new sections to it, including all of the guides that will be the focus of the presentation.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... What were they thinking?! Exploring America’s voting preferences and attitudes using the American National Election Study, July 16th 2020.

In the midst of another heated presidential election cycle, we all see regular news headlines referencing who’s leading the horse race in the latest polls. Few of us, though, tend to dig any deeper to understand why our fellow Americans ultimately choose to vote (or not) the way they do. In this webinar, I’ll introduce the basics of political opinion polling, highlight some major sources, and discuss some of the pitfalls to watch out for when assessing poll results. Then, I’ll lead you through an exploration of what we can learn about Americans’ voting preferences and political attitudes using data from the American National Election Study (ANES). Funded by the NSF, the ANES is the gold standard in U.S. election polls and one of the richest sources of voting attitudes we have, with data on elections going back to 1948.

Presenter: Jeremy Darrington is the Politics Librarian at the Princeton University Library. He has a BA in international studies from Brigham Young University and graduate degrees in library and information science from the University of Washington and in political science from UC Berkeley. He is a past chair of the Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section of ACRL, and he recently received the Marta Lange/SAGE-CQ Press Award for “distinguished contributions to librarianship in political science.” Jeremy’s interests include political science data sources, European politics, information and technology policy, and government information. Jeremy is happily married and the proud father of four children.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Librarians Respond to Coronavirus: Critical Resources for Business and Government, June 18th 2020.

In this webinar, three Librarians working in different settings (Academic, Public, and Special) will share their efforts to address research strategies and resources that have provided life changing assistance to companies and individuals during the Covid-19 crisis. Join as they discuss NC Live and government resources that have Covid-19 information with an emphasis on business and economic impact, working with a municipal government to connect small business owners and nonprofits to alternatives to SBA funding, conducting industry and market research, and consultation virtual methods. This webinar will answer questions around what can the business community, and our patrons in general, utilize in their efforts to research the economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis? And how can government entities, in tandem with educational institutions, provide free and low-cost counseling and services to the small and mid-sized business community in times of crisis?
Presenters: Angel Truesdale is the Social Sciences and Business Librarian at UNC Charlotte where she collaborates with the Business and Organizational Science programs. Additionally, she is the vice-chair of BLINC (Business Librarianship in NC). Deanna Day is the Senior Market Researcher at the NC SBTDC, a free and low-cost business counseling service provided by the UNC System and SBA. Day has been a librarian at Wake County Public Libraries, NCSU, and Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL, and, in a former life, was a corporate Marketing Director and Brand Manager for a Fortune 1000 company. Morgan Ritchie-Baum is the Business & Nonprofit Librarian with Greensboro Public Library in Greensboro, NC. She received her MLIS from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2018.   

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... FAQs and Helpful Tips about the FAFSA and DREAM Act Applications, May 28, 2020.

In this webinar, we will (a) briefly discuss the history and context of the FAFSA and DREAM Act Applications, and (b) spend the majority of the time going over specific features and FAQs.
 Presenter: Itza Vilaboy is a writer, library science student, and staff member at San Diego City College. She is the Chair of LIBROS, a nonprofit library services and resources advocacy organization serving the San Diego, Imperial Valley, and border region. Recent publications include texts in AZTLAN: A Journal of Chicano Studies (2018) and Poet-Librarians in the Library of Babel: Innovative Meditations on Librarianship (2018), and a chapter in Borders & belonging: Critical examinations of LIS approaches toward immigrants (2020). She was recently awarded a Book to Action grant from the State Library of California for the 2020 cycle to coordinate a series of programs that will take place in San Diego and Tijuana and organized around the book "The Album of Fences" by Omar Pimienta. Currently, she is Artist in Resident at Edgewood, an experimental exhibition space organized by Anya Gallaccio and Kelly Eginton, where she is planning a series of programs on the creative networks of libraries.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Your City, Your Issues - Civic Engagement Workshops for Staff and Students, April 20, 2020

A lot of what takes places in our daily lives is managed and governed by our county, city, and town governments. However, most Civics 101 and civic engagement classes and discussions tend to focus primarily on Federal government. Often students and the general public are not always aware of the many ways they can have an impact or advocate for issues at the local level - or even how decisions and laws are made at the local level. In order to provide resources in this area, Kris worked with a campus community engagement office to create a quarterly workshop called "Your City, Your Issues Engaging with Local Government". In this webinar, Kris will discuss how she developed and deployed the workshop series and share course materials so that you can develop a similar workshop for your community.

Presenter: Kris Kasianovitz has been wrangling government information for the past 20 years in academic libraries. She is the Government Information Librarian for State, Local and International Documents at Stanford's Green Library; and as of January 2017 is the Head of the Library’s Social Sciences Resources Group. Previously, Kris worked at UCLA’s Young Research Library in much the same capacity. She received her M.S.L.I.S from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Kris collects materials for these jurisdictions and provides research and instruction support in the use of these collections to the campus community. She is also involved in web archiving of state and local government information, notably the CA.gov and Bay Area Governments Web Archive. Additionally, she is a founding member of Free State Government Information, a group advocating for public domain designation for state and local government information, http://stategov.freegovinfo.info/. She is involved in a variety of civic engagement efforts on her campus. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Navigating the Labyrinth of UN Documentation: An Overview for people new to the world of UN documents, April 3, 2020

In this webinar, we’ll cover what types of documentation the UN produces and how the documentation system is structured. We’ll cover the main bodies (General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, and the Secretariat) and the main types of documents of the UN, such as resolutions, meeting records and reports. We’ll highlight tools produced by the UN for finding documentation and where to turn to when you get stuck.  Resources covered include the UN Digital Library, AskDAG, Research Guides, and support for researchers and depository libraries.

Presenter: Susan Goard has been the Legal Librarian and Training Coordinator at the Dag Hammarskjold Library since she joined the UN in 2013. Prior to that, Susan spent most of her career working for the Canadian federal government, first at the library of Global Affairs Canada and then at the library of the Supreme Court of Canada. She also spent a six month sabbatical from the Supreme Court of Canada at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Presenter:  Ramona Kohrs currently serves as the Coordinator of the Outreach and Professional Development Unit of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library (DHL) of the United Nations. Her responsibilities include coordinating the UN Depository Libraries Programme, providing guidance to colleagues involved in the outreach and liaison activities to the Permanent Missions and several Secretariat departments, as well as supervising activities that promote library services (social media, special events, library tours for visitors). She regularly represents the UN Library in forums dealing with international documents librarianship, such as ALA’s International Documents Task Force and IFLA’s Government Information and Official Publications Section. During her 30-year career Ramona has carried out a variety of functions in the UN Library, including cataloguing, providing specialized reference and research services, developing and delivering training courses on UN documentation and UN statistical resources, taking care of the physical collections, managing circulation and interlibrary loan services, coordinating several large-scale weeding projects, developing collection development policies, and managing a branch library focusing on economic and social affairs and official government statistics. 

Recorded Presentation Part 1:  UN Resources

Recorded Presentation Part 2:  UN Depository Library Programme

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... World Bank Online Resources Every Government Librarian Should Know About - January 30, 2020
 
The World Bank offers a plethora of information to the public on its websites. But do you know which sites are the best for librarians and researchers? This session will highlight the “must haves” for every government librarian. You’ll learn about the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, microdata, and other useful datasets. In addition, you’ll learn which sites are the best for finding World Bank flagships and publications; project and operational documents; archival information and much more.
 
Presenters:
Florina Pirlea is a Statistician with the Development Data Group of the World Bank. Her work focuses on the World Development Indicators database, the Atlas for Sustainable Development Goals, and various data dissemination projects. Her areas of interest include data quality and communicating with data, private sector development, the environment, and public policy. She holds an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in Economics from Bryn Mawr College.
 
Devika McWalters is the Marketing and Outreach Lead in the publishing program of the World Bank Group in Washington, DC.  Most of her time is spent working with libraries, academics, and government institutions to build awareness and promote usage of the World Bank’s online resources, research and publications - including the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository and World Bank eLibrary. Before joining the World Bank ten years ago, she worked at National Geographic’s School Publishing and Digital Media divisions. Devika has a BA in Communications Studies with Minors in Journalism and Marketing from the University of Iowa.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Mapping the Stanford Libraries and San Mateo County Civic Data Ecosystem and Opportunities for Partnerships, November 18 2019.

“Should Libraries Be the Keepers of Their Cities’ Public Data?” was the headline of a February 19, 2019 CityLab article. It’s a great question that public and academic libraries should be discussing in the era of born digital, civic, open data. One such group that is helping library and government agencies work through this question and find ways for these groups to partner is the Civic Switchboard, https://civic-switchboard.github.io/post_14/. There are many reasons why libraries hosting open data seems like a natural fit. This webinar will feature one of the Civic Switchboard partners who are collaborating on ways to archive and preserve data from San Mateo County. The speakers will discuss their work, what their goals and challenges have been, as well as inspire participants to consider ways they can work with government agencies to collect, preserve, and even provide access to open government data.

Presenters: John Ridener has been the County of San Mateo’s Open Data Community Liaison since 2014 where he has worked to connect residents, community-based organizations, and researchers to the County’s open data (https://data.smcgov.org). He received a B.A. in American literature and history from Hampshire College in 1998 and an M.L.I.S. from San Jose State University in 2006. John has worked in public, law, and academic science libraries since 1998 and has lived in Oakland, CA since 2008. Kris Kasianovitz has been the Government Information Librarian for State, Local and International documents at Stanford Libraries since 2011 and the head of the Social Sciences Resources Group since 2017. She received a B.A. in Comparative Literature, Russian Studies, and Global Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California Irvine in 1995 and a M.L.I.S from University of Illinois, Urban-Champaign in 2002. Kris has worked with government information in academic libraries since 1995. Kris is also a new resident of Oakland, CA aka the Town.

Recorded presentation available in the future.

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Help! I'm an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Advertising Government Documents: Simple and Easy Ways to Raise Awareness of Collections, October 4, 2019

Randall Library, at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, is a large selective depository.  At Randall Library collections are advertised and promoted in many fun and creative ways to show how they can be used to support research.  Through creative signage, targeted email "Government Resource of the Month" emails, a variety of display areas and more, Randall Library has increased awareness and use of these resources.  This webinar will highlight many of the fun, easy and inexpensive ideas that any library can use to promote government resources.

