You may have heard one of many news reports yesterday about increased nicotine content of cigarettes. The data that these news stories used came from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health where a 1996 state law requires cigarette makers to test the nicotine content of their products and report the results annually.

Less well reported was this tidbit about the U.S. Federal Trade Commission:

The Federal Trade Commission for three decades regularly released reports on the nicotine and tar content of cigarettes -- reports that frequently came under criticism for failing to adequately reflect the amount of nicotine smokers inhale in actual use.

The reports showed that nicotine levels on average had remained stable since 1980, after falling in the preceding decade. The last of those studies was released in September 1999, commission spokeswoman Claudia B. Farrell said yesterday.

The Federal Trade Commission has continued collecting data on nicotine, but she did not know why they have not published reports on the findings.
-- Cigarettes Pack More Nicotine, by Stephen Smith Boston Globe, August 30, 2006

The Los Angles Times reports that, "Massachusetts is one of three states to require tobacco companies to submit information about nicotine testing according to its specifications, and the only state with data going back to 1998." Cigarettes Packing More Nicotine, Report Shows, (From the Associated Press) August 31, 2006.

A short time ago, we posted a story about reallyready.org the website created by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) to highlight the many inconsistencies and faults on the Department of Homeland Security's emergency preparedness website Ready.gov.

Michael Stebbins, director biology policy at FAS, posted an update to the saga on monday. It seems that DHS believes there is some intellectual property infringement going on and so sent a Cease and desist letter (PDF) to FAS.

It seems disingenuous to me that, rather than incorporating FAS' analysis of ready.gov and making a much better, more informative emergency preparedness Web site for the public, DHS resorts to CYA scare tactics, trademark infringement letters, and obfuscation.

An unbiased observer would be forgiven for at least suspecting that DHS is not really concerned about confusing the public, they are using these use mark demands as a way to stifle a site that is embarrassing to them. Rather than worry about what they should be worrying about, providing clear information to the public, they are worrying that they look bad. We could hope for more, but the DHS that we are dealing with turns out to be a bunch of petty cover-your-ass bureaucrats more concerned about embarrassment than doing their jobs. I urge you to read my letter back to them and spread the word.

This is truly an inspiring story. Jared Benedict held 56,000 USGS maps for ransom. that's right, ransom. Benedict purchased the 56,000 public domain maps on CD-ROM from USGS. Then he asked internet denizens to help him recoup his cost of $1600. Once that was met, he sent all of the maps to the Internet Archive for permanent preservation and free access!

Doesn't that just give you tons of ideas for capturing and releasing all sorts of other government information? The Internet Archive better be ready for the steady stream of government documents!

Just wanted to apologize to our loyal readers for the outage over the last 24 hours. In trying to upgrade the functionality of drupal, our CMS, I inadvertantly caused a server crash. We are up and running now. Mia culpa!

I don't have much time left as the August guest blogger, so I will use my current position of power here in the center column to point out the new post by James R. Jacobs over there in the side column: "Google for government spending" blocked by unknown Senator . This post from James concerns S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. My lunching lobbyist friend just let me know that the story is also covered in the August 28 Washington Times. (For those not familiar with the Washington Times, its editorial spin is somewhat different than that of, say, Mother Jones.)

I have wanted to write a post about the power of August recess, and this breaking story gives me just the opportunity.

Don't like what's happening? Talk to your Senators and Representatives in the U.S. Congress. They should be back home for August recess. For some of the flavor of a congressional recess, check out the article "Recess!" by Paul Jenks in the August issue of LLRX.com. Jenks is slightly more cynical than I am about your constituent power during recess, but he does observe that "in Washington [members of Congress] are isolated somewhat from their constituents and are at the beck and call of their national parties, interest groups and the administration. On recess, they are on their own amongst their own." And you certainly have more power than I do: I live and vote in DC.

Whether the topic is the spending database, or net neutrality, or EPA Libraries, you can use what is left of August recess to make government information issues real to your elected representatives. But this is no endless summer. The Senate reconvenes on September 5, and the House reconvenes on September 6.

