Category: Government Documents

  • Shutdown Impacts Information Access

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    eyoung

    As we head to almost a month of a partial government shutdown (it began on December 21, 2018) one of the areas to receive collateral damage is the vast array of data collected and disseminated by the federal government. For agencies that are not funded, their websites are not being updated. Eerily, the population clock…

  • Trump Approves OPEN Government Data Act

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    eyoung

    Yesterday, President Trump signed into law the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act, a sweeping, government-wide mandate requiring U.S. federal agencies to publish all non-sensitive government information – including federally-funded research – as open data. “This bill is a huge win for innovation, transparency and openness – and most of all, for taxpayers…

  • Republican Senator Nominated to Supreme Court

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    eyoung

    September 18, 1945 The prospect of a vacancy on the Supreme Court generally stirs speculation about which incumbent members of the Senate might be eligible candidates. Given the increasing contentiousness of the Senate review process for high court vacancies, some believe that selecting one of the Senate’s own members might smooth the road to a…

  • The Senate Buys Jefferson’s Library

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    eyoung

    August 24, 1814 When the invading British army burned the United States Capitol building on this day, August 24, in 1814, they fueled the fire with 3,000 books from a small room that served as the congressional library. Among the Senate’s first orders of business, as it convened in temporary quarters ten blocks from the…

  • Irritating the President

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    eyoung

    August 5, 1789 The Senate spent most of its first year setting precedents. During the month of August 1789, it established two precedents that particularly irritated President George Washington. On August 5, for the first time, the Senate refused to confirm a presidential appointee. Ignoring the budding concept of “senatorial courtesy,” President George Washington had…

  • Freedom of Information Day

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    eyoung

    FREEDOM OF INFORMATION DAY 2018: LIBERTY AND OPEN ACCESS TO ALL On March 16, we celebrate the anniversary of former President James Madison. But that day, we also celebrate the legacy he and the founders of this country left us – open government. It is only natural that libraries, which promote open access to information…

  • P.S. Remove the records!

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    eyoung

    When British troops began to advance toward the United States’ new capital of Washington in the summer of 1814, it was clear that government leaders had not prepared an adequate defense for the city and its government buildings. Upon seeing the British advancing toward Washington, Secretary of State James Monroe, dispatched a note to President…

  • The Year of Intelligence

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    eyoung

    The first full year of the Gerald R. Ford administration is known as “The Year of Intelligence,” denoting a season of inquiry into America’s spy agencies set off by a wave of media revelations of official abuses and wrongdoing that predate the current era of media and congressional investigations by decades. Within the Central Intelligence…

  • 4th of July Hours

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    eyoung

    Due to the Independence Day holiday, the James B. Duke Library will close at 5:00 pm on Monday, July 3rd and will be closed on Tuesday, July 4th. We will reopen on Wednesday, July 5th at 8:00 am.  To help get your 4th off to a good start, here are just a few of the library’s…

  • Achievements of a Heroic American Lady

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    eyoung

    The Furman University Libraries are providing a trial to HeinOnline until August 11, 2017. HeinOnline is a fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database. It contains comprehensive coverage from inception of both U.S. statutory materials and more than 2,300 scholarly journals, all of the world’s constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential…