World Conservation Monitoring Centre

United Nations World Conservation Monitoring Centre

http://www.unep-wcmc.org/

Part of the United Nations Environmental Programme, the WCMC's mission is to "evaluate and highlight the many values of biodiversity and put authoritative biodiversity at the centre of decision-making."
Check out the interactive maps or section on parks and protected areas, or review the various international agreements on biodiversity.

Subscription Savings

SSO Tenants

The SSO Library offers tenants significant savings on:

Leadership Directories - Congressional, Federal, State

Congressional Quarterly and National Journal publications

Contact Marianne in the SSO Library for more information: mreiff@sso.org or 202-624-5485

Annual Capital Expenditures - 2005 Report

From the Census Deparment:


Capital Spending Up 10 Percent, Reaches $1.1 Trillion

Businesses invested $1.15 trillion in new and used structures and equipment in 2005, the largest increase since 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reports.

The 2005 level surpassed the 2004 total of $1.04 trillion by 10 percent, according to the Annual Capital Expenditures: 2005 report, based on the Annual Capital Expenditures Survey (ACES).

The report can be accessed at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/ace-05.pdf
Spending on new structures and equipment accounted for almost $1.07 trillion or
93.2 percent of the 2005 total. Nearly two-thirds of this spending ($702.2 billion) went for new equipment, with the rest ($365.7 billion) allocated to new structures.

These and other findings are included in the report, which defines capital goods as business assets that have an expected use of more than one year and are usually depreciated. The report shows estimates of investment by all nonfarm businesses, including businesses with and without employees.

Best Corporate Citizens

100 Best Corporate Citizens 2007

Environmental responsibility. Corporate governance and ethics. Fairness toward employees. Accountability to local communities. Providing responsible products and service to customers. Maintaining a healthy rate of return for investors.
Those are just some of the challenges of responsible business in the 21st century, challenges that are being met head-on by the 100 companies listed.
These are the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2007—companies that are proving that good corporate citizenship and good business go hand in hand.

Top 5

1) Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
2) Advanced Micro Devices
3) NIKE
4) Motorola
5) Intel
Google (29) and Microsoft (40) also made the list.

+ Direct to Complete List (2 pages; PDF)+ Methodology
+ 2006 Materials
Source: CRO (Corporate Responsibility Officer)

Core Health Indicators

This site offers the latest statistics from World Health Organization (WHO) publications such as World Health Statistics and World Health Report.

Find data by country or region, year, and a large selection of vital and epidemiological indicators such as deaths, life expectancy, diseases, risk factors, and access to health care. From the WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS).

URL: http://www3.who.int/whosis/core/core_select.cfm

CRS Reports

From ResourceShelf.com - DocuTicker

Congressional Research Service Reports

These reports can be hard to find, but Senior Editor Shirl Kennedy does a great job of finding new ones and updating old ones. Includes CRS Reports on Military and Defense, Food and Agriculture, Energy, and Government and Politics.


http://www.docuticker.com/?cat=57

Migration Policy Institute Data Hub

From the Migration Policy Institute:

MPI Data Hub’s First Release: A Cutting-Edge State Data Tool

The newly created MPI Data Hub includes a tool that provides the most current demographic and social information on the foreign born in each state.
Direct to State Data Tool

The MPI Data Hub showcases the most current demographic, social and economic characteristics of US immigrants at the state level, as well as stock, flow, citizenship, asylum, and historical data for 17 countries. Use the interactive maps to see where foreign-born groups live in the United States and the countries of origin and destination of migrants globally.

American Community

From the Census Department:

The American Community: 2004

These three reports present a portrait of racial and ethnic population groups in the United States based on data from the 2004 American Community Survey.
Each report provides information on a number of characteristics (e.g., education, household type, income, commuting, etc.). Data are presented in tables, figures, and maps. In addition, the Asian and Hispanic reports present data for selected detailed groups (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese for Asians; Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, and Peruvians for Hispanics). Two additional reports on the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population and the American Indian and Alaska Native population will be released later this year.
Internet address:
The American Community – Hispanics: 2004 http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-03.pdf
The American Community – Blacks: 2004
http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-04.pdf
The American Community – Asians: 2004
http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-05.pdf

NOAA Watch

NOAAWatch

This site aggregates real time weather, climate, and environment related news and statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. The site is referred to as NOAA’s “All Hazard Monitor.”

Features include:

Current Conditions (by City, State), Weather Summary Map of the United States; Weather Outlook; Maps of Doppler Radar, Current Weather Warnings, River and Lake Levels; Event Satellite Imagery
Beyond the home page, the site is also organized in sections by theme:
Tropical Weather; Fire Weather; Tsunamis; Severe Weather; Flooding; Droughts; Volcanoes; Earthquakes.

Each of these theme pages provides direct links to watches/warnings. databases, lists, and other real time info. For example, the tsunami section offers direct access to the DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis) database.