Presenters:
Beth Kaylor has been Coordinator of Government Information at Randall Library, UNC Wilmington for five years.  Her love of Government Documents started with her first library job as a part-time staff member in the department.  She received her B.A. in History and her M.S. in Accountancy from UNC-Wilmington, and her M.L.S. from NC Central University.

Elisabeth Garner has been the Library Specialist for Government Resources at Randall Library, UNC-Wilmington for five years.  She enjoys working with the collection and the student workers who are employed within the department.  She received her B.A. in History from UNC-Wilmington in May 2000 and her M.L.S. from NC Central University in 2010.  She has worked in both public and academic libraries since 2007.  She really enjoys the chance to go hiking in our North Carolina mountains whenever possible and hopes to live there one day!

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Industry Research Using the Economic Census, September 19, 2019
 
Are you ready?  Starting in September 2019, the most current Economic Census will start being released.  With this Census, there are regular changes in geographic definitions and industry classifications, but the big news is the introduction of the North American Product Classification Systems (NAPCS) and new distribution method.  The 2017 Economic Census will be one of the first Census titles released only on the new data.census.gov website, since no new programs have been added to American FactFinder since July 1, 2019.  Our time together will be spent going over the basics of what the Economic Census has to offer as well these upcoming changes.
 
Presenter:
Jennifer Boettcher is the Business Reference Librarian at Georgetown University. She was formerly Business Librarian at Texas A&M University and Head of Reference at the National Small Business Development Center Research Network. Her research focuses on open data from government sources and industry research. She co-authored, with Leonard Gaines, Industry Research Using the Economic Census: How to Find It, How to Use It (Greenwood Press, 2004) and has written widely on the NAICS classification system and OpenData.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Congressional Research Service Reports, July 18th, 2019
  
Do you want to make the most out of Congressional Research Service reports? Daniel Schuman, policy director at Demand Progress and former CRS legislative attorney, will showcase everycrsreport.com, an innovative new website that puts a modern face to these authoritative reports.
 
Presenter:
Daniel Schuman leads Demand Progress and Demand Progress Education Fund’s efforts on issues that concern governmental transparency/accountability/reform, civil liberties/national security, and promoting an open internet. He co-founded the Congressional Data Coalition, which brings together organizations from across the political spectrum to advocate for a tech-savvy Congress. Daniel directs the Advisory Committee on Transparency, which supports the work of the Congressional Transparency Caucus, and is a fellow at CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. His new website, EveryCRSReport, recently won a ‘le hackie’ award from D.C. Legal Hackers. In 2016 Daniel was named to the FastCase 50 and in 2013 Daniel was named among the 'top 25 most influential people under 40 in gov and tech' by FedScoop. He is a nationally recognized expert on federal transparency, accountability, and capacity and has testified before Congress and appeared on NPR, C-SPAN, and other news outlets. He previously worked as policy director at CREW; policy counsel at the Sunlight Foundation; and as a legislative attorney with the Congressional Research Service. Daniel graduated cum laude from Emory University School of Law.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... The New Log Into North Carolina (LINC), June 7, 2019

The Log Into North Carolina (LINC) is data tool that has been hosted by the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM) for over 30 years. LINC coordinates demographic and statistical information for North Carolina, counties, and cities/towns reported by state and federal agencies and provides historic data in some cases as far back as 1969 to projected data items to as far as 2038.

An OSBM team has worked with OpenDataSoft to create a new version of LINC that utilizes open data to expand available data and enhances features to include data visualization, bulk data downloads, and mapping. The new version of LINC allows the public to view data but also allows registered users to save visualizations and receive notifications of dataset updates. In the near future, LINC will have a secure area that will allow OSBM staff to join LINC data with internal data for analysis, evaluation, and planning. The initial version of LINC is now available, and is still a work in progress. Your experiences and suggestions will improve the final product; feedback may be shared at https://linc.osbm.nc.gov/.

Presenter: Bob Coats is an analyst in the Demographic and Economic Analysis section of the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (OSBM), the Governor’s Census Liaison, and the coordinator of the North Carolina State Data Center network – a dissemination partnership between the US Census Bureau and 45 affiliate organizations statewide.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... An Introduction to Researching Canadian Federal Documents, May 1, 2019

From the use of the metric system to the spelling of catalogue with a “u”, Canada can seem like a foreign country sometimes… That’s because it is! This session will explore the unique structures and institutions of the federal Canadian government as well as the publishing practices and key tools necessary for researching the documentary output of the parliament and government of your neighbor to the North.
 
Presenter:
Nicholas Worby is the Government Information and Statistics Librarian at the University of Toronto. He provides reference and instruction for domestic and international government documents and statistics. He also oversees collection development for government information and coordinates the University’s web archiving program.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents… The PEGI Project Takes Flight!!,   Friday March 25, 2019
 
The PEGI Project, which addresses national concerns regarding the preservation of electronic government information (PEGI), culminated its year of IMLS-funded activities with a National Forum held in Washington, D.C. in December 2018. This presentation will recap the projects’ 8 mini-forums and will share outcomes from the National Forum, including information about seven projects that provide pathways forward for raising awareness and preserving electronic government information.
 
Presenters:
Deborah Yun Caldwell, Diversity Resident Librarian at University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Scott Matheson, Associate Law Librarian for Technical Services at the Lillian Goldman Library, Yale Law School
Shari Laster, Head of Open Stack Collections at Arizona State University Library
Robbie Sittel, Government Information Librarian at the University of North Texas

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Government Information for Social Workers: From Students to Professionals, Friday March 15, 2019
 
From regulations to statistics, government information resources are highly utilized and embedded within the field of social work. The type of resources and depth of information needs often vary based on career stages. This webinar will examine the various government information needs ranging from undergrads in BSW programs to licensed professionals.
 
Presenter:
Michelle Donlin is the Scholarly Communications and Research Librarian and subject liaison for Social Work at East Stroudsburg University in East Stroudsburg, PA.
 
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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Census sources outside of American FactFinder, February 8, 2019.

American FactFinder can be frustrating to use, but what other sources are available? This webinar will cover both free and commercial sources of census data such as NHGIS and Social Explorer.

Presenter:  Michele Hayslett is the Data Services Librarian at UNC at Chapel Hill, where she has worked for ten years. Prior to that she worked in similar capacities at the NCSU Libraries and the State Library of North Carolina. She has been learning about Census data since 2000 and continues to learn.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Presidential Research Resources, November 7, 2018.

This talk will discuss digital and archival resources for Presidential Research with librarians and archivists from the Miller Center, the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington and Seton Hall University.  The presenters will include Rebecca Baird, Archivist, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA), Sheila Blackford, Librarian, Scripps Library, Miller Center, University of Virginia, Lisa DeLuca, Social Sciences Librarian, Seton Hall University, and Katherine Hoarn, Special Collections Librarian, The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... North Carolina Government Documents – historic, current and available online, October 17, 2018
 
This session will discuss the digital collection of North Carolina government documents.  This collection is a hybrid of born-digital publications and digitized publications, and spans over 200 years.  The discussion will include an overview of North Carolina government agencies, and methods on discovering and accessing agency publications.
 
Presenter:
 
Denise Jones has been the State Publications Clearinghouse Liaison at the State Library’s Government and Heritage Library since 2012.   As liaison she stays in contact with North Carolina state agencies to collect and make available the myriad of state government publications, both print and digital.  She also collaborates with libraries and state agencies to have significant older print publications digitized and made available through the Government and Heritage’s online collections.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Providing Health Information Services STAT, July, 24 2018

Offered in conjunction with NCLA STEM-LINC.
 
This talk will cover the medical information reference interview and the uniqueness of health questions. This webinar will give an overview of recommended resources from MedlinePlus.gov and NCHealthInfo.org.
 
Presenters:
 
Terri Ottosen, MLIS, AHIP, Community Engagement and Health Literacy Librarian, Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In her position, Terri works to advance the library’s community engagement activities and manages and develops health literacy, consumer health and patient education resources and services for health professionals and students. She also provides outreach to the citizens of North Carolina through NC Health Info, working directly with public libraries and community agencies. She has served on many professional committees and is a distinguished member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals.
 
Sarah Jeong, MLIS, Research & Instruction Librarian for Science, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University.  Sarah is the subject specialist responsible for course-integrated research instruction, research metrics consultation, literature research consultation for undergraduates and graduate students, and collection management in her designated liaison areas. She is one of the original section editors of NC Health Info and is a member of Beta Phi Mu Honor Society.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Census Bureau Data Access, June 7, 2018.

Do you hate American FactFinder?  Do you at minimum find it difficult to use?  Well, get ready, because the Census Bureau is beta-testing a new data platform that will replace ALL of its data tools!  Michele Hayslett will give a brief overview of the process, the tools to be transferred, and the timeline; provide an orientation to the interface; and demonstrate a few searches.  You will receive the questions the Census Bureau would like testers of all skill levels to answer about their experiences with the new interface, and the email address to which to send feedback.

Michele Hayslett started learning about Census data when she worked as the Demographics Specialist at the State Library of North Carolina in the early 2000s, and hasn’t stopped learning.  She is currently the Librarian for Numeric Data Services and Data Management at UNC at Chapel Hill, working in the Davis Library Research Hub.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … Resources from the National Agriculture Library, April 18, 2018.

This session will cover some of the key collections and services available to your users from the National Agricultural Library, one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries.
 
As the Associate Director for Information Products at the National Agricultural Library, Jill James leads the digital library, customer engagement and services, and the information centers for nutrition, food safety, animal welfare, water and agriculture, alternative farming, invasive species, and rural information. In her more than 12 years of federal service, she has worked on digital projects and programs that help citizens discover and access public government information resources and data. She holds an MLS and an MA in U.S. History from the University of Maryland and a BA in English and French Studies from the University of Delaware. She was recently selected as a fellow for the 2018-2019 cohort of the Association of Research Libraries Leadership Fellows Program.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Gov Info in the Golden State, March 28, 2018.
 
California is a state of contradictions.  While on the surface California is home to glitz and glamour, cutting edge technological advances, progressive social movements, and general weirdness; peeling back the layers reveals a complicated social-political landscape that is very different from many other states. This presents challenges to making sense of issues and policies California is promoting at the national level. Focusing on agriculture, immigration, energy and environment, this webinar will provide a brief introduction to many sources that are helpful in understanding California’s multifaceted political environment.
 
Jesse Silva is the Librarian for Federal and State Government Information, Political Science, Public Policy and Legal Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is a native Californian.  
 
Lucia Orlando is the Government Documents coordinator and Research Support librarian for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She’s a NorCal native with a keen interest in local history and politics.
 
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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … Government in the Sunshine State: Where and How to Dig for State Information in Florida, Wednesday, November 29, 2017.

This session will cover some of the key dates that impact access to Florida government information (e.g., statehood in 1845, codification of Florida Statutes in 1941, state depository program in 1967, privatization of Dept of Commerce activities in 1996), bibliographies and finding tools, scattered locations of digitized collections, and a few highlights of unique and interesting content.

Rich Gause is the Government Information Librarian for the University Libraries and has coordinated establishing Centers of Excellence at UCF for information from the U.S. Department of Energy, Atomic Energy Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and National Aeronautics & Space Administration.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Deep in the heart of
Texas: government information stars within the Portal to Texas History, September 26, 2017.

Join the UNT Government Information Librarian for an exploration of Texas State government collections within the Portal to Texas History https://texashistory.unt.edu/

Robbie Sittel is the Government Information Librarian at the University of North Texas. Ms. Sittel is dedicated to preservation and access of Government information, specifically digital-born information. She is involved in a number of initiatives aimed at raising awareness on this issue.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... State Agency Databases Project, finding and sharing agency databases by subject, August 16, 2017.
 
Join Daniel Cornwall for a short exploration of the State Agency Databases Project of ALA GODORT. Daniel will show the types of resources through the project and the new auto-updating subject compilations the LibGuides platform has enabled. He will conclude with how to contribute new databases to the project and how to share content from the project on your own LibGuides and web pages.

Daniel Cornwall is the Internet and Technology Consultant for the Alaska State Library. He has over a decade of experience in federal and state government information. He has led the State Agency Databases Project for ALA GODORT since July 2017. When not doing library or government information type stuff he enjoys hiking, reading and working on citizen science projects at zooniverse.org. More professional information about Daniel can be found on his LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielcornwall/.
 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The road to BREXIT, and the paths beyond, June 14th, 2017.

The United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community on 1st January 1973. On 5th June 1975, the Labour government of Harold Wilson held a referendum, which ratified the decision to join. On 26th June 2016, the Conservative government of David Cameron held another referendum (only the third in recent, British history), which resulted in the decision to withdraw from the European Union. In BREXIT, over 40 years of British constitutional evolution came to an abrupt halt.

This webinar will examine sources that chart the “road to BREXIT” and beyond. The webinar will discuss how such sources mark the United Kingdom’s often uneasy relationship with the EU (including its predecessors, the EC and EEC) and document the UK’s journey within the EU from 1st January 1973 to 26th June 2016. At time of writing, David Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, seeks re-election in a general election defined by BREXIT, while other British political parties advocate the need for further referenda on the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. The road to the BREXIT referendum’s leave vote may have ended, but the pathways that stem from BREXIT are uncertain.

Howard S. Carrier completed an LL.B.(Hons.) and an LL.M. in the Law of Human Rights & Civil Liberties at the University of Leicester, thereafter working as Research Associate at the Business School of the University of Nottingham for projects investigating litigation funding and access to justice. Subsequently he taught Constitutional & Administrative Law as Lecturer in Law at the University of Sunderland, before relocating to the United States in 2005. His past dozen years include the MSLS program at UNC-CH SILS, and subsequent appointments as Reference Librarian at Valdosta State University, and his current post as Copyright Coordinator and Social Sciences Librarian at James Madison University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Preserving the Environment: Information Resources of the EPA, June 8, 2017.

The EPA’s National Library Network consists of 25 libraries and repositories located in the Agency’s offices, research centers, and specialized laboratories. The Library Network serves the needs of EPA staff and the public by using the latest information technologies and innovative services to acquire, organize, and deliver timely access to information. Areas of focus include basic and applied sciences, management, legal information, and other special topics. This presentation covers several aspects of EPA library collections, including the EPA National Library Catalog, the National Service Center for Environmental Publications, epa.gov, and some information about the EPA publication process.

Anthony Holderied is the Assistant Director of the Library at the Environmental Protection Agency in Research Triangle Park, NC, operating under the contract of the School of Information and Library Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Anthony has 10 plus years of experience providing research assistance and instruction at a variety of libraries and academic institutions, and has also worked as an instructional technologist. He has published and presented in the fields of information literacy and educational technology and holds a Master of Library Science and Master of Arts in Educational Media.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... NOAA Digital Coast, April 19, 2017.
 
The NOAA Digital Coast was developed to meet the unique needs of the coastal management community. The website provides not only coastal data, but also the tools, training, and information needed to make these data truly useful. Content comes from many sources, all of which are vetted by NOAA. The Data Registry allows users to explore and download data. Data sets range from economic data to aerial based lidar data. This webinar will provide an overview of the Digital Coast as well as show users how to search for and download data through the Data Registry and the Data Access Viewer.

Erik Hund is a Physical Scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office for Coastal Management. He has over 30 years of experience working with aerial photography and satellite imagery, and is the Co-Lead on the Digital Coast Project.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Saving government data: A conversation with the future, March 29, 2017.

In recent months, the DataRefuge project has collaborated with hundreds of volunteers around the United States to collect, describe, and store federal data that support climate and environmental research and advocacy. This project, and others like it, works in conjunction with the End of Term Web Archive to capture and make available federal web content during administrative transitions.

Our discussion will explore the fragility of digital information, and expand on ideas about what data is. We’ll talk about current projects and efforts, and explore the future of this work. Finally, we’ll address the concept of sustainability, and propose a paradigm of empowered experimentation that aligns with our values and roles within libraries.

Presenters:
Laurie Allen is the Assistant Director for Digital Scholarship in the Penn Libraries, where she leads a group working to expand the capacity of researchers at Penn to create and share scholarship in new forms. The group engages in digital project development, data management and curation, mapping, experimentations with emerging research methods, and open access publishing. In late 2016, Allen was part of the group that started Data Refuge, and has been involved in bringing together a group of collaborators to form a network of libraries, open data activists and open government efforts at https://libraries.network.

James A. Jacobs is Data Services Librarian Emeritus, University of California San Diego. He has more than 25 years experience working with digital information, digital services, and digital library collections. He is a technical consultant and advisor to the Center for Research Libraries in the auditing and certification of digital repositories using the Trusted Repository Audit Checklist (TRAC) and related CRL criteria. He served as Data Services Librarian at the University of California San Diego and co-taught the ICPSR summer workshop, "Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation". He is a co-founder of Free Government Information (freegovinfo.info).

James R. Jacobs is the US Government Information Librarian at Stanford University Libraries where he works on both collection development as well as digital projects like LOCKSS-USDOCS. He is a member of ALA's Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) and served a 3-year term on Depository Library Council to the Public Printer, including serving as DLC Chair. He is a co-founder of Free Government Information (freegovinfo.info) and Radical Reference (radicalreference.info) and is on the board of Question Copyright, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes a better public understanding of the  effects of copyright, and encourages the development of alternatives to information monopolies.

Shari Laster is the Government Information Librarian and Data Services Librarian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She currently serves as Assistant Chair/Chair-Elect for the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association, and is a past chair of the Depository Library Council, the advisory body for the Federal Depository Library Program.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Linking Publications to Data, March 20 2017.

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a bibliographic database containing more than 12 million records. Use of ADS is almost universal among astronomers worldwide, where the community can search almost the entirety of the astronomical literature in one place. One of the advantages of using the ADS is the rich network of links that connect the literature with research data, software, and other resources. In this talk, we will explore the ADS and the ecosystem of connected resources available to the astronomy community.

Christopher Erdmann is an author, developer and experimenter in the areas of digital libraries, social networking, library UX, interactive technologies, bibliometrics and data services in libraries. He is currently the Chief Strategist for Research Collaboration at the NCSU Libraries and has previously worked for organizations such as the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, European Southern Observatory, Supreme Court of the US, United Nations, University of Washington, Smithsonian (NMAH) and CNET. Chris holds an MLIS from the University of Washington iSchool and a BA from the University of California, Davis.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Finding geological materials through the U.S. Geological Survey, February 27, 2017.

The Government Resources Section of the North Carolina Library Association and the STEM Librarianship in North Carolina (STEM-LINC) Section of the North Carolina Library Association welcomes you to “Spring into Science”, a series of webinars this spring designed to help us increase our familiarity with scientific government information. All are welcome because government information wants to be free.

What are the tricks you can use to search for and find US geological materials? Be a geo-detective with USGS documents, maps and data. This webinar will give an overview of resources available in The National Map, USGS Science Data Catalog and USGS Publications Warehouse, including how to find geological and historical topographic maps.

Hannah Hamalainen is the Geospatial and Earth Sciences Librarian at the University of New Hampshire. She received her MLIS from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and is the current president of the Geoscience Information Society (GSIS). She is an advocate for data visualization, science communication, geoscience education, and developing critical thinkers using information literacy. Her research interests include using remote sensing and geospatial technologies to solve problems in the natural world.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Introduction to Research Data Management for Librarians, January 18, 2017.

What is it?  Why should you care?  What can librarians do about it?  Webinar will present an overview of Research Data Management including: data management planning, how data fits into the research lifecycle and scholarly communication, and key resources/strategies for liaison librarians working with faculty and other researchers.

Katharin Peter is the Social Sciences Data Librarian for the Von KleinSmid Center Library for International and Public Affairs at the University of Southern California.  She has a BA in Sociology, a Master’s in Library & Information Science, and a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Science & Technology.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Promoting government documents in your community, December 19, 2016

Promoting government information in the community can be very challenging. Through the years I have tested and experimented with different ways to entice other librarians and the community to have an interest in government information. I have partnered with academic and public libraries, provided programming for students, and much more. Come to this webinar to learn about outreach techniques and share ideas for reaching your campus and the wider community.

