From USCourts.gov:

An increase in the electronic public access (EPA) fee, from eight cents to 10 cents per page, will take effect on April 1, 2012.

Local, state and federal government agencies will be exempted from the increase for three years. Moreover, PACER users who do not accrue charges of more than $15 in a quarterly billing cycle would not be charged a fee. (The current exemption is $10 per quarter.) The expanded exemption means that 75 to 80 percent of all users will still pay no fee.

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) has signed a cooperative agreement with the University of Virginia and its Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to provide pre-publication access to 68,000 historical papers of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington that have not yet been published in authoritative documentary editions.

• Online Access To The Founding Fathers Papers, "Press Release," The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (September 29, 2011).

  David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, notes, "These documentary editions provide a treasure trove of information about the founding of our nation. The historical documents contain fascinating details about the thoughts, deeds, and lives of these seminal figures. This agreement ensures that we leverage the latest technology and processes to ensure that all Americans can access and use these papers."

• National Historical Publications and Records Commission

C-SPAN will feature 3 hours on the topic of Poverty in America Sunday, October 2, 2011 on C-SPAN 1 from 7am - 10am (EDT).

Announcement from C-SPAN:

Poverty in America

This Sunday, October 2, C-SPAN's Washington Journal program presents "Poverty in America", looking at the face of poverty and the Federal, State, and community programs aimed at reducing poverty.

Poverty by the Numbers
7:45am - 8:30am ET on C-SPAN
A look at the recent Census data showing a record 42.6 [sic, 46.2] million people are now living in poverty in America. We’ll look at the demographics of who is living in poverty, how the face of poverty has changed since the economic downturn and how poverty is measured.

Federal Programs & Poverty
8:30am - 9:30am ET on C-SPAN
A discussion on federal poverty-related programs: what they are, how much they cost, and their efficacy in reducing poverty.

Programs to Fight Poverty
8:30am - 9:30am ET on C-SPAN
A look at one of the many community programs to help fight poverty and how they partner with the federal government. We feature the "Half in Ten" campaign, which aims to cut poverty in half in ten years.

See also:
Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010 (Sept 13, 2011)

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010 Current Population Reports, P60-239, Issued September 2011.

Census.gov › People and Households › Poverty Main

Proposed cuts to Congress's investigative arm spark protest, By Alexander Bolton, The Hill (09/29/11).

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Republican, Sen. John Hoeven (N.D.), have crafted legislation to cut Congress's budget by 5.2 percent, or $200 million. Nearly $42 million in savings would come from the GAO budget.

Hat tip to Benton.

Hello From DC.

Here are some catchup items from the past couple of weeks that I was unable to get to when the stories were first posted over the past 10 days.

I've culled a selection of items from our INFOdocket.com site that we update seven days a week.

We hope you find them useful.

1. EPA Launches New Mapping Tool to Improve Public Access to Enforcement Information

2. Gov Docs: Enhancements Made to GPO’s MetaLib Federated Search Resource

3. Reference Resource: New Economic Indicator Database Search Available from Census Bureau

4. Canada: Government Documents: Library and Archives Canada Digitizes Past Issues of the Canada Gazette (1841-1997)
More than 150 years of content.

5. Privacy: Social Media: U.S. Congress Members Want FTC To Investigate Facebook Tracking
Includes link to full text of a letter sent to FTC.

6. Privacy: “WSJ.com Begins Tracking Personal User Information Without Consent”

7. Reference: New York City: “Detailed Crime Data Online” (New Database)

8. Online Civil War Era National Cemeteries Travel Itinerary Launched by the National Park Service

9. Recently Launched: PACER Training Site

10. A Collection of International Mobile Statistics from the ITU

11. Recently Released: Library of Congress Annual Report, FY 2010

12. Reference: Nuclear Energy: A New Science Tracer Bullet from the Library of Congress

13. New From CRS: Social Media and Disasters: Current Uses, Future Options, and Policy Considerations

14. NCES Releases Projections of Education Statistics to 2020

15. HHS Announces Text4Health Task Force Recommendations and Global Partnership

16. New CRS Report: Illegal Internet Streaming of Copyrighted Content: Legislation in the 112th Congress

17. U.S. Dept. of Energy Scientific Research Data Now Easier to Find, Datasets Now Being Registered with DataCite

18. Reference: USAID Releases Open Data and Maps on Famine in the Horn of Africa

Via INFOdocket.com

From the Medill News Service (For the Associated Press):

Eight of 10 members of Congress are tweeting and using Facebook, but only a handful use the social media sites to reach out to one of their most elusive constituent groups – Millennials, according to some experts.

