From Our Corner

Exporting online voter signups?

이미지 Washington election officials, including Election Director Nick Handy, were delighted to fill in Oregon's new Secretary of State Kate Brown and her top aides on Washington's experience with online voter registration. The program was quite popular here in its first full… Read more

From Your Corner of Washington

Image

The Olympic Peninsula, Ruby Beach. -Submitted by Ben H.

To submit a photo from your corner of Washington, go here.

Run it up the flagpole ...

이미지 When the Secretary of State offered U.S. flags that had flown over the state Capitol in honor of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, over 200 were snatched up. That was easily a record for a one-week period for special occasion flag offerings. The flags, $14 if purchased at the Secretary's front desk in Oly and $17.25 if shipped by mail, are sold at discount. (The office also… Read more

Flashback: The office then

Same drapes, though those great metal filing cabinets are long gone ...

Image Secretary of State Coe with Rodeo Queen, 1957. From the Susan Parish Photograph Collection, 1909-1981. (Via the Digital Archives online search.)

What is the Future for Library Subscription Databases and the SDL Project?

Back in early December, Google made a significant announcement that may have been overlooked by many librarians. Certainly I didn’t hear about it at the time; in fact, I didn’t learn about it until a week or two ago. What was the announcement? Here’s a brief excerpt:

Read more

Wind through your hair?

Patrick Crawford of Littlerock has filed a simple little initiative that asks voters whether to repeal the mandatory seat-belt and helmet laws and the "blaze orange law" for hunters, and to reimburse fines for the past three years. Drop me an email if you want a copy of the current draft: [email protected] It takes 241,153 valid voter signatures, submitted by July 3, to qualify for the November statewide ballots. A full list is kept up to date on the… Read more

Hi There, Washington

Image Hi there, Washington. The Office of Secretary of State has started this new agency blog to help you keep track of what’s going on here in Olympia and learn about how it affects you. One of our priorities with this space is conversation – we want… Read more

Blog Contributors

Erich R. Ebel is the communications director for the Office of Secretary of State. Kiran Boyal is the office's website and social media coordinator. Derrick Nunnally serves as writer/editor and media relations coordinator for the office. Jamison Murphy and… Read more

Blog Use Policy

The Office of the Secretary of State's blog use policy states that posts and/or comments must not contain vulgar, offensive, threatening or harassing language or personal attacks. Outside comments must be on-topic only. Under state law, we cannot post political statements, such as comments that endorse or oppose political candidates or ballot propositions. We will not post any content promoting or advertising commercial services, entities, or products. Making a comment on this blog does… Read more

Kard Katalog Kat

[caption id="attachment_340" align="alignleft" width="236" caption="Old time card catalog of the Baby Boomers"] 이미지 [/caption] Unlike my cohorts in the prisons, the customers I serve in the large psychiatric hospital of Western State Hospital are not passionate bibliophiles. Mind you, they love movies, magazines and music. Those fly back and forth on the library shelves. But a book-lover? This, alas, is somewhat rare. And so, when I am… Read more

Library Legislation Tracker – January 23, 2009

Courtesy Legislative Planning Committee, Washington Library Association State Bills of Interest. The Washington Library Association(WLA) tracks state legislative activity that will potentially affect Washington Libraries. Their tracker is posted to the WLA web site and we will also post it weekly on this blog. For information on the legislative process or becoming involved see the WLA site referenced above. Click below to view the… Read more

Patrons: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Really, they are not all bad. Yes they have done bad things and they have gotten caught. They are now incarcerated, but occassionaly one of them might surprise you. Working in a prison library I see it all when it comes to patron types. We all have them, the quiet one that comes in every week or couple of weeks. Wouldn't really notice him or her, except that they are just like clockwork. Then there are those that when they walk in the door you cringe, you may even look for a place to… Read more

Coyote Ridge Library—coming soon

I can proudly say that I have visited all of our Institutional libraries here in Washington, or at least I used to be able to. Now I have one new one that I need to visit and from the pictures I would have to say this will be one of the more impressive ones that we have. The pictures show the work in progress as the library is being set up by the dedicated staff at Coyote Ridge. They have their work cut out for them as they unpack thousands of books and CDs. Then comes the fun part,… Read more

WSL Updates, Jan. 22, 2009

Volume 5: January 22, 2009 for the WSL Updates mailing list

Topics include:

1) LIBRARY SUPPORT OF THE COMMUNITY DURING TIMES OF CRISIS

2) CALL FOR PRESENTATION PROPOSALS AT TRIBAL CONFERENCE

3) ALA’S “ADVOCATING IN A TOUGH ECONOMY” TOOLKIT AVAILABLE ONLINE

4) OUTSTANDING BOOKS WITH NORTHWEST SETTINGS

5) NOMINATIONS SOUGHT FOR BCR BOARD REPRESENTATION

6) BRIEFLY NOTED—WASHINGTON READS POSTERS; FIRST TUESDAYS

Read more

Inaguration Day

Like any institution, the psychiatric hospital at Western State Hospital functions on routine. Meals are served, patients are given medications, and everyone participates in educational classes. But Inaguration Day was different. On this day, staff and patients came together as a community of Americans. All classroom TVs were fixed upon this historic moment in the U.S. Presidency. There is something far ranging when an event takes place that is unprecedented in history. The signficance… Read more

Inauguration Day

Photograph of Lincoln taken by Alexander Gardner, 1863. On this Inauguration Day, and in anticipation of Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial in February, we thought it appropriate to revisit Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, one of the great speeches of American history. The text of the speech is found in the… Read more

Library Legislation Tracker – January 20, 2009

Courtesy Legislative Planning Committee, Washington Library Association State Bills of Interest. The Washington Library Association(WLA) tracks state legislative activity that will potentially affect Washington Libraries. Their tracker is posted to the WLA web site and we will also post it weekly on this blog. For information on the legislative process or becoming involved see the WLA site referenced above. Click below to view the… Read more

Language challenge

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="ALA Welcome Poster"][/caption] Walking into the Seattle Public Library you will find several floors of books, DVDs, CDs, magazines, and newspapers with many of them in different languages. This is because the library serves a diverse population and many languages are spoken by its patrons. The same can be said about prison libraries, but you wont find the range of… Read more

Say good-bye Seattle PI?

As part of the State Library's participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) we've been researching Washington's historic newspapers. In the process we take a chronological snapshot of the life of a paper. It is a bit like doing… Read more

IMLS/AAM Offer Museums Opportunity to Assess

Application deadline are due February 15, 2009

Announcement taken from GrantStation Insider; provided by GrantStation in partnership with the Washington State Legislature, Governor Gregoire, and the Washington State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development (CTED)

Read more

Secretary of State
Steve Hobbs

이미지
Image of Secretary of State Steve Hobbs

Connect with Us

Search Our Corner

About this Blog

The Washington Office of the Secretary of State’s blog provides from-the-source information about important state news and public services.

This space acts as a bridge between the public and Secretary Steve Hobbs and his staff, and we invite you to contribute often to the conversation here.

Comments Disclaimer

The comments and opinions expressed by users of this blog are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Secretary of State’s Office or its employees. The agency screens all comments in accordance with the Secretary of State’s blog use policy, and only those that comply with that policy will be approved and posted. Outside comments will not be edited by the agency.