Contributed by Christine Whittington, 10 November 2008

Welcome to our first "Staff Picks" posting! In this space, we will share cool things that we discover but are perhaps too specialized or quirky to add to our subject pages.

Most people do not associate "fun" with "government documents," but librarians at the University of San Diego, the Alaska State Library, and the Tennessee State Library think otherwise. They created Free Government Information, a non-government website with recent posts that include "Using Government Information to Encourage Civic Engagement," "The Transition: Information, Technology, and Information-Technology," and this week's "Guide of the Week," to presidential papers. One of my favorites, however, is the less-serious "Best Titles Ever!" list of entertaining government documents, some of them oddly titled. They include: 

• The M16A1 Rifle: Operation and Preventive Maintenance (a comic book)
• Distinguishing Bolts from Screws
• Do You Know Oatmeal?
• Meat is Ammunition, Play Fair With It!
  
• Health Effects of Pesticide Use on Children
• Hills Bros. Coffee Can Chronology: A Field Guide
• Sprocket Man (another comic book)
• Two EPA documents: Citizenship and the Strawberry Jam and Cooking Up Solutions: Cleaning Up With Lasagna
• My favorite, however, is from a Canadian government document: Who Are the Zombie Masters and What Do They Want?

Best of all, the website offers pdf versions of some of the documents and a "find in a library" link so users can find out where to go to see that actual documents.