I just learned something new about the arcane rules that govern the US Senate. In an interesting story first posted on Cox News Service, an unidentified Senator put a "secret hold" on a bill, effectively blocking its passage until such time as that Senator decides to lift the hold. The irony is that the bill, introduced by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., would create a searchable database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance, thereby creating increased govt transparency! Read more about it on Mother Jones. And check out Porkbusters to see where your senator stands on the issue.

In an ironic twist, legislation that would open up the murky world of government contracting to public scrutiny has been derailed by a secret parliamentary maneuver.

An unidentified senator placed a "secret hold" on legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., that would create a searchable database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance, worth $2.5 trillion last year. The database would bring transparency to federal spending and be as simple to use as conducting a Google search.

The measure had been unanimously passed in a voice vote last month by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. It was on the fast track for floor action before Congress recessed Aug. 4 when someone put a hold on the measure.

Now the bill is in political limbo. Under Senate rules, unless the senator who placed the hold decides to lift it, the bill will not be brought up for a vote.

[Thanks Crooks and Liars!]

While reading Bowling for Broadband 2: Toward Citizen-Centric, Broadband-Based E-Government, a ten page report issued by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, I was struck by this paragraph (emphasis mine):

Hardcore Non-Adopters

Recent developments in the market place for Internet access threaten to render the old online vs. offline digital-divide debate a moot point. The nearly 30% of Americans who don’t have any type of Internet access can now be considered hardcore Internet non-adopters. The Internet has been a high-profile part of the nation’s culture for a decade and monthly dial-up access has been universally available for well under $10.00 per month for nearly as long. So, it is hard to make a case that these Americans have not made the intentional choice to stay off line or use someone else’s access. However, broadband providers are still optimistic they can persuade this demographic of the value of broadband. A recent study by Leichtman Research Group shows that the coaxial cable and DSL providers are not simply engaged in a zero-sum competition for each other’s customers. They are actively marketing to the 30% of offline Americans and the 28% who use dialup access with a wide range of packages and prices that are competitive even with “enhanced” dial-up services.

Taking the Census Bureau's latest estimate, there are 299,566,801 American citizens. That means there are over 89,000,000 Americans who do not use the Internet at all, and more than 83,000,000 citizens who currently can't do better than a 56K modem. If you've got a 56K modem, HP estimates that it takes two minutes to download a 768K document. For a not untypical 5MB government document, our 83,000,000 dialup users will have to wait 15 minutes to see the file. That isn't real access.

While Congress, the Government Printing Office and too many documents librarians can't wait for the totally electronic future, such a future will leave over a 170,000,000 million people behind simply because they do not have quick and easy access to broadband. Is that fair? If not, what can we do about it? Should we do anything. Should offline and underconnected people be excluded from knowing about their gov't if they underconnectedness is something under their control?

Don't misunderstand me. I believe in digital government information as an important access tool. Just not the only access tool. Especially when it looks like it will be sole-source access through federal servers.

Dear FGI user:

We're writing you today to ask your help in publicizing the Best Titles Ever page of FGI and the Best Titles Ever group Flickr. Both sites have little hooks inviting people to read our issues pages. The hope is that folks will enjoy the hidden humor of govdocs like "Inmates and Wild Horses: A winning combination" and some small percentage of them might go on to explore the issues surrounding the successful preservation of government information.

What we'd like from you is two-fold:

1) We'd like suggestions of where to send notice of these pages to. So far we've thought of political blogs, since Wonkette picked us up and local television stations, which are so starved for stories they'll run video press releases. Hmm. Anyone want to do a YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) on the Best Titles Ever?

