C-SPAN is incorporating the power of YouTube, Twitter, and blogs to provide a rich site where you can follow the presidential (and vice-presidential) debates. The site, called Debate Hub, launched today, just in time for tonight's first round.  There's even a timeline where you can follow the transcript as the evening unfolds.

Via Mashable

Mashable, the tech blog about social networks and new websites, is featuring a series of articles  on Government 2.0 written by Dr. Mark Drapeau. From his first post:

"Some explanation of who I am is necessary here. Based inside a government think tank called the Center for Technology and National Security Policy, or CTNSP, led by Dr. Hans Binnendijk formerly of the National Security Council staff, I’m supposed to be thinking “big thoughts” all day as part of a fellowship program that recruits PhD-level scientists into public service with the federal government.

"But wait a second, who am I to be analyzing social networking technology? Aren’t I a biologist who collects wild parasitic wasps from birds’ nests, videotapes tiny fruit flies copulating and was part of the international honey bee genome project? All true. But at a fundamental level, studying complex behavioral and genetic networks in animals is not so different from understanding human social networks. So to some extent, when it comes to explaining social software to military policymakers – I’m the perfect guy for the job."

Constitution Day is quickly approaching and I am trying to finish all the little details for our first Constitution Day event in the library.

It seemed a no brainer to me that the gov docs dept should participate in the campus wide celebration. However, it may just be that as a new docs librarian, I am an eager beaver. ^_^

We have 3 displays that have gone up. (Check out my gallery pics). The student assistants did a wonderful job, had fun, and used their creativity. The displays are "the U.S. Constitution", "Signers of the Constitution and famous quotes about the Constitution", and the documents trifecta "Declaration, Constitution, and the Bill or Rights".

Since I am still less than 2 years into this job after a long career in school and vocational libraries, and since my library's collection of books on government documents librarianship is ancient, I bought a copy of Lisa Ennis's new book.

The book is short and not detailed. It does not give information on using government document information. But, oh how  I wish I had had this book 2 years ago. It provides an excellent summary of the world of government documents. The chapter on networking and training gives a nice look at resources available for help so that government documents librarians do not feel alone. Appendix A of the book provides a useful list of resources and readings for each topic covered in the chapters of the book.

My favorite chapter of the book was the first one: Government documents Librarianship: the sky's the limit.   I have fallen in love with this world and see all kinds of opportunities to promote the use of the amazing quality and quantity of information provided for free by the United States government.