Yesterday, the U.S. Copyright Office posted two RFI's.

The first, is to learn more about software to build a virtual card catalog of historical copyright records.

The second, is to learn more about crowdsourcing the data capture from about 70 million catalog cards.

For those of you interested, you can find highlights, links to the full text docs, and a bit of background in a new LJ infoDOCKET post.

Direct to:

U.S. Copyright Office Posts Requests for Information About Crowdsourcing and Developing a “Virtual Card Catalog” of Historical Records (via LJ infoDOCKET

via infoDOCKET (now part of Library Journal)

Post includes:

1. Link to Full Text of CRS Report

2. Complete Summary From Report

3. Link to FCW Article

4. Link to FierceGovernmentIT Article

From the CRS Summary

The transition to digital information raises a number of issues of possible interest to Congress. This report discusses those possible concerns as they affect FDLP. These issues, which are in some cases interrelated, may not only affect FDLP, but also extend beyond the program to a variety of contexts related to the management of government information in tangible and digital forms. Issues include the following: maintenance and availability of the FDLP tangible collection; retention and preservation of digital information; access to FDLP resources; authenticity and accuracy of digital material; robustness of the FDLP Electronic Collection; and the costs of FDLP and other government information distribution initiatives.

More news and new resources via INFOdocket.com. Our site is updated daily. We hope you stop by and/or follow @INFOdocket.

1. U. of Minnesota and Ancestry.com Announce Plans to Create Massive Database of 1940 Census Material

2. Dutch National Archive To Open Data

3. New From Kent College of Law/Oyez Project: Searchable/Shareable Audio of Health Care Reform Act Arguments

4. New iOS App from National Library of Medicine: Recovering Library Collections After a Flood

5. Roundup: U.S. Government Rolls Out a Number of “Big Data” Initiatives, Projects

6. Unpublished Letters Written by Ernest Hemingway Made Available for the First Time by JFK Library

8. UK: New Website for the Archives Sector Launched

9. NARA: Archives Crowdsources Advice on Federal e-Records Management

10. Statistics: IRS Releases FY 2011 Data Book

11. Census Bureau Releases New List/Maps of Urban Areas (Based on 2010 Census)

12. Wolfram|Alpha Adds Plant Data from USDA

13. New iOS App: Consumers Take the Driver’s Seat on Safety with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s SaferBus

14. Australia: New South Wales Government to Open Source Digital Archives Software

16. World Trade Organization Launches New Database on Preferential Trade Arrangements

17. National Archives of Australia Shares Records Digitization Strategy With Release of Digital Continuity Plan

18. MapLight’s Launches Topic Pages, Search for Bills by Issue Area

19. Mass. Court OKs Live, Unedited Court Proceedings

20. Doing Business at a Glance 2012, iOS App from World Bank Group (Free)

via INFOdocket.com

From ProQuest

ProQuest will rescue one of researchers’ most valued reference tools when it takes on publication of the Statistical Abstract of the United States beginning with the 2013 edition. The move ensures continuation of this premier guide to an extraordinary array of statistics, which has been published since 1878. The U.S. Census Bureau, responsible for publishing the work, announced in March 2011 that it would cease production of the Statistical Abstract after the 2012 edition, prompting widespread concern among librarians, journalists, and researchers about the disappearance of this essential research tool.

Both are available for pre-sale beginning in April 2012.

Note: We've also asked ProQuest for answers to a few questions about pricing, access, etc. We will we report back on INFOdocket when we here back.

More news and new resources via INFOdocket.com.

1. White House Launches Ethics.gov

2. USDA: Consumers to Receive Timely Food Safety Alerts Through New State Twitter Feeds

3. A Law Classification Scheme as Linked Data?

4. Access GAO Reports and Legal Decisions via New App for iOS (Free)

5. National Broadband Map Updated, New Data Added

6. United Nations Releases 2012 E-Government Survey (Full Text), Country Rankings Updated

7. Compare Country Statistics With New United Nations CountryStats iOS App (Free)

8. UNESCO Releases World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education (Full Text, Free)

9. New Online Database from NIH: Genetic Testing Registry, Video Tutorials Available

10. Open Data: DOE Data Explorer Now Searches Individual Datasets

11. Archivist of the United States Appoints New Director of Presidential Libraries

Another in our series of roundups of news and new resources via INFOdocket.com. 15 items in all.

Federal Sources

1. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Releases Beta Versions of Several New Features

2. A Redesigned Regulations.gov Website Now Live With Many New Features

3. Smithsonian Launches New Website for Teaching African American Civil Rights Through American Art

4. Transportation: RITA Launches U.S. DOT Research Hub Searchable Database (Beta)

5. NLM Releases Mobile Interface to TOXNET Databases

6. A New Interactive Infographic From NASA Looks at The Future of American Human Space Flight

7. U.S. Census Releases Graphs on Historical Voting Trends

8. Archivist of the United States on the Competencies NARA Wants For Archives Specialists

Additional Items That Might Be of Interest

9. More Than 10 Million Digitized Newspaper Pages Coming to Europeana

10. Create Custom Neighborhood Maps (Quickly Search/Locate/Visualize Neighborhoods Located In Any Zip Code)

11. Online Database: NORMLEX (Information System on International Labour Standards) From ILO

12. Foreign Affairs Releases Complete Online Archive, All Articles Back to Vol. 1, No. 1 (1922) Available

13. U.Va. Library’s New Streaming Oral History Project Tells the Legal Story of the Civil Rights Struggle

14. New Interactive Site/Database Features Info About Wyoming’s Electrical Generation Facilities

15. Legal Reasons: National Library of Sweden Will Not Archive Personal Blogs or Online Video Games

Time once again for a selection of news and new resources that we hope will be an interest to the FGI community. The following posts are from INFOdocket.com (@infofodocket) where we compile and post new items daily. The oldest item in this roundup was posted on January 26, 2012.