2) We'd like you to join in spreading the word about Best Titles Ever, especially if you have the ear of someone in media, government, professional associations, etc. Below is the blurb I've been sending out. Feel free to adapt it to your own use or offer constructive criticism on how to make it punchier:

-------------------
What do:

+Everything you always wanted to know about shipping high-level nuclear wastes
+The impact of computer aliens along the Mexican and Canadian borders.
+Index of blank forms
+Sprocket Man
+State-of-the-art dummy selection

have in common? They're all titles nominated by librarians to be the Best Titles Ever! produced by government agencies. These documents have spawned a page with cover art (http://freegovinfo.info/best) and a Flickr Photo Group
(http://www.flickr.com/groups/besttitlesever/). We've been covered by Wonkette
(http://www.wonkette.com/politics/funny-pictures/your-tax-dollars-at-hila...) and a number of other blogs
(http://www.technorati.com/search/freegovinfo.info).

On behalf of the volunteers at Free Government Information who maintain the Best Titles Ever! page, I invite you to share this page of wacky government titles with your audience. Once they've had a good laugh, you could point them to our issues page at http://freegovinfo.info/issues and have a look at
our most recent blog entries at http://freegovinfo.info/blog/. While not occasions for belly laughter, I think you might find them interesting.

Sincerely,

Daniel Cornwall
Volunteer, Free Government Information - http://freegovinfo.info/about
900 1st St #14
Douglas AK 99824
daniel.cornwall@alaska.net
-------------------

If you do send a version of the e-mail above, would you let us know by e-mailing admin@freegovinfo.info? We'd like to keep track of who has been hit with this notice and how many times.

Thanks for anything that you can do for us! - Daniel Cornwall, Volunteer, Free Government Information

We've added a new page to the FGI Library, an excerpt from a Federal Judicial Center published book on copyright law explaining how copyright law has been applied to federal, state and local documents.

So please have a look and have a discussion, either here or on the library page.

A recent post on govdoc-l regarding virtual depositories got me thinking about definitions and what exactly IS a virtual depository. So I decided to explore the etymology of the term. Please go to the FGI library and check out "Toward a definition of 'virtual depository'", my little thought piece on what it the term means and how I understand it. By all means, please post comments/ideas/suggestions/diatribes at the end of the page.

Recently the Federal Judicial Center published this book on copyright law:

Copyright Law - Second Edition (2006)
By Robert A. Gorman
Kenneth W. Gemmill Professor Emeritus
University of Pennsylvania Law School

This work is about copyright law and its history, but it has two pages on the copyright of Federal, State, and Local documents that I thought were worth sharing. The text below appears on pages 52-54 of the paper volume and pages 60-62 of the PDF file.

It is obviously in the public interest that persons be able freely to quote from -- and indeed to reproduce in full -- federal statutes, regulations, court opinions, legislative and commission reports, and the like. Section 105 of the Copyright Act provides: "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise." In section 101, a "work of the United States Government" is defined as "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties." The House Report states that the intention is to apply this definition in the same manner as the definition of "works made for hire" by employees in the scope of their employment.130 Not swept within the exclusion under section 105 would be a work commissioned by a branch of the U.S. Government and authored by an "independent contractor" or a freelance writer or artist.

As an example of the operation of these statutory provisions, one might consider this monograph on copyright law, prepared under contract for the Federal Judicial Center. Its author is not an "employee" of the U.S. Government, and so it cannot be prepared as part of any "official duties" with the Government. Accordingly, this monograph is eligible for copyright protection in the name of the author. (The author has in fact agreed voluntarily to transfer the copyright to the Federal Judicial Center, which may and does hold a valid copyright as transferee pursuant to section 105. It is, of course, for the Center to decide whether to enforce that copyright or rather to allow some or all members of the public to make copies.) Had the work instead been written by, say, an employee in the Copyright Office as part of his or her job responsibilities, it would indeed be treated as a work of the U.S. Government and would thus be ineligible for copyright protection.