“I think there is room for improvement with everyone across the board, no matter where you are ideologically, in talking to young people,” said Ron Meyer of Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth advocacy group.

The article includes two sidebar with statistics. Here are a couple of examples:

* Rep. Darrell Issa — @DarrellIssa — , R-San Diego, is the most frequent tweeter, averaging 13.6 tweets per day.

* Two-thirds of congressional tweeters predominately use Twitter.com directly. The other third uses Twitter applications. The most commonly used application is TweetDeck, with 12.7 percent of congressional offices using the application more often than not.

* The most popular day of the week to tweet on Capitol Hill is Wednesday. One member, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher — @DanaRohrabacher — R-Huntington Beach, tweets most on Sundays. He also replies the most often: 56.4 percent of his tweets are replies.

Read the Complete Article

From USCourts.gov:

More than 160,000 new accounts in the federal judiciary’s Public Access to Electronic Court Records (PACER) service were established in fiscal year 2011. That’s an average of more than 3,000 new accounts each week.

The PACER service center, located in San Antonio, responded to about 165,000 telephone calls and about 42,000 emails in FY 2011. More than one-third of the existing 1.3 million PACER accounts were active over the course of the fiscal year that ends September 30, 2011.

(via INFOdocket)

I’ve enjoyed my time as a guest blogger for FGI. To wrap up, I’d like to share a story.

This summer, my household ran smack in to a preservation problem. It all started with fresh paint. My husband started to paint the living room and dining room. A color even, moving us away from 15 years of sensible beige. We were embracing the future. It seems like a good opportunity to have the drapes cleaned. They were old, came with the house, and had a vintage floral theme. They were perfect. But not perfectly preserved, as it turned out. The cleaner called, after testing one panel, to say the lining shredded. Too much sun damage (yes, even here in Seattle). We fussed a bit – considered and abandoned a variety of salvage schemes (for example, cutting the linings out, until we learned the hems shredded as well) – and eventually retrieved the drapes from the cleaner. They have been in the trunk of the car ever since. The rooms are painted now – and look lovely – but the windows are bare.

Our technical services librarian has an interest and expertise in preservation. She’s also a sister crafter, so I consulted her about my dilemma. After telling her the story, she laughed and said “this is just like our library.” And she’s right. The UW Gallagher Law Library has a rich print historical collection of legal and government information. Much of it is falling apart. We are a public institution with a shrinking materials budget. We don’t have the funds to preserve all of the collection, and we can’t afford most of the available digital collections as a substitute for print. So how do we decide? What parts of the collection do we preserve and what do we digitize? Can we salvage anything? Should we buy acid free boxes or just tie volumes? Can some of the fabric become throw pillows? What can we afford to license? Are we headed for a big box store purchase when our heart longs for something we truly cannot afford? Should we go the DIY route, if we can’t afford commercial services? Do we keep our old volumes on the shelves or do we need to empty the trunk of the car to make room for the next thing?

And what do the users want, and how does that impact our decision-making? Our household users (the dogs) didn’t like the disruption of the painting, but they really like looking out the unobstructed window. It’s great for them, actually, since they no longer have to wait for an intermediary with opposable thumbs to open the drapes. They can investigate the world of our street whenever they choose. The intermediaries are fretful, however. We pay the heating bills and know something needs to be done before the damp chill sets in. We think about the future, and the budget. Plus we liked the old drapes. We own them, and we know how to operate them. We don’t like this change, forced upon us by the passage of time.

I’m still wrestling with the drapery dilemma. As for the library dilemma, there is the global picture, which includes digital preservation and consortial arrangements such as LIPA: Legal Information Preservation Alliance, and has been well articulated here on FGI. But I’m interested in the local picture of our library.

I do like the idea that if each individual library works to serve our patron base, and shares what we have, it will, in the end, all work out. My hope is that libraries like ours will ask the right questions. That we’ll thoughtfully consider the answers. That we’ll be good stewards of our resources and try to preserve what’s unique in our collections. That we’ll think about today’s users, and tomorrow’s users, and our role as the largest public law library in the Northwest. Easier said than done, just like a household project. But in the end, it could work.

