Cell phones & driving data withheld by NHTSA

The New York Times featured a front-page story today [7/21/09] titled “U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving.”  Researchers for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed a study to examine the relationship between traffic accidents and cell phone use while driving. The study never happened, and hundreds of pages of research were withheld from the public because the agency feared angering Congress. Two consumer groups filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to get access to the documents. The documents have been posted on the New York Times’ website.

An older document published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 1997, “An Investigation of the Safety Implications of Wireless Communications in Vehicles” is available online.

Here are a few other reports on cell phones and risks while driving:

Device Related Distraction Management: Preliminary Findings and Research Challenges, Elizabeth Mazzae, Riley Garrott, and Frank Barickman. This NHTSA powerpoint was presented on May 16, 2001.

Cell Phones and Driving, compiled by Marian G. Rogers, February 2004. Bibliography of print and online articles, reports, and studies from state governments on cell phone use and driving.

Cell Phone Safety: do they cause cancer and car accidents?, CQ Researcher,  vol. 11, issue 10, March 16, 2001.

California Cellular Phone laws. The Wireless Communications Device Law became effective on January 1, 2009. It prohibits people from sending, writing, or reading text messages while driving. Previous laws (California Vehicle Code [VC] §23123) restrict drivers from using handheld cell phones, and (VC §23124) prevents drivers under the age of 18 from using cell phones or hands-free devices while driving.

Cell Phones and Driving: Research Update, December 2008. AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety report.

Apollo Moonwalk 40th anniversary

July 20, 2009 is the 4oth anniversay of the Apollo 11 moonwalk in 1969 by Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.

The New York Times has featured its front page from 1969, as well as articles, rememberances, photos, and an audio of the Apollo 11 landing.

National Public Radio (NPR) featured a story on how the original moonwalk video tapes were erased by NASA, a review of a book on the space race (Rocket Men), a reflection on life after Apollo 11 from Buzz Aldrin, and Flagstaff, Arizona’s part in training the astronauts for the moon walk.

NASA has a webpage dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission.

Check out some of the documents and books from the SFSU library.

SFSU Government Publications:

Project Apollo [electronic resource] : the tough decisions / Robert C. Seamans, Jr.

Managing the Moon Program [electronic resource] : lessons learned from Project Apollo : proceedings of an oral history workshop conducted July 21, 1989.

Apollo by the numbers : a statistical reference / by Richard W. Orloff.

The Apollo spacecraft : a chronology [electronic resource] .

Biomedical results of Apollo [electronic resource] / managing editors: Richard S. Johnston, Lawrence F. Dietlein, and Charles A. Berry (Also in print).

Apollo expeditions to the moon [electronic resource] / edited by Edgar M. Cortright.

Conceptual design and analysis of roads and road construction machinery for initial lunar base operations [electronic resource] /

Books at the SFSU library on the Apollo 11 flight:

Return to earth [by] Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., with Wayne Warga.

On the moon : the Apollo journals / Grant Heiken and Eric Jones.

How Apollo flew to the Moon / W. David Woods.

In the shadow of the moon : a challenging journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 / Francis French and Colin Burgess ; with a foreword by Walter Cunningham.

Apollo in perspective [electronic resource] : spaceflight then and now / Jonathan Allday.

Selling outer space : Kennedy, the media, and funding for Project Apollo, 1961-1963 / James L. Kauffman.

Confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

C-SPAN featured live coverage of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The Resource section includes Judge Sotomayor’s financial statements, a White House bio, a witness list for the nomination hearings, and a Congressional Research Service (CRS) analysis of Sotomayor opinions.

NPR has posted Judge Sotomayor’s opening statement at the confirmation hearings.

The SFSU library has copies of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor’s 1997 federal appointment in the Government Publications collection.

Y 4.J 89/2:S.HRG.105-205/PT.2

Y 4.J 89/2:S.HRG.102-505/PT.9 (not available at SFSU)

Other Supreme Court confirmation hearings at the library:

Confirmation hearing on the nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States : hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, second session, January 9-13, 2006.

Confirmation hearing on the nomination of John G. Roberts, Jr. to be Chief Justice of the United States : hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, September 12-15, 2005.

Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States : hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, first session …

Recent books on the Supreme Court at the SFSU library:

The next Justice : repairing the Supreme Court appointments process / Christopher L. Eisgruber

Electing justice : fixing the Supreme Court nomination process / Richard Davis

Latinos and American law [electronic resource] : landmark Supreme Court cases / Carlos R. Soltero.

The Supreme Court : the personalities and rivalries that defined America / Jeffrey Rosen.

*Free* Consumer information

Besides statistics, congressional documents, presidential proclamations, and declassified documents, the federal government also provides free documents and information on topics of interest to citizens. For example:

The Federal Citizen Information Center in Pueblo, Colorado, offers information to consumers over the phone, on the web, and in print. Topics range from cars to housing to travel. The site is also available in Spanish. Recently,  the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Women’s Health and WomenHeart wrote to Dear Abby to promote their free Heart Health Kit for women.  Many of the publications are free, or cost ~$1.50 each. Most of the documents that aren’t free are available in a PDF version, so you can print them yourself.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2006 revision, on its website. There are links to other methods of preserving, including drying (how to make fruit & vegetable leathers), curing & smoking (fish, salami, sausage), pickling ( cucumbers, relishes, chutneys), freezing, and making jams & jellies.

Nuclear document removed from GPO site

On June 1, the Federation of American Scientist’s Secrecy News blog reported that  “The List of Sites, Locations, Facilities, and Activities Declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” message from the President of the United States, May 6, 2009 (267 pages, 13 MB PDF file), had been posted on the Government Printing Office’s website.

The list included maps of nuclear stockpiles all over the country and was “considered confidential but not classified,” according to the New York Times.

Read more about the contents of the document in the article from The New York Times:

U.S. Accidentally Releases List of Nuclear Sites, The New York Times, June 2, 2009.

Docs/Books@SFSU

Planning guidance for response to a nuclear detonation [electronic resource] / United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, 2009.

Nuclear weapons: a very short introduction, Joseph M. Siracusa, 2008.

The future nuclear landscape [electronic resource] / by Paul I. Bernstein, John P. Caves, John F. Reichart.Washington, D.C. : Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, National Defense University Press, [2007]

Every state a superpower? : stopping the spread of nuclear weapons in the 21st century : hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, first session, May 10, 2007.

Arsenals of folly : the making of the nuclear arms race / Richard Rhodes, 2007.

Data.gov

Data.gov is a catalog of datasets from government agencies. It is designed for the public to be able to find and use data for research and to create new applications.  Saul Hansell reported on the new U.S. government website (Data.gov: Unlocking the Federal Filing Cabinets) in the New York Times on May 22, 2009.

The Sunlight Foundation has announced a contest for developers called Apps for America 2: the data.gov challenge. First prize is $10,000 and the deadline is August 7, 2009.

For some criticism on Data.gov, see “What I’d Change about Data.gov“, from the Sunlight Labs blog.

Hubble Space Telescope is back in orbit

The Hubble Space Telescope was released from space shuttle Atlantis today (5/19/09) after being repaired.  NASA has some amazing video clips of the astronauts fixing the telescope, along with commentary from the crew at Mission Control. This is the last mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, which will be replaced by the James Webb space telescope in 2014.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into space on April 24, 1990 on Space Shuttle Discovery, and released into orbit the next day. In June 1990, a flaw was discovered in the mirror. The mirror was repaired three years later, in December 1993. Despite its early problems, the Hubble has given us spectacular images, including one from the deepest reaches of space, called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

Check out some of the books from the SFSU Library on the Hubble Space Telescope:

Options for Hubble Science: hearing before the Committee on Science, House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, first session, February 2, 2005.

The universe in a mirror: the saga of the Hubble Telescope and the visionaries who built it, by Robert Zimmerman, 2008.

Hubble: the mirror on the universe, by Robin Kerrod & Carole Stott, 2007.

Hubble Space Telescope: new views of the universe, by Mark Voit, 2000.

The Hubble Wars: astrophysics meets astropolitics in the two-billion-dollar struggle over the Hubble Space Telescope, by Eric J. Chaisson, 1994.

Hubble Space Telescope: NASA’s Plans for a Servicing Mission. CRS Report RS21767, updated May 23, 2008.

Hand-bookbinding at GPO

Peter James, head forwarder at the Government Printing Office (GPO), was the subject of Ed O’Keefe’s  Washington Post column on May 7, 2009, titled “Eye on the Government Printing Office”. The article features a YouTube video showing Mr. James’ technique of hand-marbling the edges of books.