No express provision of the Copyright Act similarly consigns to the public domain works prepared by employees of state and local governments. In 1888, however, the Supreme Court in Banks v. Manchester131 held that state judicial opinions are ineligible for federal copyright protection because state judges are paid with public funds (the implication being that the public is therefore the owner), and because, as a matter of policy, the public interest is served by free access to the law by persons expected to conform their conduct to it (a "due process" rationale). The same rationales were without much dispute extended to state legislation and administrative regulations. After an uncontentious century, the issue of copyrightability of official state materials has recently come to the fore in two contexts.

The first is the nature and range of state materials that are to be analogized to legislation and court decisions, with copyright denied. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held132 that official county tax maps -- showing the ownership, size, and location of real property parcels in each of the political subdivisions of Suffolk County in New York -- are not automatically stripped of copyright simply because they are authored by county officials and because they are used as a basis for the assessment of property taxes. The court held that the taxing statute affords the public adequate notice of their obligations, so that state ownership of the maps would create no problems of due process, and it remanded so that further evidence could be presented on the issue of the county's need for copyright as a financial incentive for its mapmaking activity.

The second relevant issue of current importance is whether privately authored codes -- such as building codes and fire codes, or even model laws -- that are written by expert groups lose their copyright when they are adopted (often simply by reference) by a legislative body, say in a county or town. The few cases addressing this question have provided a less-than-definitive answer. However, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, concluded in 2002 in a sharply divided decision133 that -- although such privately drafted codes are protected by copyright at the outset -- they are thrust into the public domain when they are adopted by a town as its authoritative legal text, at least when such adoption is actively sought by the drafting body.

The principles of Banks v. Manchester were held to be controlling, although the dissent concluded that a denial of copyright would pose a threat to the useful provision of such codes to busy and underfunded municipal entities. The majority distinguished the situation from the several cases involving the mere "reference" by a city or state to some copyrighted material, privately authored and already in private commercial use; in those cases, involving for example a state's reference for insurance purposes to automobile values contained in the well-known Red Book (of the National Automobile Dealers' Association), the courts have concluded that copyright is not lost.134

Please see book for footnotes.

I hope that this relatively brief excerpt from the book has both helped you to understand copyright as applied to government works and induced you to read the rest of the book which has also been distributed in paper through the Federal Depository Library Program.

virtual: 1. Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name. 2. Existing in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination. 3. temporarily simulated or extended by computer software.
Usage note: When virtual was first introduced in the computational sense, it applied to things simulated by the computer, like virtual memory; that is, memory that is not actually built into the processor.
--from Dictionary.com

Depository: 1. a place where something is deposited or stored, as for safekeeping: the night depository of a bank. 2. a depositary; trustee. 3. of or pertaining to a depository or depositories.
--from Dictionary.com

A recent post on govdoc-l regarding virtual depositories, piqued my etymological interest. please bear with me as I explore the meaning of "virtual depository."

It should be obvious that the two words "virtual" and "depository" are oxymoronic, like jumbo shrimp or military intelligence. The word "Depository" infers that something (money, govt documents...) is actually given to a trusted entity (a bank or library) to be stored for safekeeping. But how can something that's not actually there but only hinted at or pointed to, something simulated and not tangible, be placed in the care of some trusted entity? The term "virtual depository" then, is a misnomer.

Putting aside this perplexity for the time being, let's look at "virtual depository" within a library context. The Govt Printing Office (GPO) has been experimenting with "virtual depositories" since 2002 when they teamed up with the University of Arizona for a pilot virtual depository in which the library selected online resources instead of printed/tangible items. Basically, the project substituted actual deposit of paper documents in the library's collection for links in the library's online catalog to digital documents housed on GPO servers. The FDLP community has been steadily moving toward "virtual depositories" since then as more and more government documents become born digital with no paper equivalent.

As many of our loyal readers know, we at FGI have long advocated for GPO to actually deposit digital documents in depository libraries. Actual deposit (as opposed to virtual deposit) of digital documents, we feel, is an important way to assure access to and preservation of government information (see "Government Information in the Digital Age: The Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program").