There are a lot of parallels between journalism and librarianship and between newspapers and libraries in the digital age. In a recent article, one journalist has suggestions for journalists that, I believe, have analogies for librarians. One useful idea: the need for mentors (with lots of experience) for the new generation of librarians.

• Why we need to separate our stories from our storytelling tools, By David Skok, Nieman Journalism Lab (Sept 28, 2011).

  In the digital world, the tools we use to tell the world's stories -- Twitter, Google, Facebook -- control us as much as we control them. I am a digital journalist, and I’m enthusiastic about what our new platforms can provide us in terms of telling stories. But I also wonder whether we’re letting our tools define, rather than serve, the stories we tell.

  ...Twitter, Google, and Facebook -- to take the most prominent examples -- are wonderful tools that open up a whole new universe of communication, interaction, and reporting. But that's all that they are: tools. And they are tools, of course, that are provided by profit-driven companies whose interest lies as much in their own benefit as our own.

  ...And the onus is on digital journalists to welcome veteran reporters into the future’s fold -- to help them navigate the new tools that will inform, if not define, the shape journalism takes going forward.

  But the onus is also on digital journalists to learn from the veterans -- to learn reporting methods and narrative techniques and skills that have nothing to do with Google or Facebook or Twitter, and everything to do with journalism as it's been practiced throughout its history. The veterans may not be able to show you how to create Fusion tables, but I can promise that, from them, you'll learn something new that will help your reporting more than the latest tools ever could.

As a companion piece on a different, but related, subject I like this article from the new blog at the Chronicle

• Curate for What Ails Ya, By Ben Yagoda, Chronicle of Higher Education Lingua Franca blog (September 28, 2011).

  [The web] has developed in a such a way that raw data are sorted and organized not by human hands but by algorithms (number of page views, number of thumbs-up, Google's secret sauce, Wikipedia's universal access and veto power) that are certainly democratic and often useful, but just as often bring in too much noise and too much funk.

  Curating the word and curating the phenomenon suggest a welcome recognition that some situations demand expert taste and judgment.

From the NARAtions Blog:

The National Archives just joined iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store giving users public access to thousands of free lectures, videos, books and podcasts from learning institutions all over the world. If you already have iTunes on your iPhone, iPad, iPod, or computer, you can search for “National Archives” on iTunes U to find our channel, or visit us at http://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/national-archives-and-records/id4.... Our initial collections feature selected archival documents, lesson plan materials, podcasts by the Presidential Libraries, videos from our “Inside the Vaults” series and more.

(Via INFOdocket.com)

From EPA HQ:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is observing Pollution Prevention (P2) Week (September 19-25, 2011) by launching a new tool designed to provide Americans easy access to information about everyday products like home appliances, electronics and cleaning products that can save money, prevent pollution and protect people’s health. The new green products web portal is available at www.epa.gov/greenerproducts.

Using the new tool, consumers can find electronics and appliances that have earned EPA’s Energy Star label and can browse WaterSense products that help save energy and water. Additionally, consumers can find information about cleaning products that are safer for the environment and people’s health. These products bear the EPA Design for the Environment (DfE) label. The website will also help manufacturers and institutional purchasers with information on greener products.

via INFOdocket.com

Via INFOdocket:

The 2012 files are now available at: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

Direct to 2012 Edition PDF Files: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012edition.html

Direct to Earlier Versions: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/past_years.html

See Also: A Roundup of Press Reports/Opinion Pieces About the Possible Elimination of the Stat Abstract (via Water Librarians Blog)

Eric at Sunlight Foundation Labs reports on a massively improved feed of live updates from the House floor.

• House Revamps Floor Feed, by Eric, Sunlight Labs, (09/27/2011).
• Feed of Live Updates
• XML feed

A recent Farm Foundation Forum, sponsored by The Farm Foundation, addressed the issue of "Data Collection on Agriculture in a Time of Fiscal Constraints." A presentation [pdf] by Tom Wegner of the private company Land O’Lakes, Inc. addressed the value of public data, the challenges to data collection, and the impacts and consequences of cutbacks in the collection of public data.

Wegner noted that public data from the USDA is reliable, objective, consistent, timely, and unbiased, and widely available for all. He said that Land O'Lakes uses public data for business planning, risk management, and evaluating policy options. He concluded by saying that Land O’Lakes is strong advocate of continuing public collection of agricultural data.

An audio file of the Forum is available.

