You have likely heard that President Biden extended some forgiveness to holders of federal student loans. Here’s an article with the details from the AP: Student loan forgiveness could help more than 40 million.

There are many different arguments both for and against this executive action, but no matter the case, there are many people curious about how they can take advantage of the savings, and we will likely have some people asking us about the details.

Here’s what I could find so far from a specific page at the Department of Education website, https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief-announcement/ about their three part plan:

• Part 1. Final extension of the student loan repayment pause
  • payments will resume in January 2023
  • this is automatic–nothing needs to be done
• Part 2. Providing targeted debt relief to low- and middle-income families
  • the U.S. Department of Education will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients…and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients…if their individual income is less than $125,000 or $250,000 for households.
• Part 3. Make the student loan system more manageable for current and future borrowers
  • the Biden-Harris Administration is proposing a rule to create a new income-driven repayment plan that will substantially reduce future monthly payments for lower- and middle-income borrowers.
    • The rule would:
      • Require borrowers to pay no more than 5% of their discretionary income monthly on undergraduate loans
      • Raise the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary income and therefore is protected from repayment
      • Forgive loan balances after 10 years of payments
      • Cover the borrower’s unpaid monthly interest

To get the full information about what changes apply to patrons and how to take advantage of them we should direct patrons to the Department of Education site linked above, but this post will familiarize you with the broad basics of the legislation.

ADDITIONALLY: the ed.gov site is frequently running slowly due to high traffic volume.

The Biota of North America Program website aims to compile “…a comprehensive continental flora” catalog for North America.

According to the site such a list has been attempted before, but has not successfully been completed due to the massive task at hand. Not only is there an enormous amount of flora in the contiguous 48 states, when Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico are included the list grows more daunting. BONAP does not, apparently, labor under a delusion that they have or will complete such a work, but they do feel that the advent of the internet and its accompanying collaborative nature can produce a fluid work that holds the potential to realize a satisfactory collection.

On the about page BONAP describes some of their tools in detail:

This site is content rich to the point of almost being intimidating, but it does appear to go a long way to achieving the task. It also is a bit old fashioned looking in 2022, but that means little.

There is absolutely use for such a tool in our department, and it will be interesting to see, as we explore what it has to offer, how much it may be of service to us as we assist patrons in seeking information on North American native plants.

You may have used Zamzar from time to time to help a patron convert a file from one format to another. With that site we’ve helped patrons with such tasks as converting a PDF to a Word document or other similar tasks. Zamzar has worked well enough, but it’s always great to have options, so I’ve added a similar site to our arsenal: Convertio.

Convertio appears more well known and supported than Zamzar, which can be both good and bad depending on other details. The site makes big claims about their utility and bona fides, and can apparently support large daily usage numbers.

They offer a membership, which I can’t imagine us ever utilizing, but we should be fully informed. I would imagine some of the functions of the site are not available for free, so in those instances we’d obviously need to use Zamzar or another free app. We may have patrons interested in the site membership though, so here are the details:

Though typically we’ve converted various text type files for patrons (PDF, Word, etc.), Convertio converts most types of files. Here is a screenshot of me converting a JPEG image file of my own to a WEBP format:

Technically, the free version of the site places a lower priority on file conversions submitted by free users, but this file was converted in under ten seconds. It’s hard to complain about that!

Just to test out the site, both from a utility standpoint and to see if performing other types of transfers incurred a cost of any kind, I converted a video file as well. It took longer, but it still worked great, and I wasn’t asked to pay for anything.

Time will tell if this resource is as useful and user friendly as Zamzar has been for us. Give the site a look when you get a chance.

The Trust Project is a vital, necessary endeavor in today’s treacherous journalism industry. Spurred by cries of “fake news”, the “Main Stream Media” is often under attack as wholesale irrelevant at best, nefarious and evil at worst. The news as we have always known it has lost the trust of many in our country and across the world. The internet has complicated the issue, as anyone with a connection can write whatever they please, and someone skilled enough in the tools can make any sort of information appear trustworthy, legitimate and true.

Sally Lehrman took a look at the problem, asked what could be done about it, and out of this process has grown the site The Trust Project (https://thetrustproject.org/):

The About page begins by stating the mission of the site and elaborates from this point: “To amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices.”

The question about the relationship between technology and trust is a vital one for our times.

