FDLP webinars in March

Webinar: Federal Government Databases and Websites: A Surprising Source of State and Local Data March 14, 2018 2:00 pm EDT According to the GPO and FDLP, his webinar will present an "exciting variety of state and local resources" which can be found by searching Federal Government websites. Resources range from health and nutrition to science and education as well as legislative and judicial information. Websites that provide a surprising wealth of state and local resources include usa.gov, the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP), science.gov, ERIC, and PubMed. Participants will learn strategies for searching for state and local resources using Federal Government databases and websites. Register here to attend the live training webinar.

They are offering a second webinar of interest to librarians: "Digital Content Contributors: Increasing Access to Digitized Content." This one will be held on March 13 at 2 pm. The description: Digitizing parts of your depository collection or considering starting a digitization project? Join us as members of the GPO Partnership Team share information on how your digitized content can be widely accessible through GPO’s govinfo. During the webinar, learn more about the Digital Content Contributor partnerships, how GPO makes decisions on priorities for ingest of content into govinfo, as well as tips on how to package your content for ingest. Register here.
And if you aren't able to attend a webinar the FDLP has all of their webinars and webcasts archived and available on their website.

Congressional Data Challenge

The Library of Congress has announced it is sponsoring the "legislative data challenge" to advance the discovery, use, and exploration of the collection of legislative information it has available on Congress.gov. From the announcement:

"The Library is inviting submitters to use a variety of Congressional publications and data sets available on Congress.gov to create new meaning or tools to help members of Congress and the public explore it in new ways. This could take the form of interactive visualizations, mobile or desktop applications, a website, or other digital creation. Submissions must be entered at Challenge.gov by April 2, 2018; please see the challenge rules for more information. Per the challenge requirements, submitters must use at least one congressional data set from Congress.gov. Submitters may access the data directly from Congress.gov or though GPO’s govinfo, which, in partnership with the Library of Congress, the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, hosts bulk data from Congress.gov for download."

FDsys to retire

The GPO has announced that in December 2018, GPO plans to retire FDsys, and govinfo will take its place as GPO’s source for official Government information. FDsys has been the GPO's online portal to information since 2009; the more modern and mobile-friendly govinfo debuted in 2016.
 While FDsys will remain available until its "retirement", users are encouraged to transition to govinfo. Immediately before FDsys is retired, redirects from FDsys to govinfo will be enabled, but GPO advises that users should prepare for the FDsys retirement by proactively updating their systems and links to point to govinfo instead of FDsys. govinfo offers many enhancements over FDsys including:
• Optimization for display on mobile devices
• More relevant and precise search results
• Integrated social media sharing
• New Related Documents feature
• Curated content and new ways to browse
• Developer tools and data feeds
• Expanded help and resources
There's more information about the transition on the govinfo website.