I went on a tour of the GPO facility a couple of years ago, and we were all fascinated by his marbling demonstration. We oohed and aahed over some of the special jobs he’d worked on for the White House, and found his enthusiasm for his job very refreshing.

He was also featured in an article in The Hill, in 2007 (“For the love of bookbinding”).

Books from the SFSU Library:

In-house bookbinding and repair, by Sharon McQueen, 2005.

Bookbinding, and the care of books: a handbook for amateurs, bookbinders & librarians, by Douglas Cockerell, 1991.

Japanese bookbinding: instructions from a master craftsman, by Kojiro Ikegami, 1986.

We also have an electronic subscription to the Journal of Artists Books, from 10/1/93 to the present ( SFSU students only).

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports

Yesterday (5/5/09), the New York Times reported on the Center for Democracy and Technology’s campaign to get public access to reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).  CRS reports are written by researchers at the Library of Congress to support the legislative process.  They are not publicly distributed and only members of Congress can share them.  Senator Joseph Lieberman just introduced S. Res. 118 (printed in the Congressional Record on April 29, 2009)  in an effort to provide public access to CRS reports on a public website.

SFSU provides access to CRS reports through the GalleryWatch CRS Reports database. It provides over 25,000 reports dating from 1993,  and “covers a host of subject areas, including economics, environment, foreign affairs, immigration, medicine, civil rights, national security, terrorism and more.” [SFSU students/faculty/staff only, requires Library PIN.]  They are an excellent source of foreign country political and economic information.

Sometimes it’s easier to get an idea of what’s available by browsing some of the websites below that collect CRS reports in specific subject areas.

OpenCRS: Congressional Research Reports for the People

FAS  CRS Reports: The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) hosts a collection of CRS reports on the subjects of Secrecy & Information Policy, Intelligence, Homeland Security, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control,  Conventional Weapons Systems, Terrorism, Space Policy, Middle East, Foreign Policy, etc.

National Library for the Environment (NLE): CRS reports on environmental topics such as biodiversity, climate change, mining, pesticides, transportation, water, etc.,  can be browsed on their website.

CRS Reports at the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries:  UNT has been doing a heroic job of collecting CRS reports from 1990.  Check out their “Browse CRS Reports by Subject“.

For some background on CRS Reports, see  Stephen Young’s  “Guide to CRS Reports on the Web” and a report from CRS describing some of the ways that they assist legislators in “The Congressional Research Service and the American Legislative Process.”

Liber8: Economic Information from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Liber8 is a “an economic information portal for librarians and students” from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, one of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts.  (See Fed101 for some basics about the Federal Reserve Bank.)  The site includes a monthly newsletter with articles on current affairs (foreclosure,  TARP, What is a recession?, etc.), international economic statistics, research articles,  economic data, and resources.

The economic data section includes ArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Data (ALFRED), Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER), Gross Domestic Product and Components, Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization Index, and publications such as Monetary Trends and National Economic Trends.

To search all the databases simultaneously, check out EconDisc,  which “is the comprehensive assemblage of our data services, all of which are user-friendly, web-based collections of economic, financial, and banking data and documentation: FRED®, ALFRED®, FRASER®, CASSIDI®, and Liber8™.”

Another database is GeoFRED,  “a data-mapping tool that displays color-coded data on the state, MSA and county levels. For example, GeoFRED can display unemployment, labor force and population for all U.S. counties. Users can select among 19,000 FRED® data series and customize these printable maps according to size, scope and detail.”  There is a link  to lesson plans based on data from GeoFRED for grades 7-10.

In the resources section, under “Education Resources”, there is a feature on “The Financial Crisis: A Timeline of Events and Policy Actions”,  a Great Depression curriculum, as well as  educational materials for younger students (The Piggy Bank Primer), among others.

Docs/Books@SFSU

Foreclosures at the front step of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland : hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic Policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, first session, May 21, 2007.

Preventing bank crises : lessons from recent global bank failures : proceedings of a conference co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank

Economic Perspectives, quarterly journal from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

fedgazette: Regional Business and Economics Newspaper, from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Economic Quarterly,  Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Current Issues in Economics and Finance,  Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Economic Review, quarterly journal from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.