As part of the fruit of the ALA GODORT State and Local Documents Task Force's State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project, I used the project blog to create a listing of state-level campaign finance databases.

So far I've got nine states: Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada and Ohio. Do you know of other state campaign finance databases? Either leave a comment below of drop me a line at dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net.

And if you use any of the databases listed above, I'd really love to see your comments on the project blog entry for that database.

Here's some great news for those of you who have not heard: the UN Treaty Series Collection online can now be accessed without subscription! That's right ... "Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations" is now available for free.

The United Nations Treaty Series is a collection of treaties and international agreements that have been registered (or filed and recorded) with and published by the Secretariat of the United Nations since 1946, pursuant to Article 102 of the Charter. The UNTS includes the texts of treaties in their authentic language(s), along with translations into English and French, as appropriate.

The collection currently contains over 158,000 treaties and related subsequent actions which have been published in hard copy in over 2,200 volumes. Currently, the UNTS is being enhanced to include the latest desktop published volumes.

The 50-State Agency Databases Registry, which I coordinate, has launched a new set of subject-focused database collections under the heading of history:

* Biographical Databases - Databases that provide biographical sketches of authors, state officials, famous state residents, etc.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Biographical_Databases

* Historical Media Databases - Databases that provide online access to photographs, video, or audio.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Historical_Media_Databases

* Historical Newspaper and Magazine Indexes - Databases that index articles in older newspapers, journals and magazine that contain historical information. These databases will usually lead one to microfilmed items that may be obtainable through Interlibrary Loan.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Historical_Newspaper_and_Magazine

* Museum Collection Databases - Catalogs of state museum holdings which often have historical notes. Museums listed here are either run by a state or by one of the state's political subdivisions
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Museum_Collection_Databases

* Official Records Databases - vital records, (birth, death, etc), war pensions, etc.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Official_Records_Databases

These pages just launched, so they are a little light on content. The Registry volunteers will be adding to these pages in the next few weeks.

If you are registered with the ALA GODORT wiki and would like to help the effort along, please browse the state pages or search for words from the historical categories and copy and paste databases from the state pages to the appropriate subject page.

Why these topics? Because after making solicitations here, on govdoc-l and on Facebook, more people wanted subject pages for historical materials than anything else. It's my personal hope that when these annotated historical materials pages are filled out, they will be of special value to historians and to schoolchildren stuck with "I need to do a report on the State of _____." It will help them go beyond state symbols and the like.

Hope you enjoy them!

Recently, the 50-State Agency Database Registry produced an annotated list of searchable inmate locaters. Many states have databases on many given subjects, so the volunteer staff of the Database Register is interested in expanding the offerings on our subject-focused databases page.

We (the Registry volunteers) would like to do this with subjects of interest to the community. So tell us what we should do next, either by leaving comments here or by participating in a brief poll on the main page of the State Agency Database Highlights blog at http://statedatabase.blogspot.com.

For databases from the 50 states, please see the 50-State Agency Database Registry

As a demonstration of things that can be done with ALA GODORT's 50-State Database Registry I have created a page listing sites of state prisoner locator tools at: http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Prisoner_Locator_Tools.

So far it looks like nine states have such sites. If you see a state that's missing, let me know or if you have patrons that need to find folks in state prisons, suggest this site to them.

Is there a subject focused page involving state databases you'd like to create? Register with the ALA GODORT Wiki and get started. Or drop me a line.

I'm pleased to report to you that the ALA GODORT State and Local Documents Task Force efforts to create a 50-State Registry of state agency produced databases is nearing the end of its initial setup phase.

With the help of 30 named volunteers, we have created content for 46 states and the District of Columbia. The remaining four states have prospective volunteers who should be filling in content soon or letting me know they cannot take on page volunteer duty at this time.

Please see our nearly completed product at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

In these pages you will find databases on finding doctors, shipwrecks, commercial properties, Confederate Veterans pensions, dangerous dogs and much more.

To get a small taste of what is becoming available through the Registry, check out the unofficial project blog "State Databases of the Day" at http://statedatabase.blogspot.com/.

You don't have to be a named volunteer to help with the project. If you go to a state's page and don't see your favorite state agency produced database, go ahead and add it if you are comfortable with editing wikis. If not send your link to the page volunteer, if available, or to me at dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net as project coordinator.

Please try to have a look at the Registry this week. Check out and improve your own state's page. Or check out what's available. A lot of stuff from the California page just amazed me. Think about how you might build subject listings (Wildlife, business, etc) using the Creative Commons' licensed material from this project. Together we're building a good resource. Let's keep at it.

As part of their activities in the last ALA annual meeting, the GODORT State and Local Documents Task Force (SLDTF) approved the creation of a fifty-state registry of state government produced databases on the new GODORT wiki. SLDTF believes that there will be great value to librarians and end users alike in having the "invisible web" of state produced databases together in one place.

You can find the home page for this project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. Right now, only Alaska has a developed page which you can find at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Alaska as an example for what SLDTF hopes the other state pages will look like.

Once this registry is complete, it will have a number of uses, not the least of which will be showing that documents librarians are tech savvy people who know where the information is buried even when Google can't find it.

BUT, they need your help to make this happen. There are four ways you can help with this project:

1) Go to the wiki and start adding any databases you are familar with. Just click on the "edit" tab. Registering with the GODORT wiki is recommended but not required.
2) Agree to be a "documents specialist" for a particular state and post your contact information so people who are not comfortable with editing wikis can e-mail updates to you.
3) Recruit state agency department webmasters, other state employees or other subject specialists to contribute to the database listing.
4) As you become aware of a new state (or local) government database, e-mail Daniel Cornwall, project coordinator (dan DOT cornwall AT Alaska DOT gov) or the documents specialist for that state if you are not comfortable with editing a wiki.

To me, this seems like a perfect collaboration project for the documents community. You WILL benefit from learning where your state's databases are and posting them to this annotated registry. The rest of us will benefit from having similar databases available from the fifty states and learning about your state's unique content.

So, help ALA GODORT and yourselves by contributing to this project!

If you adopt a state's page, would you leave a comment here so people can see how the registry is coming along?