Science.gov

Science.gov is a gateway to over 50 million pages of authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. government agencies, including research and development results


http://www.science.gov/index.html

In February 2007, the Science.gov Alliance launched version 4.0, which allowed even further refinement of search queries. For the first time, patrons could search within their original results. In addition, the relevancy ranking algorithms became more sophisticated, providing ranking of the entire full text of documents on sites where searchable full text resides. Date of the document was priority-weighted for ranking purposes. A new feature allows patrons to share search results via e-mail with colleagues and friends.
Science.gov 4.0 employs technology to enable distributed nodes to operate in a grid computing paradigm to facilitate a rapid analysis of full text. Grid technology would allow improved relevancy ranking of search results.
A number of participating agencies are members of CENDI, which provides administrative support and coordination for science.gov. These agencies are committed to serving the information needs of the science-attentive citizen, including science professionals, students and teachers, and the business community. The Alliance and science.gov were formed in response to the April 2001 workshop, "Strengthening the Public Information Infrastructure for Science."

2010 Census

State, Local and Tribal Governments Benefit by Early Participation in the 2010 Census

The U.S. Census Bureau has begun mailing informational booklets to all state, local and tribal governments asking for their assistance in providing updated addresses for their communities, part of an early, concerted effort to make the 2010 Census as accurate as possible.

For more information about (LUCA) go to:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/2010_census/009589.html

"Decennial census data directly affect how more than $200 billion in federal grant funding is distributed to state, local and tribal governments each year," said Bart Peterson, president of the and mayor of Indianapolis, Ind. National League of Cities. "Clearly, the stakes are high, and a partnership with the LUCA program will ensure cities and towns nationwide receive their fair share of funding for neighborhood improvements, public health, education, transportation and much more."
Audio: Colleen Landkamer, president of the National Association of Counties and a county commissioner from Blue Earth County, Minn., has a message for local and tribal governments.
For more information about the 2010 census activities and timeschedules go
to:
http://www.census.gov/2010census/

BNA Web Watch

Free from BNA:

Web Watch:
A new compilation of web-based resources from BNA.
This resource was built by BNA librarian Laura Gordon-Murnane.
Archived editions of Web Watch are linked along the left margin.
There is no charge or registration needed to access Web Watch.

Climate Change

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) This panel, established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), assesses "the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation." The panel's websites features reports (including the 2007 report declaring "warming of the climate system is unequivocal"), details about working groups, press releases, and related material. Some documents available in multiple languages.
URL: http://www.ipcc.ch

State Government Finances

From the Census Department - Now Available:

2005 State Government Finances
Detailed data for each state on revenue (such as taxes and federal aid), expenditures (such as police, fire and education) and cash and security holdings.
Internet address: http://www.census.gov/govs/www/state.html

State of the States 2007

Here is the link for Stateline's most recent State of the States Report.
It is a 52 page pdf document, with many statistics and charts.
Source: Stateline.org

http://archive.stateline.org/flash-data/Stateline's_State_of_the_States_2007.pdf

Federal 2008 Budget

Just Released: Fiscal Year 2008 Budget (FY08) of the United StatesTransmitted to Congress on February 5, 2007. Covers the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2007.
+ Description of Documents Released Today and About the United States Budget.
+ Browse All Budget Documents (PDF)Budget Documents Appendix Supporting Documents Related Documents Spreadsheets
+ Keyword Search Documents**Searches Only Analytical Perspectives, Historical Tables, Appendix
+ Download All Entire Budget (8.8 MB, Zip File)
+ Search Previous Documents (Back to 1997)
Source: Office of Management and Budget (via GPO Access)

The SSO Library has copies of the FY 2008 budgets of various agencies. These can be checked out by SSO tenants.

National Consumer Protection Week - February 4-10

National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) NCPW highlights consumer protection and education efforts around the country. This site provides links to "information from federal, state, and local government agencies, and national consumer advocacy organizations" on the topics of consumers, business information, and international organizations. Also includes links to previous NCPW websites back to 1999. In English and Spanish. From consumer.gov, the "source for consumer information from the federal government."
URL: http://www.consumer.gov/ncpw/

EM-DAT : the International Disaster Database

Here's a Web site that offers a database providing information on natural and man-made disasters:

http://www.em-dat.net/


The EM-DAT Emergency Disasters Database, maintained by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), provides access to useful information concerning both natural and manmade disasters. Data extend throughout most of the 20th century and include but are not limited to disasters such as famine, wind storms, extreme temperature, industrial accidents, drought, and earthquakes. In addition to viewing the date and frequency of particular disaster types by country or region, the EM-DAT Database also generates the number of people affected, injured or killed and the estimated financial damage.
Included in the database:+ Country Profiles+ Disaster Profiles+ Disaster Lists
An advanced search interface also provides many search options.
Source: WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters

Presidents Web Site

Here is a web resource for information on U.S. Presidents:

American President: An Online Reference Resource Collection of material about U.S. presidents, including "essays about each President and their lives before, during, and after their presidential terms. It additionally provides information about the First Lady and cabinet officials of each administration." From the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.

http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/academic/americanpresident/