Paula L. Webb, Government Documents Reference and Outreach Librarian at University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama, obtained her MLIS from the University of Alabama. Paula is a member of the American Library Association and Alabama Library Association. She has appeared in College & Research Libraries News, College & Undergraduate Libraries, Computers in Libraries, DttP, Mississippi Libraries and Serials Librarian. She wrote the chapter, “An Analysis of Government Issued Policies and Best Practices for Micro-blogging Social Media Tools,” in the publication titled, Web 2.0 Technologies and Democratic Governance: Political, Policy and Management Implications.  Paula received 2011 Mover and Shaker Award and the 2012 ALLA CUS Research Award. In 2016, she authored the reference work, Mobile Mayor’s Court Reports: 1865 and her book, Mobile Under Siege: Surviving the Union Blockade will be published by History Press in 2017.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... International Government Survey Data: How to Find and Use It, November 14, 2016.
 
What is the difference between international government statistics, aggregate data, and microdata? What is "unit-level" data? How does one discover, evaluate, and utilize microdata produced by international organizations, foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations? This webinar will introduce the user to tips and tricks for finding, evaluating and using international microdata, and explaining how these sources differ from the statistics and aggregate data many users are more accustomed to working with. Major discovery services will be explored, as well as the essential skills needed to interpret data documentation, study descriptions, and the formats in which these data are provided.

Jim Church is the librarian for economics, international & foreign government information, global poverty, and political economy at the University of California Berkeley. He serves as the Chair of the IFLA Government Information and Official Publications Section and is also active in the ALA Government Documents Round Table where he writes the international documents column for the journal DttP. His primary areas of interest are in economic development and international and nongovernmental organizations.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Making Elections Great Again: Finding the Right Data, October 31, 2016.

Every four years, presidential elections lead to a spike in interest in politics among students and the public alike. For librarians, this often translates into numerous requests for various kinds of electoral data, typically voting returns, but also data and statistics on turnout and registration, campaigns and candidates, electoral administration, campaign finance, and public opinion. And while data on U.S. elections are plentiful, the vast array of political jurisdictions, electoral laws and regulations, reporting sources, and coverage gaps can leave the public (and librarians!) feeling confused and bewildered. This webinar will present major sources, both free and paid, for data on U.S. elections for a variety of offices.

Jeremy Darrington is the Politics Librarian at Princeton University's Firestone Library. He received his MLIS from the University of Washington, and also had degrees from BYU and UC Berkeley. Jeremy is a past chair of the Law and Political Science Section (now Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section) of ACRL and past convener of ACRL’s Numeric and Geospatial Data Services in Academic Libraries Interest Group. He’s also the Political Science Editor for Resources for College Libraries. In addition to all areas of politics, his research interests include technology in libraries, government information, digital privacy, dabbling in coding and data science, and a wide range of social science topics.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The National Science Foundation: Statistical data and grantseeker resources, September 19, 2016.

This webinar will give an overview of the National Science Foundation, or NSF, website. The two main areas covered will be (1) accessing NSF-sponsored statistics and (2) understanding the NSF’s grantmaking structure. The NSF is the main government unit funding and studying the nation’s science and technology development. The NSF collects and disseminates statistical data on state science and technology indicators and science and engineering research in higher education. And, have you seen those notes that say “Funded in part by the NSF” or something similar? That’s the National Science Foundation at work. They are the largest U. S. federal agency that funds research on all science and technology except for human health. Any campus with faculty in the research sciences (chemistry, physics, computer science, biology, technology, and more) has reason to be interested in the NSF. So whether you are interested in supporting statistical needs about U.S. science or supporting faculty researchers when they are looking for NSF funding, this session will give you a starting place!

Nina Exner is the Researcher and Grant Support Services librarian at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She has her MLS from NCCU, an MA from UNC-G, and is a current doctoral candidate at UNC-CH. Her professional focus is on supporting faculty and graduate students with their research, and serves as the “embedded” librarian with NC A&T’s Office of Research Development (including sponsored programs). This embedding brings scholarly communications, information literacy, and reference consultations into campus sponsored research programs.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...Climbing Capitol Hill Redux: The Basics of Congressional Research, August 8, 2016.

Do questions about congressional research make you wish you had paid more attention in civics class in high school? Have no fear, while researching (or helping others research) the activities of our Congress may seem daunting, it really isn't once you know the basics and a few tricks. This webinar will break down the types of Congressional information that are out there, discuss what types of information they contain and provide strategies for helping researchers find and use them.

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). 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The APIs of Data.gov, July 26, 2016.

Have you ever heard people talking about APIs and wondered what they are and why someone would use them? Have you ever tried to use Data.gov and felt overwhelmed by all of the different data formats available? This webinar aims to answer these questions by explaining APIs and their purpose, showing how to navigate Data.gov and understand the different data types offered, and demonstrate how you can leverage APIs in your projects.

Julia Frankosky is the Government Information Librarian at Michigan State University. She received a MLIS from Wayne State University and a B.A. in History from Michigan State University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The Rules Rule: Understanding and Researching Congressional Procedure, June 15, 2016.

Many of our users are familiar with the basic process by which the U.S. Congress enacts legislation. They have all at least seen the famous and beloved “I’m Just a Bill” cartoon from Schoolhouse Rock! The various rules of procedure that govern this process, however, are generally less well-known and somewhat perplexing. This can be problematic for those researching legislative history or trying to understand the way Congress works because these rules play an incredibly important role in how (and what) legislation is enacted. As former U.S. Representative John Dingell once said, “I’ll let you write the substance [of a law] . . . and you let me write the procedure, and I’ll screw you every time.”

This webinar will provide an introduction to the rules of procedure of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. It will include what the rules are, how they are adopted, and where to find them as well as a discussion of some of the myths and misunderstandings about congressional procedure. Participants will also receive a list of key resources for helping users research and understand this enigmatic subject.

Presenter Morgan Stoddard is a Research Services Coordinator at the George Washington University Library and adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center where she teaches advanced legal research. She has a J.D. and M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Legal Research Basics Redux, May 17, 2016.

Researching the law is a complex and difficult process, even for those with a legal background! This webinar will outline a mix of free and low-cost resources which can help librarians and library patrons find and use legal materials effectively. “Legal Research Basics” is an updated version of the NCLA legal research webinar which was presented in May 2013.

Jennifer L. Behrens is the Head of Reference Services & a Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School’s J. Michael Goodson Law Library, where she provides regular instruction on legal research topics. Jennifer holds both a JD and an MLS from the University at Buffalo, and previously worked as a graduate assistant in UB’s Charles B. Sears Law Library as well as its Lockwood Library’s former Business & Government Documents Reference Center. She served as Secretary/Treasurer of NCLA’s Government Resources Section from 2009-2011.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... State Government Information and the copyright conundrum, April 25, 2016.

Figuring out whether state government documents are copyrighted is a tricky question. Copyright law has significant impact on the work libraries, digital repositories, and even state agencies, with regards to digitizing and web archiving state government information.

Free State Government Information (FSGI) has been steadily working to raise awareness and find pathways forward for policy change with regards to the copyright issue of state government publications.

This presentation will cover:

• who we are and why we are tackling copyright issues with state government specific state government information projects that academic, state, and digital libraries are engaged in that are impacted by copyright
• a way forward to address copyright policy in the states: Kyle Courtney’s 50 state survey of copyright policies, State Copyright Resource Center http://copyright.lib.harvard.edu/states/

Speakers:

Bernadette Bartlett is the Michigan Documents Librarian at the Library of Michigan and often am approached by coworkers, fellow state employees and members of the public with questions about copyright and Michigan state government information. She’s currently working on compiling a historical record of how the State of Michigan has addressed copyright of state government information in law, rule and policy and she contributes to discussions and planning within the library as they relate to copyright.

Kyle K. Courtney is the Copyright Advisor at Harvard University, working out of the Office for Scholarly Communication. Kyle created the Copyright First Responder network for Harvard, which is a team of copyright trained librarians that help establish a culture of shared understanding of copyright law among faculty, students, and staff in support of pedagogy, research, and innovation. His work at Harvard also includes a role as the Information Policy Advisor for the edX/HarvardX online classes. He is a published author and nationally recognized speaker on the topic of copyright, technology, and the law. His blog is at http://kylecourtney.com/ and he can be found on Twitter @KyleKCourtney.

Kristina Eden coordinates the work of over 50 copyright reviewers on the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) which is an IMLS funded project to determine the copyright status of digitized books. Where legally permissible, they work with HathiTrust Digital Library (http://www.hathitrust.org) to open public domain works, including state documents, and make them available to online users.

Kris Kasianovitz is the State, Local and International Government Information Librarian at the Stanford University Library. She’s worked with state and local government for a number of years and has repeatedly dealt with the copyright issue of these materials, especially when it comes to digitization and web archiving for researchers.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Get App(y): Government apps and mobile sites, March 18, 2016.
Many people rely on smartphones and tablets to access the internet, and the number of mobile device applications and websites has exploded in recent years.  Following these trends, government entities have been busy creating apps of their own.  Currently, there are hundreds of apps and mobile websites from federal, state, and local governments.  This session focuses on the various types of government apps that are available as well as free, online resources you can use to find them.
 
Presenter Emily Lawson has served as a Reference and Research Librarian at the University of Houston Law Center O’Quinn Law Library since 2009.  She received her JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law and her MLS from Indiana University.  In addition, she often writes and presents regarding legal apps and technology issues.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Statistics Canada data for researchers beyond the Canadian borders, February 17, 2016.

Ever wonder what Statistics Canada data you can access if you’re not living and working in Canada? You’ve heard about the Data Liberation Initiative, but can you access this and other data? What about those elusive Master data files and custom tabulations? Let us be your guides to the wonderful trove of Statistics Canada data that is available to all. Berenica Vejvoda from McGill University and Michelle Edwards from Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research will give you a tour of commonly used StatsCan resources.

Michelle Edwards is the Research Data Services Librarian at Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research (CISER). She is responsible for the acquisition, maintenance, development, and preservation of the collections housed in the CISER Data archive. Michelle has worked in the “Data” forum for more than 15 years following her PostDoc in the field of beef quantitative genetics. She was instrumental in building the Data Resource Centre at the University of Guelph to be one of Canada’s premier data services and was one of two developers of the ODESI Data portal. Her background in data and statistical analyses enables her to work with researchers across many disciplines.

Berenica Vejvoda is the Data Librarian at McGill University where she provides support for numeric data services. Prior to McGill, Berenica as a data librarian at the University of Toronto as well as the University of California at San Diego. Berenica has worked with data for 15 years in various capacities and is involved in local, regional, national and international data initiatives.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Overview of the MPC Data Infrastructure Projects, January 25, 2016.

