Attention fellow FDLP Librarians! If you are going to the ALA Annual 2009 Conference in Chicago next week, please come to the ALA Unconference where I will be leading a broad discussion on Friday, July 10th from 11:10-12:00 on the library's role in current & emerging trends of civic engagement, transparency, preservation and access to Government information. The supporting materials and presentation will be linked in the Unconference wiki.

Also, please come to the LITA BIGWIG Social Software Showcase to discuss and learn about Government Information Mashups! I will be presenting on this topic and would love to have you help out and/or join in on the conversation! The presentation will be posted on their website but the face to face portion of the BIGWIG Showcase presentations will take place Monday, July 13th from 10:30am - 12:30pm in the McCormick Convention Center West, Room W-184.

Be sure to check out the  presentation "Libraries and Obama's Information Policy" featuring Jim Jacobs, co-creator of FreeGovInfo.info. 

And of course, a listing of all the GODORT sponsored presentations and meetings are listed at the GODORT Wiki.

I started a Government Information Interest Group at ALA Connect. If you are a member of ALA, please consider joining. It is pretty bare bones right now and I could use some help in developing it and making it grow. It is a great way to connect with all types of librarians who share an interest in government information, but may or may not be part of a depository library or a member of GODORT. It is another way to provide outreach and educate our fellow librarians about the world of government information!

The group is for those interested in government information (federal, state, local, and international). Various topics of interest include depository libraries, government information collections, open access, transparency, and preservation of government information, E-government, Government 2.0, and using social networks to collect and disseminate government information (”Gov Docs 2.0″) and more!

My earlier post, CRS Reports to the People!, dealt with which congressmen to contact and which congressmen sponsored what bills in the past, etc. But now I would like to offer some sample letters that you can emulate and send. I sent all of mine just after the inauguration of President Obama and will let you know what kinds of responses I get.

Here is a sample letter to send to those who have sponsored similar bills about publicly releasing all CRS Reports in the past (be sure to refer to my previous post that lists all these bills and their sponsors in your letter!):

The Honorable [full name]
[Room #] [Name] Senate [or] House Office Building
United States House of Representatives [or] United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Senator:
or
Dear Representative:

The Sunlight Foundation has a new website called OOGL: Open Our Government List, for you to vote 3 times and submit ideas for what the President's Open Government Directive should address. Make one of your votes for Digital Deposit of Government Information to Libraries!

The Sunlight Foundation also has a website called  Show Us the Data! Vote 3 times for what you you think should be the "Most Wanted Government Documents, Reports or Data Sets" that should be available on the web. Please make two of your votes go toward PACER and CRS Reports!

Dr. Mark Drapeau writes a wonderful series of posts on Government 2.0 ("from an insider's perspective") at Mashable.com.

Dr. Drapeau is the 2006-2008 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security policy of the National Defense University in Washington. He also has his own fun blog and tweets at Twitter under the name "Cheeky_Geeky". How cute is that?