Time once again for a selection of news and new resources that we hope will be an interest to the FGI community. The following posts are from INFOdocket.com (@infofodocket) where we compile and post new items daily. The oldest item in this roundup was posted on January 26, 2012.

1. President Requests $231,953,777 for Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

2. MEDLINE/PubMed: List of Serials Indexed for Online Users, 2012 Now Available in XML

3. South Dakota: State Archives Going Digital

4. Recently Launched iOS App: United Nations News Reader from the UN News Centre

5. Full Text of Prepared Testimony: Librarian of Congress, Public Printer, & Others Testify at House Appropriations Committee Hearing (re: FY 2013 Budget)

6. Montana: “New State Librarian Leads Digitization”

7. Government Information: A New Issue of the FDLP Connection Newsletter is Now Online (Vol. 2, Issue 2)

8. New Reference Resource: PACrimeStats.Info (Pennsylvania Crime Data)

9. EPA Releases New Interactive Tool with Information About Water Pollution Across the U.S.

10. FEMA Grant Helps Restore New Orleans’ Katrina-Damaged Archives

11. Listen Online: National Park Service Releases Historic Audio Recordings Made by Thomas Edison’s Recording Engineer

12. New Feature: The World Factbook Now Allows Users to Listen to the National Anthems of Most Countries

13. U.S. Congress: THOMAS Adds Direct Links to House Committee Hearings

14. New Document from NIH: Public Access Policy Implications

15. New Database: See Who’s Donating to Super PACs

16. LOCPix: New iOS App Provides Access to Digitized Photos from the Library of Congress

17. New Interactive Reference Resource: State Transportation Facts and Figures

18. U.S. Congress: Financial Contributions: MapLight Launches New Company Pages

19. Let’s Fly! FAA Launches Mobile Web App

20. New Search Tool from the IRS: Exempt Organizations Select Check

Here's a post we just put up that offers a brief overview to a directory where you can listen live to first responders (police, fire, ems). The directory is free to use and the streams are free to access.

Of course, not every county or city has a feed but, for the most part the I-95 corridor is well represented.

Also, the directory is always online (not just a storm resource) and is national in scope. From the Juneau Police Dept. to the Pinellas County Fire and EMS and many other locations.

http://infodocket.com/2011/08/26/hurricane-irene-listen-live-online-to-first-responders-throughout-entire-storm-area/

A second post points out the fact that the FEMA National Situation Daily update is available online (can also be of use after the event) as well as a number of mobile tools from the National Hurricane Center including an option to be alerted to new updates via email or text.

http://infodocket.com/2011/08/25/reference-hurricane-irene-femas-nationa...

Transportation

You can always listen live to most major airport towers and centers in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere.
http://liveatc.net

and finally, the AMTRAK Northeast Corridor Twitter Stream and Amtrak (National) on Facebook.

Hello From DC (I mean Shakeytown, it Was My First Quake) Everyone.

As we prepare for our next event around hear and elsewhere along the east coast I thought it might be a good time to share a mountain of news, new resources, and other goodies with all of you.

The material comes from posts Shirl Kennedy and I made to our INFOdocket.com site. This is just a small amount of what we post seven days a week. Plus, we also provide FullTextReports.com. New reports are listed in the left rail (Thanks Jim and James)

We both hope you find and item or two of interest in the following update. More very soon. (-:

1. Hurricane Irene: FEMA’s National Situation Daily Update Available Online & Natl. Hurricane Center Mobile Resources

2. New Web Site: Feds Launch Performance.gov, Now Publicly Accessible

3. Acquisitions: Bloomberg is Buying BNA for $990 Million

4. US Department of Labor Improves Enforcement Databases Including Visualization/Animation Tools

5.U.S. History: “Rare Footage Unearthed Online”

6. New From the Internet Archive: “Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive”

7.“Google Forfeits $500 Million Generated by Online Ads & Prescription Drug Sales by Canadian Online Pharmacies”
The full text of the statement from the USDOJ and FDA

8. Washington Post Op/Ed: “Don’t Kill America’s Databook” (U.S. Census Statistical Abstract)

9. NLRB — Acting General Counsel Releases Report on Social Media Cases

10. Back to School 2011-2012: Facts About Schools, Students and Teachers From the U.S. Census

11. 1940 U.S. Census to be Free on Ancestry.com

12. Government Information: GPO Releases API For FederalRegister.gov (Formal Announcement)

13. Teen Dating Violence: A Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography
From the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress

14. Update: More Digitized Historic U.S. Government Economic and Banking Documents and Reports via FRASER

15. A Look at a Few Resources Using U.S. Department of Agriculture Open Data

16. Cook County, IL: New online database lets anyone see who has outstanding warrants

17. Federal Agencies Take Action to Digitally Document Nearly 50 Endangered Languages

FEMA Launches New Mobile Web Site For Smartphones, news release, Federal Emergency Management Agency, April 28, 2010.

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate announced the launch of FEMA's new mobile Web site, m.fema.gov. The mobile Web site makes it easier to access critical information regarding emergency preparedness and what to do before and after a disaster right on a smartphone.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) now has its own channel on Youtube: youtube.com/fema and its own twitter feed: twitter.com/femainfocus. And, of course, it has a number of RSS feeds, fema.gov/help/rss.shtm.

More here:
FEMA In Focus: Where FEMA Was, Is Now, and Where FEMA Is Going, FEMA Press Release HQ-09-004, January 7, 2009.

FEMA starts channel on YouTube, By Alice Lipowicz, FCW.com, Jan 08, 2009.

I've seen a lot of good resources related to Hurricane Ike over the past week, and thought I'd compile them here.

• Images of the devastation that Ike wrought, from the USGS, NOAA, and NASA.
• Applying for assistance through FEMA.
• Hurricane assistance resources through USA.gov and Health & Human Services.
• Planning for future hurricane preparedness.
• Rebecca Blakeley has posted a list of places you can volunteer or donate at Gov Docs on the Bayou.
• I also used a recent FGI tip to stay informed! By watching the NASA tweets, I saw when this message was posted about the re-opening of Johnson Space Center on Monday.

Senator Mary Landrieu wrote an article at poynter.org, "letting the sunshine in" to illuminate delayed FEMA response to FOIA requests in regards to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. For example, Mark Schleifstein of the New Orleans Times-Picayune filed a FOIA request with FEMA regarding its disaster response operations and planning. After two years (and asking him twice if he was "still interested"), FEMA has yet to act.

But it's this part of the article that really hits a nerve:

"Baton Rouge Advocate reported this week that it had filed a FOIA request in 2006 seeking documentation on FEMA’s contracting procedures and the decisions behind deploying travel trailers across the Gulf Coast. FEMA says they will release the information -- for a fee. The going price for the truth is apparently $209,990, principally to defray copying costs. The agency said the documents are not available electronically and that the only hard copies are stored in its New Orleans field office. Meanwhile, on its Website, FEMA itself advises that, 'If you plan ahead and copy what you have onto compact disks, you can be secure in knowing that they will not be lost in the future.' "

I just don't know what to say after reading that...

What?! That's right. FEMA deputy director Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson held a phony news conference on Tuesday (story here and here) about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California. At the news conference, FEMA employees played the part of reporters and asked Johnson softball questions. I don't know which is worse: having a director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who's previous job was as a commissioner for an Arabian horse association or having a FEMA director who thinks it's ok to hold a sham news conference for political gain. FEMA deals with serious life and death situations (Katrina, wild fires etc)  and so should have leaders of the highest qualifications, NOT political lackies who do not take their jobs seriously.

FEMA plays catch-up on IT infrastructure