The Minnesota Population Center (MPC) is home to several large social science data infrastructure projects disseminating census and survey data from the U.S. and around the world (www.ipums.org). All MPC data are harmonized for consistency across time and place, fully documented, and easily accessible online for the research community. In this workshop we will provide detailed explanations of the data available, describe how the data are harmonized, and demonstrate extracting and analyzing the data free of charge online.
 
Katie Genadek manages the IPUMS-USA project and directs dissemination and outreach at the Minnesota Population Center. She is also an economist researching family circumstances and labor market decisions, time spent with partners, and well-being over the life course: all questions that can be analyzed using MPC data.

Catherine Fitch is the Associate Director of the Minnesota Population Center and she has been working on IPUMS and related census data infrastructure for more than twenty years. As historical demographer, she is interested in family formation and measuring change over time (and IPUMS makes that easy to do).

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The United States Congressional Serial Set ...15577 Volumes and Counting!, January 13, 2016.

Wake up! While inventorying this monotonously bound iconic collection may be better for fighting insomnia than counting sheep, the content in the "sheep-bound set" might keep you awake.  Seriously... this webinar will explore the depth and breath of information available in the United States Congressional Serial Set, while we also consider how its history both hinders and enables our ability to discover and access nearly 200 years of government information.

Carmen Orth-Alfie is  the Coordinator of Government Information Services and Engagement at the University of Kansas Libraries.  Her Federal Depository Library work experiences spans over three decades.  She shelved the print Serial Set volumes as a student and now as Regional Coordinator,  promotes discovery and access using various electronic editions of the Serial Set

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Making Peace with United Nations Data: Learn to navigate UN data information sources.  (November 11, 2015)

Learn where agencies and key initiatives store their data in the United Nation’s many repositories. This program will examine and differentiate between information sources at the United Nations Statistics Division, UNdata.com, UN Libraries and Information Centers. We will discuss where to find country, demographic and trade data in addition to how to field basic UN-related reference questions. The program will also briefly discuss the UN’s data visualization efforts in Comtrade and statistics promotion through World Statistics Day. Join this webinar to learn new reference sources for data and programming ideas for your college and university community.

Lisa DeLuca is the Liaison Librarian for the School of Diplomacy and International Relations. She received her MLIS from Rutgers University and is currently an MPA student at Seton Hall. Her research interests include helping students and faculty to upgrade their research output with data visualization.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Friends, Enemies, and Interests: Foreign Affairs Research with Government Information (October 7, 2015)

How does the United States government determine its foreign policy? How does it articulate and promote its interests? Are there government sources that shed light on foreign relations, or is it all cloak-and-dagger operations and top secret documents? In this session, we will explore strategies for conducting historical and contemporary foreign affairs research using government information. We will look closely at one of the essential resources for historical foreign affairs research, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), and also discuss selected foreign relations resources from the State Department, the National Security Council, and Congress.

Melanie Maksin is the Librarian for Political Science, International Affairs, Public Policy, and Government Information at Yale University. She received her MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently an MA student in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include critical pedagogy in academic librarianship and instruction and outreach approaches related to government information and other primary sources.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Where are those containers going? An Introduction to U.S. and Global Trade Data (September 16, 2015)

Trade data is its own little world of business and economics statistics. It has plenty of jargon (Schedule B, reporter country, partner countries, re-exports, re-imports, Bill of Lading, etc.) and a vegetable soup of acronyms (HC, HS, HTS, SITC, USITC, FAS, TEU, etc.) U.S. trade data’s commodity codes can be as short as 2-digits or at long as 10. There are many trade data sources provided by the United States and Canadian governments, the United Nations, and commercial vendors. And you can get some data U.S. states and urban areas. In this introduction to trade data, UNCG’s Steve Cramer will discuss the core concepts (and some of the pesky acronyms) and demonstrate them using free sources provided by the U.S. and U.N. (and perhaps one from Canada with unique features and U.S. coverage, time permitting). The most important fee-based sources will be mentioned in comparison to the free ones.

Steve Cramer has been the UNCG Business Librarian since 2001. As a Coleman Fellow for Entrepreneurship Education, he teaches the 3-credit class ENT/GEO/LIS 530: Researching Opportunities in Entrepreneurship & Economic Development in the spring semester. Steve is co-founder of Business Librarianship in North Carolina (BLINC), a member of ALA’s BRASS, and a Carolina Consortium negotiator. He blogs at https://liaisonlife.wordpress.com/ With Professor Nicholas Williamson, Steve co-teaches MKT 426: International Marketing each fall and spring. In this class, the student teams engage in a research-intensive, experiential-learning project called “Export Odyssey”. The goal of Export Odyssey is for each team to make a sale to a new country market for its North Carolina manufacturer.  Steve has co-published with Professor Williamson, and they are co-inventors of trade analysis intellectual property optioned to a software development company through UNCG’s Office of Innovation Commercialization.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Accessing Datasets for the Data Curious (August 12, 2015).

Directing patrons to subscription repositories of data like ICPSR and Roper is a useful service that any reference librarian can learn to do. But can the generalist take data-seeking patrons just a little bit further before referring to the data librarian? This webinar will help the generalist or subject librarian learn ways to help patrons download data successfully, use documentation to explore the relevance of a dataset to answer a question, and alert patrons to common pitfalls and patterns. Participants will learn strategies to apply their librarian expertise for finding and accessing information to the rarified realm of datasets.

Presenter Kristin Partlo is the Reference & Instruction Librarian for Social Science and Data at Carleton College in Minnesota. She has been helping undergraduates find and evaluate data for over ten years and especially enjoys looking for connections between research data services and other areas of librarianship. Her MA of LIS is from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Order in the Court Records: Finding Briefs, Transcripts, and other Court Materials (June 24, 2015).

Library patrons have many reasons to ask for help with finding court filings: from tracking the progress of a pending lawsuit, to digging up centuries-old court materials for genealogical research, and countless other academic or personal pursuits in between. The unpublished nature of many court materials can make such research very challenging for librarians. But before you refer your patrons elsewhere, hear some tips and tricks for locating court opinions, briefs, filings, and other materials related to court cases from all levels of courts in both state and federal systems.
 
Presenter Jennifer L. Behrens, is the Head of Reference Services & a Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School’s J. Michael Goodson Law Library, where she provides regular instruction on legal research topics. Jennifer holds both a JD and an MLS from the University at Buffalo, and previously worked as a graduate assistant in UB’s Charles B. Sears Law Library as well as its Lockwood Library’s former Business & Government Documents Reference Center. She served as Secretary/Treasurer of NCLA’s Government Resources Section from 2009-2011.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Money Matters: Federal Agencies and Financial Literacy (May 20, 2015)

Understanding basic financial concepts is essential to manage money and avoid falling into financial traps, but many people don’t know where to turn to learn or improve their knowledge. The friendly face at the library reference desk seems like a viable option - but do you know where to send your patron in need? This session focuses on the role of the federal government in the financial literacy of Americans, and will examine free resources and tools from a variety of agencies that can help your patrons (and you!) better understand their financial lives.

Presenter Rebecca Hyde has thirteen years experience working in federal depository libraries and is currently the Government Information, Political Science and Sustainability Librarian at Saint Louis University. Her interest in financial planning dates back at least to age five when she told her parents she was saving spare change for college.

Presenter Lucia Orlando has sixteen years experience working in federal depository libraries and is currently a Research Support Services librarian at the University of California Santa Cruz.  She came late to the importance of financial planning, after taking on debt with her very first credit card.

Rebecca and Lucia have co-authored the “Federal Documents Focus” column in the Government Documents Round Table’s (GODORT) Documents to the People since 2010.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Finding Government Data on the Environment (April 29, 2015)

Presenter Ann Marshall has eleven years of experience as an academic librarian and was most recently the subject liaison to the political science department at the University of Rochester. She has provided computer training and support to upstate rural public libraries as part of a Gates Foundation grant. She is co-author of “What an Experience: Library Staff Participation in Ethnographic Research” and is a former Chair of the Law and Political Science Section (LPSS) of ACRL.

Interest in sustainability has grown exponentially at colleges and universities, such that a 2009 New York Times articles announced, “Sustainability Field Booms on Campus,” noting growth at both liberal arts institutions and at community colleges. This session focuses on finding governmental data relevant to research on sustainability, and will examine tools provided by agencies such as the EPA, Department of Energy, and some selected international sources. In addition, the session will suggest strategies for answering a data question, especially when its unclear where to begin or when other sources have been exhausted. The session is offered by Ann Marshall, a former political science librarian at the University of Rochester.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... National Institute on Money in State Politics. (March 18, 2015)

Presenter Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, has been connecting the dots between campaign finance and public policy for more than a decade. He promotes the free use of the Institute’s comprehensive, highly credentialed political donor information by investigative journalists, scholars examining state elections and public-policy processes, and attorneys involved in campaign-finance litigation—and is now focused on empowering librarians across the country.

What could YOU do with $2 billion? That’s the amount contributed to candidates and committees for 2014 state races. And why would there be so much monetary interest in these races? Sometimes legislators vote in obvious ways—and sometimes constituents wonder what may have prompted a certain vote. Ditto for governors and, now more than ever, our elected judiciary. This webinar will help you learn how to research a state candidate’s donor base, the top-giving industries, and possible connections between contributors, proposed legislation, and lobbyists.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Accessing Federal electronic records at the National Archives.  (February 25, 2015)

For well over a century, the U.S. government has produced an ever increasing volume and array of electronic records.  These records range from World War II Army enlistment data to 1970s State Department telegrams to 2010 home mortgage data.  But once the creating agency no longer has a need for the electronic records, where do they go?  The National Archives accessions, preserves, and provides access to U.S. Federal Government electronic records of permanent value.  This webinar will provide an overview on the types of government electronic records, especially data, available at the National Archives and how to access it.

Presenter Lynn Goodsell is the Reference Branch Chief for Electronic Records Division of the National Archives.  She has been with the Division since 2004.  She has a M.A. in history with an emphasis on archival management from the University of California, Riverside.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ...  Fugitive hunters: community-based digital collection development of born-digital government information (January 12, 2015)

“Fugitive” documents – documents not sent automatically to FDLP libraries – have always been a problem for the FDLP community. Libraries have historically dealt with fugitives aggressively and creatively, collectively and individually, in response to the needs of their Designated Communities. However, the scope of the problem in the born-digital era is geometrically greater.

