GODORT News

Today I am highlighting Vermont, the last of the “orphan pages” from the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project.

Like several of our other orphan pages, Vermont has a stub list of five databases:

Corrections

• Offender Locator- Provides inmate name, ID number, DOB, location – whether facility or home, caseworker, and telephone where available. The website is updated daily.

Courts

• Vermont Courts Online – Fee-based. According to the website, “Vermont Courts Online provides access to calendar information for all of Vermont’s District and Family Courts and 12 of 14 Superior Courts; as well as detailed case information for 12 of 14 Vermont Superior Courts (civil and small claims cases). Records not open to public inspection by statute or court rule are not contained on this website.”

Public Safety, Department of

• Sex Offender Registry – Searchable by name or county. Records include photo of offender, current address, risk rating and conviction offenses.

Secretary of State, office of

• Combined Database Search – Not sure whether you’re looking for a business, a licensed individual, or a UCC filing? Search ‘em all with this combined search of all VT Secretary of State Databases. Searchable just by last name and first name. Use last name if searching by name of business. Results vary by orginal database, but all should at least return contact information.

Vermont Housing Finance Agency

• Directory of Affordable Rental Housing (DoARH) – Searchable database of federal/state subsidized rental housing in Vermont. Can search by county, city or zip code with ability to limit to senior or disabled housing. Produced in partnership with the University of Vermont.

Nothing has been added to the page since November 2007.  Does this seem like a proper fate for a state like Vermont? Do you know of other searchable databases produced by Vermont state government? Do you have an affinity for New England? Then adopt the Vermont page by going to our project’s Page Volunteer List and putting your name next to Vermont. Then get busy expanding the list of databases.

For some people, the Dakotas are out in the middle of nowhere.  In the land of the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project, this is only half true.  The North Dakota page has a documents specialist. But South Dakota has no one to care for it and so is our featured orphan page this week.

South Dakota is another page with a handful of databases including:

South Dakota Sex Offender Registry – From the website, “This information is being made available on the Internet to facilitate public access to information about persons who have committed sex offenses to enable you to take appropriate precautions to protect yourself and those in your care from possible harm.” The format allows for two types of search, text and map.

Buildings and Land Search From the website, “For the busy executive looking to expand, the South Dakota Buildings and Land website offers information on sites available in South Dakota. And, to move you past that time crunch, we’ve provided all available buildings and land in a searchable database. Search by key factors including: size, type of property, pricing options and location. The database will give you a list of appropriate properties plus links to details on each of these matches. As a bonus, you’ll also gain immediate access to demographic and labor summaries for your matches.”

Public Depository Protection Quarterly Reports – From the website, “These reports show the bank name, location, public deposits, time & savings accounts, municipal bonds, net loans, domestic deposits, total securities, letters of credit, surety bonds, adequacy of collateral, and maximum liability. Under the column of adequacy of collateral if that figure has parenthesis around it, it means that particular bank was under pledged for that quarter.”

Do you know if there are more? If so, please consider adopting the South Dakota page by going to our Page Volunteer List and adding your name next to South Dakota. Or send an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net. Either way I hope you’ll add what you know and make yourself publicly available for e-mail reports of broken links and other questions about the page.

New Jersey is the next orphan page in our tour of pages in the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project without a documents specialist.

New Jersey actually has a fair number of databases, added by people too shy (or perhaps too busy) to list themselves as a documents specialist. Some of these databases include:

Colonial Marriages, 1666-1799 – Index of marriages searchable by first and last name (bride and/or groom), their respective places of residence, and/or the year of marriage.

Brownfields SiteMart – Database of both former and current commercial and industrial sites, “currently vacant or underutilized and on which there has been, or there is suspected to have been, a discharge of a contaminant.”

New Jersey Environmental Digital Library – “NJEDL is an online library of environmental literature and multimedia related to New Jersey. The collection includes documents and reports, scientific studies, photographs, videos, maps, and more.” The project is a collaboration between the Rutgers University Libraries and the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.

While there are a healthy number of databases on the New Jersey page, it could still use a public documents specialist who would occaisionally check the page for broken links, take e-mail questions about the page, and of course, keep an eye out for new NJ databases. If you are willing to be that person, please go to the Page Volunteer List and add your name next to New Jersey or send an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net.

Mississippi lags in a number of national indicators of well being. It also lacks a documents specialist to maintain its page for the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project.  The Mississippi page currently lists about a dozen state agency produced, publicly searchable databases including:

Online Roster of Licensees – Database of individual Professional Engineers, Professional Surveyors, firms, corporations and partnerships. Search by name, city or Mississippi county.

Well and Permit Databases – Set of drop-down driven databases related to oil production. One of the more unusual searches is for “scout cards” which gives you depth and geologic data for specific wells. Example from Abbot Field

Find a Psychologist – Search for licensed psychologists in Mississippi by last name or city.

