Interested in how things used to be at your depository? You might have them in your own files, or you can contact your regional or GPO's Federal Depository Support Services to ask for copies of past Biennial Surveys and assessments/inspections from your "official file". You may find gems like these:
Your Guide to America's Finances is updated annually and presents information and useful graphics and comparisons about the Federal government's revenue, spending, deficit, and debt.
FRASER is an extensive digital library of economic and financial information. It's hosted by the St. Louis Federal Reserve. The site also has an education page with free resources to use for 6th grade and up.
Nellie Tayloe Ross was the first female governor (WY) and the first female director of the U.S. Mint. This photo from the Library of Congress shows her at her farm in Maryland in 1938.
Elevator speech
Why should we be in the FDLP, what's the value of the program?
Isn't everything online now anyway?
Nobody is using the print collection, right?
You will likely be called on to answer these questions, whether it's by an administrator, family member, or patron in your library. Why not have an elevator speech ready? Your speech should be brief but powerful - you may want to consider themes of civic engagement, successful reference stories, hard data, or a combination of all of those.
Bonus task: have you checked your online guides this year and updated them for both broken links and content?
The Department of the Treasury manages the money resources of the United States. That includes regulating banks, determining economic policy, collecting taxes, and manufacturing money for circulation. This agency therefore includes both the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Mint, and it can tell you the national debt to the penny.
The department was established by the first session of Congress, in 1789. Read a history of the Treasury here and see a list of its current bureaus here.
December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, AL for refusing to give up her bus seat.
December 5, 1933: Raise a glass! Prohibition (18th Amendment) ended when Utah ratified the 21st Amendment.
Do you use Dewey? Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal Classification, was born on December 10, 1851.