A search of current depository management publications failed to turn up any formal definition of a "virtual depository", much less management procedures. So, since there appears to be no official definition of "virtual depository," I'd like to take this opportunity to propose one:

Virtual depository: a collection of digital government documents published by the Government Printing Office (GPO) and/or various government agencies and distributed to and hosted on the local servers of FDLP libraries so as to adhere to Title 44 of the US code and assure the provision of no fee and fully-functional access, distributed digital preservation and better and more expanded services to government information.

This is of course a definition in progress meant to open discussion on what exactly it'll mean to be a depository library in the digital future. I realize that I've proposed a definition after showing it to be meaningless; however, the term has already been released into the wilds of the govt documents community lexicon (and GPO, I assume, will continue to use the term). I thought it best to define it in order to highlight the core roles of libraries (collecting, organizing, preserving and giving access to information). "Digital depository" might be a more meaningful term, so community members may want to start using that instead.

The first step is of course to define our terms clearly and succinctly and hopefully I have done that here. We'd greatly appreciate any comments you may have. And if you can coin a better term, please leave that in the comments as well.

A tip of the FGI hat to the 13th Floor blog of Governing Magazine for bringing the world news of an unusual but helpful remix of government information:

The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (Hardcover)
by Sid Jacobson (Illustrator), Ernie Colon (Illustrator)

That's right, a comic book version of a government report. And one I think would be useful in libraries. Currently sold by Amazon, the graphic novel is being serialized by Slate. I'd strongly suggest looking at the Slate version if you have any doubt your library could use this item. According to CBS News, this version has been endorsed by the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission:

The 9/11 panel’s co-chairs, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, have written a foreword for the graphic novel that praises “the talented graphic artists of this edition for their close adherence to the findings, recommendations, spirit and tone of the original commission report.”

Aside from its worth in explaining the findings of the 9/11 Commission, I think this volume will be useful in explaining the value of permanent no-fee access to fully functional government information. If the report had been done by a private group, a graphic novel would have been much harder to produce because it would be considered a "derivative work" under copyright law and the would be creators would have had to negoiate with the copyright holders who might have felt that a graphic novel would "demean" their serious work. If the report was crippled with (Digital Rights Management) DRM, the creators wouldn't have been able to copy and paste text from the report into their manuscript which would have stretched out its creation. And finally, what would have happened to their idea for a graphic novel if the 9/11 Commission report had been reclassified and/or taken off the web because the government was uncomfortable with its findings? Having public domain, non-DRM'd gov't information distributed in many places helped grow this graphic novel which will likely introduce more people to the report's findings. Will the future be as productive? Look through our issues pages and judge for yourself.

Two recent posts on the beSpacific blog that should be of interest to FGI readers:

• The Nation: Librarians at the Gates - To quote from the article, "While the ethic of secrecy often prevails in the gathering and dissemination of corporate and governmental information, the work of a librarian is imbued with just the opposite."
• Appeals Court's Website Features RSS, Audio Recordings - From the press release, "The next time you see someone pop on the headphones and get that faraway look in his or her eyes, don't be so sure it's a tune that's beguiling them. It just may be the latest oral arguments from the Seventh Circuit."

This post, all earlier postings in this series, and my "not a lawyer" disclaimer can be found at http://freegovinfo.info/title44 or through our library under Nonlawyer's Journey through Title 44.

Sec. 1707

TITLE 44--PUBLIC PRINTING AND DOCUMENTS

CHAPTER 17--DISTRIBUTION AND SALE OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS

Sec. 1707. Reprinting of documents required for sale

The Superintendent of Documents may order reprinted, from time to time, public documents required for sale, subject to the approval of the Secretary or head of the department in which the public document originated. The Revolving Fund shall be reimbursed for the cost of reprints from the moneys received by the Superintendent of Documents from the sale of public documents.

(Pub. L. 90-620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1280; Pub. L. 101-520, title
II, Sec. 208, Nov. 5, 1990, 104 Stat. 2274.)

Historical and Revision Notes

Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964 ed., Sec. 79 (Mar. 28, 1904, No. 11, 33 Stat. 584).