To wit, the number of "tangible" documents distributed by GPO in a year (about 10 thousand) and the number of digital documents in FDsys (about 7 million) is only a tiny fraction of the number of born-digital files harvested in the 2008 End of Term crawl of the .gov domain (about 160 million).

This presentation will give context to the "fugitive" issue and the digital present, demonstrating that born-digital community-wide collection development is a logical, rational, responsible, and important part of a document librarian's job. It will help govt information librarians convince their administrations that building collections of born digital government information is the most effective and efficient way that each library can address the information needs of their own communities.

The presentation will provide practical examples of techniques that libraries of any size and budget can use to collect born-digital documents individually and in bulk via Web harvesting.

It will offer a coherent vision of a digital FDLP in which libraries actively participate and collaborate, building a more complete, more comprehensive, more secure national collection of born-digital government information.
Presenter James A. Jacobs (jajacobs [at] ucsd [dot] edu) is Data Services Librarian Emeritus, University of California San Diego. He has more than 25 years experience working with digital information, digital services, and digital library collections. He is a technical consultant and advisor to the Center for Research Libraries in the auditing and certification of digital repositories using the Trusted Repository Audit Checklist (TRAC) and related CRL criteria. He served as Data Services Librarian at the University of California San Diego from 1985 to 2006 and co-taught the ICPSR summer workshop, "Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation" from 1990 to 2012. He is a co-founder of Free Government Information (freegovinfo.info).

Presenter James R. Jacobs (jrjacobs [at] stanford [dot] edu is the US Government Information Librarian at Stanford University Libraries where he works on both traditional collection development as well as digital projects like LOCKSS-USDOCS and Web harvesting. He received his MSLIS in 2002 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a member of ALA's Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) and served a 3 year term (2009 – 2012) on Depository Library Council to the Public Printer, including serving as DLC Chair from 2011 – 2012. He is a co-founder of Free Government Information (freegovinfo.info) and Radical Reference (radicalreference.info) and is on the board of Question Copyright, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes a better public understanding of the history and effects of copyright, and encourages the development of alternatives to information monopolies.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Understanding the Budget of the United States (December 11, 2014)

What is the difference between mandatory and discretionary spending? What is the role of entities such as the Office of Management and Budget and Congressional Budget Office? How much did the federal government spend on a particular program in a given year? Helping library patrons with questions such as these about the federal budget and government spending can be a challenge without a solid understanding of the federal budget and appropriations process. This webinar will describe how the federal budget and appropriations process works and provide information on key resources for researching this complex topic.

Presenter Morgan Stoddard, is a Research Services Librarian at the Georgetown Law Library, and she is also an adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center where she teaches an advanced legal research course.  She has a J.D. and M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Data & Statistics for Researching Education (December 3rd, 2014)  

This webinar provides an overview of statistics and data available from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics and other sources including: key statistical publications, online analysis options, and survey datasets.  Learn how to find local-level data, such as for a specific school, school district, or city, as well as national-level research on the condition of public school facilities, dropout rates, assessment, students with disabilities, income distribution of college graduates, and more.

Presenter Katharin Peter, is the Social Sciences Data Librarian for the International and Public Affairs Library at the University of Southern California.  She also serves as the Program Advisor to the USC Libraries Fellowship Program (2013-2015). Prior to USC, Katharin spent 7 years as a research analyst and consultant, conducting research and data analysis for the National Center for Education Statistics and other government agencies.  She has a BA in Sociology, an MLIS, and a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Science & Technology

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Part 3 (Part 3 of 3) (November 19th, 2014)

In part 2 of this 3-part series on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we focused largely on data collected from establishments. In part 3, we explore consumer data collected by the bureau that’s reported in its section called BLS Statistics on Spending and Time Use. The BLS collects data on where and how much consumers spend their money and their time.  For instance, how much money do Hispanic families spend on groceries? How much time do married mothers and married fathers spend on household and childcare activities? How has time use or spending patterns changed over time? These survey results provide a treasure-trove of data for marketers.
Learning Objectives:Learn how to navigate the site, locate and download data tables
    -Explore demographically segmented data tables that report income and spending by households
    -Find 5-year trend data for income and spending
    -Locate data on time usage segmented by demographic groups
 Whether you support a business, an economic development agency or students, knowing how to find, download and interpret labor force data will benefit your patrons.

Presenter Mary G. Scanlon, has served as the Research and Instruction Librarian for Business and Economics at Wake Forest University since 2004.  She earned her MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and her MLIS from Kent State University.  Her publications include “Reconceiving Entrepreneurship for Libraries: Collaboration and the Anatomy of a Conference” and “The Entrepreneurial Librarian: Essays on the infusion of Private-Business Dynamism into Professional Service.”  She is currently serving as the Chair of Business Librarianship in North Carolina (BLINC), a section of the N. Carolina Library Association, and teaches LIB230: Business & Accounting Research Sources and Strategies in addition to ESE305: Special Topics in Entrepreneurship -  Research Methods. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Part 2 (Part 2 of 3).  (October 22, 2014)

In part 2 of this 3-part series on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we explore in some depth labor force data the bureau provides including employment and unemployment, hours worked, wages earned and the cost of benefits. In addition to the data, we’ll explore BLS publications that explain and interpret the numbers for us.
Learning Objectives:  
·             Review the definitions of employment and unemployment
·             Learn how to navigate the site, locate and download data tables
·             Discover how to find data geographically segmented at the national, state and metro     levels
·             Find data on hours worked and wages earned
·             Locate data on pay and cost of benefits
Whether you support a business, an economic development agency or students, knowing how to find, download and interpret labor force data will benefit your patrons.

Presenter Mary G. Scanlon, has served as the Research and Instruction Librarian for Business and Economics at Wake Forest University since 2004.  She earned her MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and her MLIS from Kent State University.  Her publications include “Reconceiving Entrepreneurship for Libraries: Collaboration and the Anatomy of a Conference” and “The Entrepreneurial Librarian: Essays on the infusion of Private-Business Dynamism into Professional Service.”  She is currently serving as the Chair of Business Librarianship in North Carolina (BLINC), a section of the N. Carolina Library Association, and teaches LIB230: Business & Accounting Research Sources and Strategies in addition to ESE305: Special Topics in Entrepreneurship -  Research Methods. 

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Part 3 will take place on November 19th, 2014.  Please stay tuned for more information.

Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... The Bureau of Labor Statistics - Part 1 (Part 1 of 3) (August 13, 2014)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions and price changes in the economy. Its mission is to collect, analyze, and disseminate essential economic information to support public and private decision-making.

In this first part of a three-part mini-series, we explore the numerous resources available at the BLS. In Part 1, we examine its website, explore several data sets such as key economic indicators and browse the Bureau’s publications.  In Part 2, we’ll do a deep dive into the economic data. We’ll explore its datasets for employment, unemployment, pay & benefits and regional resources.  We’ll also look at the geographic options for segmenting the data ranging from international to state, city and town.
In Part 3, we’ll look at BLS consumer data including Spending and Time use and the Consumer Expenditure Tables. Finally, we’ll look at an application of the CEX data for determining a rough estimate of market size that entrepreneurs may find useful.

Presenter Mary G. Scanlon, has served as the Research and Instruction Librarian for Business and Economics at Wake Forest University since 2004.  She earned her MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and her MLIS from Kent State University.  Her publications include “Reconceiving Entrepreneurship for Libraries: Collaboration and the Anatomy of a Conference” and “The Entrepreneurial Librarian: Essays on the infusion of Private-Business Dynamism into Professional Service.”  She is currently serving as the Chair of Business Librarianship in North Carolina (BLINC), a section of the N. Carolina Library Association, and teaches LIB230: Business & Accounting Research Sources and Strategies in addition to ESE305: Special Topics in Entrepreneurship -  Research Methods. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents “Emergency Preparedness:  How to Get Ready” (June 19, 2014)

If you are an accidental government information librarian or an accidental manager, have you thought about an emergency plan for your library or department?  Planning for emergencies is critical to protect collections and equipment but most importantly, people’s lives.  This webinar will cover the basics of what emergencies to plan for, and how to begin formulating a plan.  Much information will be provided about resources for planning and a variety of planning tools from which to choose, as well as what to do after you make a plan.  This is NOT about preservation—the presenter will not cover what to do with wet books.  Instead this is about planning for emergencies broadly.  (This presentation was first given to the national network of EPA libraries in March 2014.)

Presenter Michele Hayslett, Numeric Data Services and Data Management Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has worked as a librarian for almost fourteen years but had no prior experience with emergency preparedness before becoming one of the co-chairs of her library’s Emergency Preparedness Committee in 2011.  In that capacity she has learned how far thoughtful reflection and good communication can go in creating a safer environment for staff and patrons.  In the last two years she has led two strategic discussions of emergency situations among library staff and administrators (“table-top” discussions), organized a “live” practical exercise in the library with emergency responders, and arranged multiple training opportunities for staff on various topics such as emergency prevention, recognizing stressed students and CPR training.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Lights-Camera-Action! – Congressional Committee Hearings,  (May 19, 2014)

If Congressional Committee Hearings are not already one of your favorite government information genres, it might be after this session!   Carmen pulls back the curtain to examine the staging of a hearing, reviews how the activity is documented, and then considers the various resources and tools we use to discover and access the transcripts and records of proceedings.  We will consider user groups that utilize hearings for research and ideas for promotion of this fascinating genre.

Presenter Carmen Orth-Alfie, is currently the Coordinator of Government Information Services and Engagement at the University of Kansas Libraries.  Her Federal Depository Library experiences span a variety of positions from student employee, support staff and now Regional Coordinator.  She has promoted the awareness and use of Congressional Committee Hearings through library instruction to students and researchers and at conference presentations for library colleagues locally and nationally.  Her enthusiasm for Congressional Committee hearings was formed while watching the early years of C-Span and reading the “Record Labeling” hearing.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Regulate this!  Federal Regulations (April 16th, 2014)

Need to know more about federal regulations and rulemaking like how the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations work together?  What do Unified Agenda, dockets, and guidance documents have to do with this? Lisa Nickum will briefly discuss the ins and outs of Federal regulations. She will then illustrate how different tools, both free and for fee, can help you discover current and past Federal Regulations as well as participate in the rulemaking process.
 