It is very nice to see the private sector recognizing the value of public data at a time when many politicians are challenging, not just the funding of data collection, but the very idea that the government should be involved in such activities.

See also: Farm Foundation Briefing Focuses on Agricultural Data, COSSA Washington Update, Volume 30, Issue 17 (September 26, 2011) The Consortium of Social Science Associations.

Looking for open data at the state, city, agency, or international level? The U.S. Data.gov site has a page of links:

• OPEN DATA SITES

It lists 29 states, 11 cities, 172 agencies and sub-agencies, and 21 countries with open data web sites.

From GPO Press Release announcing Boarman's appearance on a Washington D.C. television news show:

Public Printer Boarman Appears On NBC 4 News Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 27, 2011 No. 11-55

PUBLIC PRINTER BOARMAN APPEARS ON NBC 4 NEWS PROGRAM

WASHINGTON-Public Printer Bill Boarman was a guest on NBC 4's Viewpoint program. Boarman discussed a variety of issues about the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) with NBC 4's anchor Jim Handly. The half-hour news program focused on GPO's role in meeting the information needs of Congress, the White House, and Federal agencies. Boarman and Handly also discussed GPO's 150th anniversary and transformation into the digital information platform for the Federal Government.

Link to video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpdD8tw7Hx0

This has been an exciting week at the State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

On Wednesday, Daniel Cornwall gave a talk as part of the North Carolina Library Association Government Documents section's Accidental Government Information Librarian series. You can find the recording to his presenation at http://www.nclaonline.org/government-resources/grs-past-events along with other webinars that the NCLA's Lynda Kellam has coordinated.

One of the attendees was Lynn McClelland, who has created our first subject-based list of databases since 2008. Her page on healthcare practioner databases can be found at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Healthcare_practitioners_databases. It currently features a number of resources from three states and will be under heavy construction for the next month or so.

ORPHAN NEWS

Another attendee of the NCLA webinar is considering adopting Texas. While we let them ponder that choice, our last official orphan is Rhode Island.

If you're interested in adopting Rhode Island, check out our volunteer guide at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/SADATFS_Volunteer_Guide and then send me an e-mail if you'd like to adopt it. If you adopt Rhode Island, be prepared to put your name and contact information on the main project page AND your state page within two weeks of receiving your wiki login. See the Volunteer guide for more details.

WIKI ACTIVITY

See our last seven days of activity at http://tinyurl.com/statedbs for a blow by blow description of changes to the page. Here are a few highlights:

DATABASES ADDED

ALASKA (Daniel Cornwall)

Tobacco Endorsements - Search for licenses to sell tobacco by business license number, business name, street name or number or city.

DELAWARE (John Stevenson)

Vanity Plate Search and Reservation This Delaware Division of Motor Vehicles site helps one visualize and reserve vanity plates.

MICHIGAN (Michael McDonnell)

Bureaus of Health Professions and Health Systems license verification

The Federal Communications Commission has published its Final Rule on Preserving the Open Internet. Hat tip to Benton's Communications-Related Headlines:

• Preserving the Open Internet. AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission. ACTION: Final rule. 47 CFR Parts 0 and 8 [GN Docket No. 09–191; WC Docket No. 07–52; FCC 10–201] 59192 Federal Register Vol. 76, No. 185/Friday, September 23, 2011, Rules and Regulations.

  This Report and Order establishes protections for broadband service to preserve and reinforce Internet freedom and openness. The Commission adopts three basic protections that are grounded in broadly accepted Internet norms, as well as our own prior decisions.

  First, transparency: fixed and mobile broadband providers must disclose the network management practices, performance characteristics, and commercial terms of their broadband services.

  Second, no blocking: fixed broadband providers may not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices; mobile broadband providers may not block lawful Web sites, or block applications that compete with their voice or video telephony services.

  Third, no unreasonable discrimination: fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic.

These rules are effective November 20, 2011.

Need I say more?

• Download NASA Sounds

  Here's a collection of NASA sounds from historic spaceflights and current missions. You can hear the roar of a space shuttle launch or Neil Armstrong's "One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind" every time you get a phone call. Or, you can hear the memorable words "Houston, we've had a problem," every time you make an error on your computer. We have included both MP3 and M4R (iPhone) sound files to download.

What would you tell a new class of law librarianship students about government information?