Amendments

1990--Pub. L. 101-520 substituted ``The Revolving Fund'' for ``The appropriation for printing and binding''.

This section of the law seems to simply authorize multiple printings of government documents that prove to be be popular. The issuing agency is given veto power over reprinting documents, but I'm not sure how often this has been done. Perhaps one of our GPO readers would be willing to share if they know of times where GPO has wanted to reprint a document for sale but the agency forbade it.

Not much here, but interesting. Next time we'll look at pricing government documents.

For the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I decided to look up some reports that have been issued by the government in the past year. Along the way I came across some documents from the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. Among those documents was this report that has been written about in the media:

Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared

After searching the GPO Catalog, Open WorldCat, and Google, I have concluded that the report is only available online as a 105 MB pdf file.

Even on a high-speed connection, it could take over an hour to download this file. Using the download estimation tool from HP and figuring 1024K to a Megabyte, download times for this file can vary from 5.3 hours on a 56K modem to 10.3 hours for a 28.8K modem, still used in parts of the country.

With an hour download time even for a ISDN/DSL connection, this file is basically unviewable. If the report had been in HTML format, you could start reading before the file finished downloading, but with a pdf file you have to wait for a sizable portion of the file to load before being able to read the pdf. I can't think of anybody who would wait 15 minutes to be able to view the first part of a report.

So, although the report is supposedly accessible because it was posted to the Internet, it is less accessible than if it had been distributed to depository libraries. If it had been, then a patron could request a copy of the table of contents or the executive summary of the report. As it is, it may as well be locked in a basement. Citizens deserve better.

An earlier FGI post inspired me to write a column about efforts to link documents to the news about them. Take a look at The Government Domain: Government Documents and the News in the August issue of LLRX.com. (Actually, as I write this, the full August issue is not up yet--will be soon--but you can get to my column via the link I just provided.) I give FGI credit in the column so, if people read to the end of it, I may spread some FGI awareness.

I meant to blog about this last week, but things got hectic. Anyway, here's an interesting story regarding the Department of Homeland Security's recently redesigned and updated ready.gov site that was designed to disseminate disaster preparedness information. It turns out that the site is full of inaccuracies and incomplete information so the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) set their intern to analyzing the site.

Emily Hesaltine created ReallyReady.org, modeled after Ready.gov, that addresses the inaccuracies and incomplete information on the DHS site. Read the analysis.

Granted, this is only one govt Web site, but wouldn't it be cool if the public could analyze govt sites and give suggestions/make changes that made those sites more informative and accurate? Can you say wiki-gov-opedia?

[Thanks BoingBoing]

A chance meeting with a tourist at my library led to a fruitful exchange of information and ideas with staff at the Ontario Legislative Library (OLL), which is developing an Ontario Documents Repository.

Annemarie Toth-Waddell of OLL was kind enough to send me a presentation she made on the respository to the Canadian Library Association in June 2006. She gave me permission to post it her at FGI and I think you'll find it well worth browsing through.

A few highlights to whet your appetite for the Powerpoint file:

• As of June 5, 2006, the Library has archived 10,915 monographs, 710 serial titles and 3,203 press releases.
• Only PDF files are stored in archive. Library will convert if not already in PDF.
• Access to repository is currently through catalog.
• Monographs are stored on a dSpace server, but serial titles are stored on a dedicated server.
• All documents are stored on library-controlled servers. Copies of monographs will eventually be stored on a dSpace server sponsored by the Ontario Council of University Libraries.
• OLA appears to view future as one of cross-jurisdictional repositories.

Please look it over. Hopefully more information will become available as the project matures further.

Moral of the story - be nice to all your visitors! It's not just a good idea, but could be a great networking opportunity!

updated 8/23/2006 with clarifying information from Annemarie Toth-Waddell.

