Our new "Reports Library," and how to use it
All the information “Just the Facts” presents about U.S. assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean comes from official government reports. We only cite what we find in writing.
After many years of gathering such reports, we’ve accumulated hundreds of budget requests, “posture statements,” counter-drug strategy reports, human rights certifications, required reports to Congress, GAO and CRS studies, and much more.
We have the equivalent of a few file cabinets’ worth of documents. And as of this morning, we are pleased to be able to share them with you.
Our new Official Reports library is an unparalleled resource for official data about U.S. relations with Latin America. We’re launching it with 260 editions of 106 different reports, and will be adding to it regularly. There’s nothing online quite as extensive.
Here’s how to use it. First, either go directly to http://justf.org/reports or, within “Just the Facts,” hover your arrow-pointer over the word “Links” in the top menu bar, and click on the word “Reports” that appears.
The first thing you’ll see is a brief form with some search options. This is pretty self-explanatory. Or, if you’d prefer to browse all reports in our database, click on “view them all.” This will present them in the order in which they were submitted, newest to oldest.
For this lesson, though, ignore all that. Let’s say we want to see all reports that deal specifically with Central America.
Click on “Reveal more search options.”
This will reveal a large, optional form that may appear intimidating, but is very useful if you spend a moment with it. In the “regarding aid to” list on the right, click on “Central America Regional.” then click on the pink “Search for Reports” button at the bottom.
You will be presented with a page that — as of today — offers twelve editions of nine U.S. government reports specifically about aid to Central America. (Note that this excludes reports about aid to the whole world, which may also have something to say about Central America.)
Let’s say you’re interested in the first report in the list, the 2011 spending plan for the CARSI program, but you’re not sure you want to leave this page. Click on “Click to view.”
Every report in the entire library is a single file in PDF format. (Some of them are rather large.) The PDF of the CARSI Spending Plan will open up in a preview window, which you can expand to full-screen size if you wish.
To make the preview window go away, click on “Click to disappear.” To download a PDF copy of the CARSI Spending Plan for yourself, click on “Click to download a copy.”
That’s the end of the lesson — but there are other features not covered here. (Click on links in the report descriptions, for instance.)
Most of the documents we have collected over the years are in this online library. We’re not quite finished yet, though: there are still a few reports sitting on our hard drives, and many — especially from the 1990s — which we have yet to scan and upload.
Meanwhile, we’re constantly obtaining new reports in order to keep “Just the Facts” as up-to-date as possible. You will see listings for reports that haven’t been submitted yet. Some of these are overdue from the agencies that are supposed to produce them, or at least we haven’t found them yet. If so, we indicate what we’ve done to try to obtain them.
For us, this new section of the website is a big convenience, as it offers quick access to our reference materials and alerts us to what we need to find. We hope that it will be useful to you too.
While we wrote the code for all of this, though, we’re not professional programmers. You may find mistakes or odd behavior. Bug reports and suggestions for usability are very welcome at info@justf.org.