Fourteen students enrolled in the UW Information School Law Librarianship Program arrived yesterday for orientation. As is tradition, they gathered with the Gallagher librarians for lunch. We introduced ourselves by describing our varied and often circuitous routes to the profession. And the librarians told what we like most about what we do every day.

My first library job was in a suburban public library. I shelved, checked out books, and made displays. I was in high school, and needed a job so I could put money toward my first car. It turned out that I liked checking out books more than shelving them. But that wasn’t the great life lesson – that was the smart, funny, talented, and interesting librarians. Of the three student workers that year, two of us went right to library school after college. I know for a fact it was because of those role models.

Mentoring matters. I appreciate my mentors, past and present, and am lucky to be a mentor in a unique program.

The year-long Law MLIS program includes an internship here at Gallagher. The interns all have law degrees, and because of this, most will end up in law school libraries, and most in reference, at least to start. Since most law schools are also Federal Depository libraries – and since “the law” is a government document – our students will, more or less, be accidental government information librarians. A lucky few may even end up as depository coordinators.

Unfortunately, due to the compact, year-long program, there is not space for an elective – which means unless they overload, they don’t take the Government Publications class. We try to make up for this in a variety of ways: a guest lecture in their legal research class on finding gov pubs, one or two “reference talks” on gov pubs sources and strategies, a couple of sessions on the FDLP and beyond in their collection development class, and a tour of the UW Libraries Government Publications unit.

It helps that gov docs are completely integrated into our collections and services, so the interns are exposed on day one, as soon as they show up to work a reference shift. In technical services, they learn how to check-in a depository box, and in circulation, they shelve the CFR. They experience hands-on behind-the scenes work, some theory, some class assignments, and a lot of patron interaction. By the end of the year, they are well versed in codes, regulations, administrative decisions, and legislative histories. They know about the FDLP, and if we've done our job, they know that permanent public access to government information is important.

But when I have them to myself, what should I tell them about the world of gov docs? This is hard time for GPO and the FDLP, budget-wise. At least we’ve had some good news (a new depository library!) But it does make me wonder. How can I encourage them to be interested in what I – what we - do, on a practical, not just theoretical level, when the future seems more than a tad discouraging? What’s the right balance between teaching about the use and preservation of legacy collections and of digital collections? Do they need to know how we “used to do things?” Do they need to know why? At the core, what should every newly-minted law librarian know about government information?

Another orientation tradition is for the librarians to tell the students what they like best about the profession. I like putting people and information together – through both services and collections. But what I like best about my particular job is the interns. A new class every fall.

What should I tell them? What would you tell them? I’d like to know.

The Smithsonian Institution Archives has a redesigned website. The home page says "the old website is archived" but I could find no information if old links will work or if old pages are still online.

The Smithsonian Institution Archives siarchives.si.edu

The Smithsonian Institution Archives captures, preserves, and makes available to the public the history of this extraordinary Institution. From its inception in 1846 to the present, the records of the history of the Institution—its people, its programs, its research, and its stories—have been gathered, organized, and disseminated so that everyone can learn about the Smithsonian. The history of the Smithsonian is a vital part of American history, of scientific exploration, and of international cultural understanding.

The Archives New Website and Blog!, by Effie Kapsalis, The Bigger Picture [blog] (September 12, 2011).

some of the features of the new site:

a new Collections Search feature that provides online access to all of the Archives' records catalogued to date with the ability to download media for free personal and educational use, as well as to make reference requests directly from the Archives’ collection guides;

dedicated pages on the history of each Smithsonian museum, research center, as well as resources on the overall history of the Smithsonian including a timeline of major events in Smithsonian history, and historic pictures of the Smithsonian;

access to over 4,000 Finding Aids, which serve as guides to the Archives’ collections, that have been optimized for search to help the public more easily explore the 35,000 cubic feet of records held by the Archives;

new online forums for the public to ask reference questions, and get tips on collections care and records management, from Archives staff.

Take a tour by watching the video

See also Smithsonian Institution.

The United States has released a new action plan for open government that lists existing policies and plans and includes new initiatives:

• Introduction
• The Open Government Partnership National Action Plan For The United States Of America (September 20, 2011) [PDF, 10pp]
• White House releases open government action plan with new initiatives, by Joseph Marks, NextGov (09/20/2011)

The Plan was developed as part of the United States' participation in the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The OGP is overseen by a steering committee of governments and civil society organizations.