Below is FGI's delicious tag cloud and latest 10 posts (I've also put it in the lower right column). We started our delicious experiment a while back. If you use delicious, please consider sending us sites that you tag by adding the "for:freegovinfo" tag (here's more info on the "for:username" tag). Also, if you're using delicious and would like us to add you to the freegovinfo network email us at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info. For background on delicious, see Melissa Rethlefsen's article in Library Journal and check out the delicious-iana I'm collecting. Jump right in. The more the merrier!

Know of something we should have? Tag it on del.icio.us and use the for:freegovinfo tag!

(August 22) FYI: Blake, our fine host at lishost, is working on upgrading the drupal software for the FGI site, but our theme was breaking the upgrade. So just to let everyone know, FGI will be getting a facelift in the coming few days. If anyone's interested, you can see drupal's themes and leave a comment if any of them particularly jazz you. I would be very interested to know what our users think the site should look like, what colors/fonts/layouts are preferred? I won't necessarily choose a theme based on comments, but here's your chance to let us know how you'd like the FGI site to look and feel. Comment away!!

We have weird ads on the DC Metro subway system. They advertise things like fighter jets, the Coast Guard Integrated Deepwater System, or some sort of "government solution." These are not goods the typical consumer can buy. Often I can’t tell what it is they are selling, I only know the target customer is someone who influences federal agency procurement, not me.

Convera has been advertising its new government search engine on the subway since sometime in July. That is how I heard about it. For once, something I could relate to! The search engine, called GovMine, was launched on August 14. Convera is looking to sell its solution to federal agencies, but we the people get some immediate benefit with another free .gov/.mil search engine. GovMine follows quickly on the heels of Google U.S. Government Search, which followed (kind of) on the heels of the new FirstGov search engine, which used solutions from Microsoft and Vivisimo.

I have not had time to take GovMine through its paces, but I can tell you that it seems to bring to the surface some relevant pages that Google and FirstGov do not. That’s the beauty of this competition for federal eyeballs. Another site to try, another possible route to the answer. Take a look at GovMine. Try a simple search and explore the options that pop up with the results screen.

I have written in the past about Google’s product and FirstGov Search for LLRX.com. A new player entered the arena after Google and before Convera: search guru Tara Calishain at ResearchBuzz is offering a tool built on Google Government Search that narrows results by state.

Paul Schaffer asked if we would post this comment by him to the list.

I hope FDLP has pondered the staffing implications of FDsys accomplishing
its stated aims.

If the FDSYS intake arrangements are effective, the number of digital
documents crossing GPO's radar screen will have to be at least double what
GPO was dealing with in the heyday of tangible publications. A decision
will be needed, on each one, as to whether it is "within the scope of GPO's
Federal Depository Library Program."

Eventually some alogrithm will keep track of FDLP's thumbs-up and
thumbs-down decisions, to spare human staffers from sifting through the
obviously-yes and obviously-no digital documents logged by FDsys.

But for two or three years, a huge number of eligibility decisions will have
to be made by human staffers or contractors. If that phase of the effort is
fumbled, the value of all that nifty software will be seriously compromised.
The potential downsides are huge gaps in what gets catalogued, or letting
the GPO Catalog become a random sample of what's in FDsys.

Paul Schaffer pschaffr@rcn.com 646 274 6246

Thanks Paul!

Coincidentally, I got a message from the head of a social science library recently and she made this comment about the recent announcment: GPO Takes Major Step Toward Creating Digital Information Management System: "who is paying for all this now and in the future???"

- jim

How Many and Where Were the Nukes? (18 Aug 2006) "What the U.S. Government No Longer Wants You to Know about Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War." National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 197 Edited by William Burr.

The National Security Archive says:

The Pentagon and the Energy Department have now stamped as national security secrets the long-public numbers of U.S. nuclear missiles during the Cold War, including data from the public reports of the Secretaries of Defense in 1967 and 1971, according to government documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive .

Among the documents censored: U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1964 (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1966).

Hot off the presses:

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

Glenn Greenwald is tracking and analyzing the issue and has updated several times. He includes links to both the opinion and the injunction.