Can you expand this list? If so, please adopt this page by adding your name next to Mississippi on the Page Volunteer List or by sending an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net.

Today’s “orphan page” of the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project is Maine.   This page is a real opportunity for a documents librarian or other lover of state government information to make a serious contribution. You see, the Maine page currently only lists these five databases:

Maine Arts Commission

• Arts & Cultural Businesses – Need a Maine-based dance group? Perhaps some folk singers? Maybe an arts festival? This is your database. Searchable by name, discipline or county. Records include contact information, seasonal and geographic ability, plus fees and preferred audiences.

Maine Health Data Organization

• HealthWeb of Maine- Database providing customized reporting in the areas of Quality, Terminology, Public Health Data (births, deaths, injuries), Hospital Inpatient Data, Hospital Outpatient Data, and Emergency Department Data. Most queries can be searched and/or sorted by age, gender, region, disease or injury, etc. This set of databases can answer questions like how many women were admitted to emergency rooms for drug poisoning in 2005.

Maine State Archives

• List of downloadable databases – The Maine State Archives has a number of electronic files which are not web searchable, but can be downloaded into a database program like MS Access. Databases are available in the categories of repository tools, vital records, indexes to archival records, and “other indexes.”

• Death History Search – Database of death records from 1960 to 1996. Searchable by Last Name, First Name, Middle Name, Town of Death and date range. Results include name, date and town of death, age at death and death certificate number. Actual certificates must be ordered from the Maine State Archives.

• Marriage History Search – Searchable index of most records between 1892 and 1996. Database can be searched by Brides Name, Brides Town, Grooms Name, Grooms Town, and Marriage Dates. Records provide names, location and date of marriage and certificate number. Actual certificates must be ordered in paper from the Archives.

I personally refuse to believe that these are all the searchable databases that the State of Maine has to offer.  If you agree and want to expand this list, please either put your name next to Maine on the Page Volunteer List or send an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net and get started.

If you know something about databases produced by the State government of Indiana and you’re looking for an opportunity to collaborate with other government information enthusiast, please volunteer for the Indiana page of State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States.  Indiana is one of seven states in this State and Local Documents Task Force project that does not currently have a documents specialist to keep the page updated.

We know that Indiana has a few interesting databases, including:

Lesson Locator Database – Guided search of detailed lesson plans by grade, subject and Indiana state standard. See this sixth grade lesson on heating things up as an example.

Digital Image Library – Searchable by keyword and limited by collection, this site provides a number of digital resources including various Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, information and images about poet James Whitcomb Riley, prominent African-American businesswoman Madam C.J. Walker, art from 19th century artist Karl Bodmer, letters from Ben Hur author Lew Wallace during his service as New Mexico’s territorial governor, and many other resources.

But there has to be more than what is listed on the Indiana project page.

Help us to provide full national coverage of state agency produced, publicly searchable databases. If you’d like to help, please either e-mail dnlcornwall AT Alaska DOT net or visit http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Page_Volunteer_List.

When the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project was launched in June 2007, one of its goals was for every US State to have a “documents specialist” care for its page. The “documents specialist” could be a librarian or just someone very interested in her state government. The document specialist for a State’s page would:

• Add as many public searchable state agency-produced databases as possible.
• Serve as an e-mail contact for people with corrections or questions about databases on the page.
• Check the page once in awhile for broken links and fix them.

That was the vision and it is mostly fulfilled. If you look on our Page Volunteer List at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Page_Volunteer_List, you’ll see that 43 States and the District of Columbia have a documents specialist. That’s looking at the glass 86% full and that is not a bad thing.

But I want to fill the other 14% of the glass and I’d like you to help me. For each of the next seven weeks, I’ll mention a state that does not yet have a documents specialist and ask you to adopt it.

Today’s orphan state is Illinois. The databases page for it is http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Illinois.  The page current features databases from 11 agencies. Some of the databases include:

Open Book – From the website, “a searchable database of state contracts and campaign contributions. This website combines information from the Comptroller’s accounting system with official semi-annual campaign finance disclosure reports filed by political committees with the Illinois State Board of Elections. The data is presented in a format that allows users to enter the name or partial name of an entity that conducts business with the State of Illinois and compare that entity’s State contracts with political contributions it made.”

Professional License Lookup – Search by name and profession or by license number. According to the website, “License Look-up results include the Licensee’s Name, License Number, License Status, City and State, Original Date of Licensure, License Expiration Date and Disciplinary Action Indicator.” Covered professions include doctors, accountants, alarm contractors, among others.

Sex Offender Registry- Search by last name, first name, zip code, status and offender type. Records have Dates of Birth, offender photograph, aliases, physical description and last known address.

In addition to the databases above, it also has an impressive set of databases for archival records.

If finding stuff like the databases above interests you, check out the project page for Illinois. If you know of state agency produced databases that aren’t there, please adopt the page. Send an email to dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net if you do. Thanks!