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Sarah at the NCSLA Workshop in Research Triangle Park
On Friday, September 25th, I attended the N.C. Special Libraries Association Government Information Workshop, which was held at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Research Triangle Park. Jean Porter, Reference Librarian at Meredith College and formerly Patent Librarian at N.C. State University gave a presentation on finding patent information through searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website and Google Patents, which also covers U.S. patents. Amanda Henley, Geographic Information Systems Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill, also gave a presentation on “Geographic Information Systems - Resources and Applications.” She highlighted some useful online tools such as Batch Geocode and Juice Analytics Excel Geocoder. In addition, Susan Forbes, Assistant Director of the EPA Library in Research Triangle Park, gave an overview of “Finding Government Scientific and Technical Information.” She covered numerous sources of government information, including the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), which is the largest repository of government funded sci-tech reports, and Science.gov, which is a federated search of 14 federal agencies. Other useful websites are Science Accelerator, which is produced by the Dept. of Energy, and MedlinePlus, which is a great resource for consumer health information. Overall, it was a great and informative workshop!