1. President Requests $231,953,777 for Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

2. MEDLINE/PubMed: List of Serials Indexed for Online Users, 2012 Now Available in XML

3. South Dakota: State Archives Going Digital

4. Recently Launched iOS App: United Nations News Reader from the UN News Centre

5. Full Text of Prepared Testimony: Librarian of Congress, Public Printer, & Others Testify at House Appropriations Committee Hearing (re: FY 2013 Budget)

6. Montana: “New State Librarian Leads Digitization”

7. Government Information: A New Issue of the FDLP Connection Newsletter is Now Online (Vol. 2, Issue 2)

8. New Reference Resource: PACrimeStats.Info (Pennsylvania Crime Data)

9. EPA Releases New Interactive Tool with Information About Water Pollution Across the U.S.

10. FEMA Grant Helps Restore New Orleans’ Katrina-Damaged Archives

11. Listen Online: National Park Service Releases Historic Audio Recordings Made by Thomas Edison’s Recording Engineer

12. New Feature: The World Factbook Now Allows Users to Listen to the National Anthems of Most Countries

13. U.S. Congress: THOMAS Adds Direct Links to House Committee Hearings

14. New Document from NIH: Public Access Policy Implications

15. New Database: See Who’s Donating to Super PACs

16. LOCPix: New iOS App Provides Access to Digitized Photos from the Library of Congress

17. New Interactive Reference Resource: State Transportation Facts and Figures

18. U.S. Congress: Financial Contributions: MapLight Launches New Company Pages

19. Let’s Fly! FAA Launches Mobile Web App

20. New Search Tool from the IRS: Exempt Organizations Select Check

Time once again for a selection of news and new resources that we hope will be an interest to the FGI community. The following posts are from INFOdocket.com (@infofodocket) where we compile and post new items daily.

1. New iOS App From SEC: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission News

2. Just Released: Library of Congress Offers Congressional Record As iPad App

3. National Library of Medicine Announces Latest Release of Its “History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium”

4. Asked and Answered Questions: U.S. Department of Education Releases Mobile Version of Answers.Ed.gov

5. Smithsonian Gets Dedicated Funds for Digitization and New Media, Will Spend $8.7 Million In FY 2012

6. The Library of Congress Names Gayle Osterberg Director of Communications

7. EPA Releases Comprehensive Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Online Database and Dataset Available

8. White Paper: “Authentication of Primary Legal Materials and Pricing Options”

9. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) Launches Mobile Web Site

10. Full Text Reference Resource: Trade & Development: UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics 2011
From the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

11. NARA Launches “Citizen Archivist Dashboard”

12. U.S. Bankruptcy Courts Begin Offering Online Chat Services

13. USDA Launches New Online Nutrition SuperTracker

14. New Database: Time-Series Plots of Phrases in U.S. Supreme Court Opinions (Legal Language Explorer)

15. Statistics: NLM Updates MEDLINE Indicators With FY2011 Numbers

From a NextGov Article:

Nearly one-fifth of federal Web domains are inactive and one-fourth redirect to other dot-gov sites, according to an inventory conducted between August and October.

Active government domains employ 150 different content management systems, a hodgepodge of design templates that vary wildly from one division to the next, and a host of different performance metrics, according to a report compiled by the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget.

[Clip]

The report lists 1,489 total government Web domains and about 11,000 websites.

[Clip]

At most of the inactive sites in the report, agencies appear to own the Web domain name but are no longer maintaining it. Some sites mayhave been shut down as part of the reform initiative, though.

Read the Complete Article

Direct to State of the Federal Web Report (61 pages; PDF)

Via INFOdocket.com

From The Washington Post:

The head of the Government Printing Office is out of a job — and he says he doesn’t know why.

Nobody on Capitol Hill or at the White House has told William Boarman why senators didn’t vote to confirm him before they left town over the weekend. President Obama granted Boarman a recess appointment earlier this year, after an April 2010 nomination to lead the agency responsible for printing government documents, training manuals, passports and maps.

By law, recess appointees not confirmed by the end of the next Senate term must step down. In November, two GOP senators dropped a hold on Boarman’s nomination and seemingly assured his eventual confirmation. But Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said late Saturday that fresh concerns with the nomination meant it wouldn’t happen.

Read the Complete Washington Post Article

See Also: News Release from the GPO

Bill Boarman has been honored to serve as the 26th Public Printer of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) for the last year. Having been nominated originally 20 months ago, having been reported out of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee unanimously twice, and not having been permitted to learn and respond to the nature of the objection to his confirmation, Boarman is disappointed in the result of Saturday’s Senate action. Nevertheless, he is proud of GPO's accomplishments this past year as the digital information platform for the Federal Government.

See Also: Comments by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)
Published in Congressional Record (December 17, 2011)