Participating countries in the Open Government Partnership pledge to deliver country action plans that elaborate concrete commitments on open government. In each country, these commitments are developed through a multi-stakeholder process, with the active engagement of citizens and civil society.

Report/Update

In addition to our usual monthly report, we at the Lost Docs Project Blog will from time to time revisit, check, and update posted document receipts that at the time of their corresponding monthly reports were still classed as fugitives. The following report focuses on the receipts posted from January, 2010. They were reported to GPO between August 2008 and January 2010, the majority between December 2009 and January 2010.

Of the 85 fugitive document receipts posted January 2010, 29 (34%) of the titles have had records added to the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP), 21 of these have been added since the January 2010 monthly report. Two of the titles we identified as "Preservation Needed".

While the low percentage of those cataloged is disappointing, we are appreciative of those records that have been created and added to the CGP. Found documents can be viewed by looking at the blog posts with January 2010 dates http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and/or view a listing by visiting https://sites.google.com/site/founddocslisting/

One note, if you pull up the found or fugitive documents on the blog, you may notice that some are marked as both fugitive and found. This means that the receipt was for two formats of a document (usually electronic and paper), and a record has been added to the CGP for one of the formats.

For this report we are also providing a breakdown of cataloging times. 36% of the items cataloged from the January 2010 posted receipt titles were cataloged between 200 and 300 days. 15% were cataloged within less than 100 days and 15% between 100 and 200 days. A more detailed breakdown is provided below. Note, these numbers and percentages include those titles with two versions reported. Both versions are represented in the figures below, 33 total.

less than or equal to 100 days
5 (15%)

>100 days but less than or equal to 200 days
5 (15%)

>200 days but less than or equal to 300 days
12 (36%)

>300 days but less than or equal to 400 days
4 (12%)

>400 days but less than or equal to 500 days
4 (12%)

>500 days but less than or equal to 600 days
1 (3%)

>600 days but less than or equal to 700 days
1 (3%)

>1000
1 (3%)

If you report a fugitive document to GPO, please send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."

This announcement comes from GSA:

From: Lisa Nelson (XCI)
Date: Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 11:42 AM
Subject: Invitation to Participate in the National Dialogue on
Improving Fedeal Websites

NATIONAL DIALOGUE FOR IMPROVING FEDERAL WEBSITES

Please join me in participating in an exciting initiative that starts today: The National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites. The Dialogue is a nationwide, two-week online conversation with web experts and the public to generate ideas for re-inventing how the federal government delivers information and services online. It's part of the larger .gov Reform Initiative launched earlier this summer by the White House and the U.S. General Services Administration.

The dialogue will launch today, Monday, Sept. 19 at 2 pm ET and run until Friday, Sept. 30. You'll be able to access it at: http://www.usa.gov/webreform/dialogue.shtml

The purpose is to allow people to submit and vote on ideas for improving various aspects of improving federal websites, such as: content, search, usability, accessibility, social media, multilingual content, and online services. The .gov Task Force will review the ideas and consider them as they develop a National Web Strategy and make recommendations for streamlining federal websites, strengthening federal web policy, and improving citizens' experience with federal websites.

I know you have a goldmine of ideas, so I hope you'll actively participate in the discussion and share your expertise and knowledge. We want to hear what's working well, what can be improved, innovative ways to rethink the federal web, and specific examples you have from your industry or organization.

Although the focus is on federal websites, we'd love to get the perspective of all of you in state and local government too, since many of the challenges andopportunities are the same.

You can also follow comments about the dialogue on Twitter under the hashtag #dotgov.

Please share with your networks and encourage your friends and colleagues to take part in this important conversation

--
Lisa Nelson
Research and Strategic Partnerships
Center for Digital Government Excellence
Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies
General Services Administration
202-208-2530

The White House has released a new report, on open government:

• The Obama Administration’s Commitment to Open Government: A Status Report [the report, pdf, 34pp].
• A Status Report on the Administration’s Commitment to Open Government [announcement] by Steven Croley, The White House Open Gov Blog (September 16, 2011).

In an analysis, Steven Aftergood says the report, "downplays or overlooks many of the Administration's principal achievements in reducing inappropriate secrecy. At the same time, it fails to acknowledge the major defects of the openness program to date. And so it presents a muddled picture of the state of open government, while providing a poor guide to future policy.

• An Ambivalent White House Report on Open Government, by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (September 19, 2011).