One of the core messages of the entire site is a set of principles labeled the “8 Trust Indicators”: questions to ask about a certain news story, organization or trend to help you decide if the information is true and trustworthy:

This site has a lot to offer, and one should take one’s time in order to really glean as much as can be learned about these tools.

There is much to see on this site.

In our department we don’t necessarily deal directly with much of the information that is saddled with the “fake news” tag. The New York Times, Time magazine and others have been fiercely criticized for disseminating false information, but this site remains relevant to our department, despite the lack of the major “news” resources residing in our collection here in Sciref. As librarians, we need to understand the various news outlets, how to discern from among a spectrum of sources from fact-based to obviously suspect.

There are other tools available to us in this quest, but The Trust Project should be one of the chief tools.

The free site How-To Geek styles itself as a site curated by experts that explains technical subjects in easy to understand ways:

A quick look at the home page reveals some of the latest articles written, and while they may not all directly apply to our topic areas, many of them do:

Possibly the most helpful section of the site for our patrons (and ourselves!) is in the dropdown menu for “explore” (sounds familiar, no?). Here’s a screenshot:

Here’s a presentation of topics if you click “Windows” on the previous screen:

Particularly relevant at this time is a section on Libre Office, which has replaced MS Word on many of our patron computers. This article in particular is a recommended read for all of us to be sure when a patron has a question about Libre we’ve already familiarized ourselves with it.

Overall, How-To Geek appears to be authoritative & helpful and it’s definitely free.

The Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States defines invasive species as “Non-native invasive species…that have been introduced by humans either purposely or by accident and that have become serious environmental pests.”

One of the first steps gardeners, homeowners and landscapers can take in discouraging, preventing and eliminating invasives is identification, and this site is a good tool to help with this task.

There is much information on this site, so I’ll just highlight a few features to rustle up interest. First, the site prominently features a link to the EDDMapS site (another article for another day) in which individuals may report sightings of invasive species for tracking purposes. Next there is a link to a list of invasive species in need of sample pictures, and requests for users to add pictures as they can:

The site also links to other helpful resources such as webinars relevant to invasive species issues:

Take some time to peruse the site for more in-depth information, but suffice it to say there is a lot on this site for those interested in the topic.

In order to “…help provide a level playing field for women business owners, the government limits competition for certain contracts to businesses that participate in the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting program.”

The informational site has all the details necessary to answer questions about the program, and may well be a vital resource to certain customers who ask us about starting and maintaining a small business.

You may be familiar with “the weed that ate the south”, aka Kudzu. It is a great example of an invasive plant, or, as the USDA defines it “1. Non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration, and, 2. Whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” This is from Executive Order 13112, which was signed by President Clinton in 1999 in order “…to prevent the introduction of invasive species and provide for their control and to minimize the economic, ecological, and human health impacts that invasive species cause”.

The US Forest Service has a page on invasives, pictured above. Here is the link: https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/invasives/index.shtml

There is also a USDA Invasive Species Information Center website, pictured below. Here’s the link: https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/

There is much to learn about invasives, and, sometimes you may be disappointed to learn that some garden favorites are actually invasives, such as privet.

So, take your time to peruse these sites, and, if we have questions at the PSD about invasives, both of these sites would be great referrals for our patrons.

Rewilding is a popular movement that promotes returning land to as native as possible by protecting certain areas and removing invasive species of plants and animals from the lands to be replaced by native species.

Here’s a pretty good article that explains it more fully from a site called rewilding.org.

We may have patrons ask for books about this topic, and we do have a few, such as Bringing nature home : how you can sustain wildlife with native plants and Nature’s best hope : a new approach to conservation that starts in your yard, both by Douglas W. Tallamy. Ultimately, if a topic is going to be popular, which this one may become, it’s a good idea to have multiple resources available. So, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the sites listed above in case we get some questions about it.

Huntington’s Disease is an incurable condition that has been in the news lately due to some higher profile individuals speaking up about it. From time to time we have patrons who ask us about specifics of a particular disease or condition, and we may not have many conventional resources to address it. That’s where a good set of online resources can be very helpful.

Huntington’s Disease Society of America is a big step in that direction.

Initially, it can be helpful to know exactly what the condition is:

Additionally, we may want to add some resources to our physical collection at some point, and here is a list of books apparently recommended by HDSA:

We need to be mindful to keep as up to date as we can about various issues, and this particular condition has resources to demonstrate how helpful the internet can be as a resource for patrons if we use it properly.