Lisa Nickum has been the Government Publications librarian at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden Colorado for the past 20 years.  During that time she has been involved with teaching in 2 courses over several years, Scientific Basis for Environmental Regulations and Environmental Law, where she has heightened her knowledge of Federal regulations.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Tracking Legislation (March 17th 2014)

Engossed Bills, Enrolled Bills, Concurrent Resolutions what does this jargon mean? And what does it have to do with tracking Federal Legislation? “Pix” Kathleen Fleming will guide you (briefly) through the process of how a bill becomes law. She will then cover some of the free and for fee sources that exist to help researchers track Federal Legislation.   

Presenter “Pix” Kathleen Fleming was a Science & Engineering Librarian at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI for 15 years. A Hoosier born, bred and educated, she returned to her Indiana roots with her position at the University of Notre Dame as the Political Science & Government Documents Librarian.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Keeping  up with Congress (February 21, 2014)

Despite its abysmal approval ratings, Congress is still a vital American institution that plays an important role in governing society. It creates laws that touch many aspects of our lives and vital interests. Whether you're interested in tracking an important piece of legislation, hearing experts and other witnesses testify on topics Congress is investigating, exploring the influence of lobbyists and special interests, or just indulging a morbid desire to see partisan gridlock in action, this webinar will showcase a variety of ways of keeping tabs on "the People's Branch."

Presenter, Jeremy Darrington is the Politics Librarian at Princeton University's Firestone Library. He has a BA in international studies from Brigham Young University and an MLIS from the University of Washington. He also has an MA and is ABD in political science from UC Berkeley. Currently, he plays second fiddle to Lynda Kellam as the vice-chair/chair-elect of ACRL's Law and Political Science Section. His interests include European politics, technology in libraries, government information, open data, and digital privacy.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Secrets of the Congressional Record (December 10th, 2013)

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the U.S. Congress. Many libraries keep these dusty bound volumes in their collections—but in the hands of researchers from a variety of disciplines, the CR is a treasure trove of battles and negotiations, revelations and curiosities. This session provides an in-depth exploration of the Congressional Record: the types of information it contains and the questions it might answer, its history and predecessors, and strategies for navigating the Congressional Record both online and in print.  

Presenter Melanie Maksin,  is the Librarian for Political Science, International Affairs, Public Policy, and Government Information at Yale University. She received her MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and has been a government documents librarian, in one capacity or another, for seven years, including a perplexing stint in her first post-library-school position as both an English literature librarian and the library’s government documents specialist. Her research interests include constructivist pedagogy and the provision of academic reference services, and instruction and outreach strategies related to government information and other primary sources.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Geocoding for Beginners (November 18th, 2013)

Much information has a geographic element but may not be ready to plot on a map—for example, street addresses or ZIP codes. Geocoding is the process of transforming a street address from text into points on a map. This webinar explains the process of geocoding and introduces some tools for transforming  a table of street addresses to latitude and longitude pairs on a map, without using proprietary GIS software.
Presenter Christine Murray, is the Social Science Data Services Librarian, and serves as liaison to the urban studies and criminology departments, at the University of Pennsylvania Van Pelt Library. She received her MSI from the University of Michigan.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...I Didn’t Know I Could Do That!: using government and government-related websites for research on just about anything (October 7th, 2013)

Government and government-related websites are great places to find a wide variety of information useful to librarians and citizens. All too often,  they are overlooked and underutilized. This webinar highlights a number of official local, county, state, and federal sites, and also covers some very useful demographic, legal, and medical information resources. The resources used in the presentation slides are all hyperlinked, so you can start exploring as soon as the presentation is available.
Presenter Alexandra (Alex) Simons, is the Research and Instruction Librarian for History, Political Science, and Government Documents at the University of Houston’s M.D. Anderson Library. She has done presentations and webinars for librarians, law librarians, researchers, and the general public on using government resources, and has also written articles and presented on marketing and branding for librarians and library collections. Alex is the immediate past chair of the Texas Library Association’s GODORT, and is currently on the Education and Development committees of ALA’s GODORT. She received her MLIS from the University of North Texas.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...Historical Economic Data Sources & Economic Time Travel (August 21, 2013)

In economics, historical data aren’t necessarily 200 years old; historical data could be two weeks old. That’s because economic data are revised, frequently.  And those revisions mean that the historical data librarians find for patrons may not be the same values that an individual would have seen when the data were initially released.

Economic data are made from estimates. Over time, more information becomes available and these estimates are revised. Policy-makers, businesses, and consumers make economic and financial decisions based on unrevised data available at a point in time. These unrevised are useful for studying historic decisions and economic policies. This webinar describes sources available for uncovering historical economic data and methods for using those sources that provide a window into the past.

Presenter Pamela Campbell, is a Senior Librarian at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. She has been working with government documents for nearly four years, with a focus on economic history. Pamela is part of the team that provides FRASER, a digital library dedicated to preserving the nation’s economic history.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Climbing Capitol Hill: The Basics of Congressional Research (August 8, 2013)

Do questions about congressional research make you wish you had paid more attention in civics class in high school? Have no fear, while researching (or helping others research) the activities of our Congress may seem daunting, it really isn't once you know the basics and a few tricks. This webinar breaks down the types of Congressional information that are out there, discusses what types of information they contain and provides strategies for helping researchers find and use them.

Presenter 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). 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Just the Facts, Ma’am!  Getting Started with the U.S. Census & American FactFinder (June 12, 2013)

The U.S. Census and American Community Survey provide a wealth of social, economic, and housing information of use to social scientists, policy-makers, social workers, community activists, and anyone interested in understanding a specific population or community. For many, however, the complexity of the American FactFinder interface can be a hurdle to getting started.  This webinar provides a concise introduction to the U.S. Census and American Community Survey focusing on the background information necessary for understanding and using current population statistics and the steps to successfully navigate American FactFinder in order to obtain the statistics you need.  You don’t need to be a statistician to use these great statistics!  This webinar will be useful for librarians new to the Census as well as those looking for new ways to present American FactFinder to users.

Presenter, Katharin Peter,  is the Social Sciences Data Librarian for the International and Public Affairs Library at the University of Southern California. She has a BA in Sociology, an MLIS, and a Graduate Certificate in Geographic Information Science & Technology. She is also an adjunct lecturer for the San Jose State University School of Library & Information Science where she teaches courses on data librarianship and survey research methods.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... “Legal Research ...Without the Law Library”  (May 14, 2013)

Researching the law is a complex and difficult process, not just for library patrons but also for the librarians who are asked to provide them with guidance. Effective legal research requires an understanding of the interplay between legal materials from all three branches of government within both federal and state systems. Unfamiliar jargon and constant changes to the law can also pose unique challenges for the novice legal researcher. This webinar outlines a mix of free and widely-available subscription resources which can help library patrons find and use legal materials, along with tips to help librarians identify the important distinctions between “legal reference” and “legal advice.”

Presenter Jennifer L. Behrens, is the Head of Reference Services & a Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School’s J. Michael Goodson Law Library, where she provides regular instruction on legal research topics. Jennifer holds both a JD and an MLS from the University at Buffalo, and previously worked as a graduate assistant in UB’s Charles B. Sears Law Library as well as its Lockwood Library’s former Business & Government Documents Reference Center. She served as Secretary/Treasurer of NCLA’s Government Resources Section from 2009-2011.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... "Come to Your Census: the development of the U.S. Census from its inception to the present”.  (April 22, 2013)

A census is a count of a country’s population as of a fixed date, to assess whether its population is growing, stable, or declining, and what the population looks like in terms of characteristics.  Censuses have been taken since ancient times, but few censuses can rival the United States Census in richness and value for us as government information professionals.  Mandated in 1787 as a mechanism for determining political representation for each state in the House of Representatives, the census has been taken decennially since 1790.  In this webinar we take a look at how this remarkable ongoing collation has developed and changed over the years, and how it provides researchers with vital information about changes in American society over time. 

Presenter Bryna Coonin, M.L.I.S, M.B.A., is a member of the Research & Instructional Services Department at Joyner Library, East Carolina University (ECU) in Greenville, N.C.  Bryna served as a graduate student at UNC Libraries in the mid-1980’s for the legendary regional documents librarian Ridley Kessler. She has worked as a reference librarian at the University of Georgia, and NC State University. In each of her reference assignments Bryna has remained intentionally and actively involved with state and federal government documents.  Bryna taught basic reference for the School of Information & Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill and basic reference and government documents courses for the graduate library school program at ECU. A longtime member of NCLA, she has chaired both the Reference & Adult Services Section (RASS) and the Government Resources Section (GRS).

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... All you ever wanted to know about Economic Indicators! (March 27, 2013)

Economic indicators are metrics that document the condition and direction of the economy and its sub-sets.  The data, which is gathered and reported by various Executive Branch agencies, is used by investors, legislators, policy-makers, labor leaders, economists, and many others.  In this webinar, you’ll learn:  what are economic indicators, examples of indicators covering a range of economic activities, such as: size and growth rate of the  economy, inflation rates, employment and unemployment, wages and hours worked, personal indebtedness, consumer confidence, and others, what the individual indicators reveal about the economy, and where to find them. 

Presenter Mary G. Scanlon is the Research and Instruction Librarian for Business and Economics at Wake Forest University.  She earned her MBA from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University and her MLIS from Kent State University.  Her publications include “Reconceiving Entrepreneurship for Libraries: Collaboration and the Anatomy of a Conference” and “The Entrepreneurial Librarian: Essays on the infusion of Private-Business Dynamism into Professional Service.”  She is currently serving as the Chair of Business Librarianship in North Carolina, a section of NCLA, and teaches LIB230: Business & Accounting Research Sources and Strategies. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Homeland Security Digital Library (February 27, 2013)

The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is the nation's premier research collection of open-source resources related to homeland security policy, strategy and organizational management. The HSDL is sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA.  In this webinar, Greta Marlatt the Outreach and Collection Development Manager for the Naval Postgraduate School’s Dudley Knox Library and the Content Manager for the Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) will help users navigate the Homeland Security Digital Library.  She has over 30 years of experience working in libraries in various capacities. Ms. Marlatt has published several articles and is the author of a number of bibliographies and help guides for topics relating to Intelligence, Information Warfare, Special Operations, Homeland Security, Mine Warfare, Directed Energy Weapons, NBC Terrorism and more.  She has given numerous presentations on topics related to conducting research in the homeland security and military arenas. Ms. Marlatt holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Arizona State University, a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Arizona and a Master of Arts degree in National Security Studies from California State University, San Bernardino.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...Information for International Development: Poverty Reduction, International Organizations, and Civil Society.  (January 16, 2013)

This session will covered International Government Organization (IGO) and civil society information sources in the areas of economic growth, development assistance, poverty interventions, microfinance, capacity building, inequality, remittances, and foreign aid.  The presenter examined documentation and statistics from International Development Organizations, such as the World Bank & Regional Development Banks, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Institute for Development Economics Research, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the OECD, and the United Nations Regional Commissions.  Sources of international development data were explored at length, as well as development aid documentation from the World Bank and other international financial institutions. In contrast to, and as a potential challenge to the leading IGO paradigms, also explored were development strategies and information sources from civil society organizations (NGOs) with an emphasis on those in the Global South, including the Grameen Bank, Brac, ASA, and others.   Presented by Jim Church, 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.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... British and Commonwealth legal materials (December 13th, 2012)

Working with legal materials can be daunting for undergraduate students. Working with legal materials from a foreign jurisdiction adds an additional level of complexity and unfamiliarity. However, interdisciplinary approaches within advanced undergraduate classes may require students to find and evaluate sources of law from outside of U.S. jurisdictions.  This webinar considers two such examples drawn from upperclass level classes recently taught at Valdosta State University: a history class requiring the use of historical English capital statutes, and a communications class focusing upon comparative media law. The webinar discusses sources of law for the purposes of these classes, in addition to strategies for effective information literacy instruction that were attempted.

Presenter Howard S. Carrier, graduated with an M.S.L.S. degree from UNC Chapel Hill in May 2009. He is currently employed as a Reference Librarian and Assistant Professor in the Odum Library at Valdosta State University. Prior to becoming a librarian, Howard completed a law degree and a subsequent Master’s degree in Human Rights Law at the University of Leicester (United Kingdom), thereafter working as a Research Associate in the Centre for Risk and Insurance Studies at the University of Nottingham, and as a Lecturer in Law at the University of Sunderland.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...United Nations Statistics and Data Resources (November 14th, 2012)

The United Nations gathers and produces a wealth of data on health, development, education, industry, and more--but given the complex structure of the United Nations and all of its publishing and research activities, it can be difficult to know where to begin the search for UN statistics and data. With UNdata from the United Nations Statistics Division, researchers can search many UN statistical databases through a single interface. In this session, we explored the benefits of starting a data search in UNdata, with a focus on gaining familiarity with the content that's available there as well as the ins and outs of the search interface. We also compared the contents and user experience of UNdata to several of the UN's other statistical resources. 

Presenter Melanie Maksin, is the Librarian for Political Science, International Affairs, Public Policy, and Government Information at Yale University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian: Web-based Outreach to Non-Traditional Documents Librarians (October 2012)

A presentation by David Durant, GRS excecutive board member and Federal Documents and Social Sciences Librarian at East Carolina University at the Depository Library Council Meeting and Federal Depository Library Conference, October 15-18, 2012.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Mooooooore Data at the USDA! (September 22, 2012)

This webinar gives information about 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 information. The USDA also provides access to data from other agencies, such as population data, in forms easier to use than the original source. However, the depth of content on the USDA site comes at the cost of ease of use. This session highlights the diversity of data available from USDA and provides tips for navigating the site in order to locate datasets and databases within. 

Presenter, Amy West, is Data Services Librarian at the University of Minnesota.  This webinar was jointly sponsored by the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology.

USDA Data Resources: http://z.umn.edu/usda4librarians
USDA Exercises: http://z.umn.edu/usdaexercises

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Researching the House Un-American Activities Committee (September 19, 2012)

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 find 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 from presenter David Durant the Federal Documents & Social Sciences Librarian at East Carolina University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents … Hunting Down Fugitives and What to Do With Them Once You Found Them. (June 19, 2012)

If you have ever search federal government agencies’ web sites and come across a publication you have never seen before and wondered ‘why isn’t this part of the depository program?’ Here is your chance to do something about it.  This webinar will help you learn how to find publication titles that have not yet made it into the depository program, how to identify them as fugitives (aka Lost Docs), and how to report them to GPO for inclusion into the program.  This webinar is let by Vicki Tate a government documents librarian with over 20 years of experience and who is currently the Depository Librarian at the University of South Alabama Library. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...The American Community Survey  (May 4, 2012)

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 lead by Michele Hayslett Data Services Librarian at the University Library of UNC at Chapel Hill,  focuses on the differences between the two surveys and provides 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.

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Help!  I'm an Accidental International Government Information Librarian: International Government Information: the Basics, and a Bit Beyond (April 17, 2012)

This session covers 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.  This webinar will provide viewers with an understanding of the uses of IGO information and how 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.  Presenter Jim Church is the librarian for economics and international & foreign government information at the University of California Berkeley. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Government Resources of the European Union (February 23, 2012)

The post-WWII political landscape of Europe, with its emphasis upon European integration, has resulted in a quasi-Federal system. Accordingly, researchers seeking European governmental resources, statistics, and legal information must consider materials produced under the auspices of Europe’s two predominant  IGOs (namely the European Union and the Council of Europe), in addition to the traditional, sovereign jurisdictions of Europe’s constituent states. This webinar, presented by Howard S. Carrier Reference Librarian at Valdosta State University, explores this topic using the example of one European state: the United Kingdom. Resources to be discussed include (but are not limited to):
EUROPA - http://europa.eu/
EUROSTAT - http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/
data.gov.uk - http://data.gov.uk/

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

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, discusses the history of the WVHP, describes the collection development policy for the Project, and how the collections’ materials are made accessible to researchers. She also examines 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. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... What You Need to Know About the Creative Commons (January 5th, 2012)

In this session we explored 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.  This webinar looks 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.  Presenter Rosalind Tedford is the Director for Research and Instruction at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... PubMed, PubMed Central, and Medlineplus - What's the difference? (December 9th, 2011)

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.  This webinar led by Lea Leininger Health Sciences Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro provides an overview of PubMed, PubMed Central, and MedlinePlus with some searches and links to additional information. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ...
Finding your way: Maps and geospatial information from the federal government - (November 16th, 2011)

The federal government produces a wide array of maps and digital geospatial data from many different agencies that can be integrated into any reference interaction.  This webinar lead by Marcy Bidney, the Head of the Donald W. Hamer Maps Library at Penn State University, will help you learn about maps from the USGS, Army Corps of Engineers, the National Map and more!

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ...Beginner’s Guide to Legislative History (November 9th, 2011)

This session explains more fully what legislative history is (and is not), looks at the print and online resources available, shows what roadblocks may prevent patrons from finding complete answers, and provides suggestions for alternative sources of information (mostly from a North Carolina perspective).  Presenters Rebecca Hyman and Steve Case are both from the Government & Heritage Library , a part of the State Library of North Carolina.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents...State Agency Databases with Daniel Cornwall from the Alaska State Library (September 21, 2011)

In this session you will 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 were demonstrated. The potential of what an easily accessible database listing could mean to librarians and patrons alike was explored. Presenter Daniel Cornwall,  is the Head of Technical and Imaging Services for the Alaska Division of Libraries, Archives and Museums. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... Good Health (Information) in North Carolina (September 7, 2011)

North Carolina state government agencies and public universities publish a great deal of interesting health and healthcare information of value to researchers and reference librarians. In this webinar, learn about important data sources and how to get access them. Presenters Rebecca Hyman Reference and Outreach Librarian and Kurt Brenneman former Agency Outreach Librarian are both from the Government & Heritage Library, a part of the State Library of North Carolina.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Resources for Guard and Reserve Soldiers and their Families (July 27, 2011)

In this session, learn about how you can help the Guard and Reserve Soldiers in your community obtain the assistance they and their families are entitled to as citizens. Topics covered include education benefits, debt relief, VA benefits and health care, military medical insurance (Tricare), and resources for spouses and children of deploying service members.  Presenter David Durant, is the Federal Documents & Social Sciences Librarian at the Joyner Library at East Carolina University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents ... Beyond Google: Effective Patent Searching in Every Library (July 13, 2011)

This session discusses patent searching tools, both those freely available over the Internet and those accessible only through Patent & Trademark Depository Libraries.  Also discussed is how to do a patent search, what you should and shouldn't do when you're helping patrons with patent questions, and the pros and cons of using Google Patents.  Presenters David Zwicky, Engineering Services Librarian, and Hyun-Duck Chung, Librarian for Management and Entrepreneurship, are both from the North Carolina State University Libraries.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian presents... the Economic Census (June 14, 2011)

The Economic Census is a rich source of free, reliable data for business planning which includes: industry size and growth rate; change in number of industry participants; staffing levels and wage rates; and much more.  In this webinar, we’ll demonstrate how to use the Economic Census to find these and other data that business patrons will find useful.  Presenter Mary Scanlon, is the Research and Instruction Librarian for Business and Economics at Wake Forest University.

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian:  American FactFinder and Census 2010 (June 9, 2011)

This session will teach users how to use the new interface for the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder, its online database for distributing all data from its surveys.  Presenter Michele Hayslett,  is the Data Services Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

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Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian:  Genealogy Using Government Information (May 11, 2011)

This session explores the different government resources available when researching family history. Resources covered are documents from the U.S. Census Bureau, and online products from other sources, such as databases, libraries, state and local government offices, maps and photographs.  Presenter Jane Johnson, is a Special Collections Librarian at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in North Carolina.

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Help!  I'm an Accidental Government Information Librarian:  The Basics (April 14, 2011) 

Our first session, "The Basics," provided a general, basic overview of government information as it pertains to reference work. What types of information flow from the three branches of government that are important to your patrons? What major portals are most useful for finding U.S. Government information? What types of government statistics are available and how can they be found? What basic knowledge do I need to effectively locate government information?  Presenter Bryna Coonin is a Reference Librarian at the Joyner Library at East Carolina University. 

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