Kudos to GPO for new Catalog of Government Publications
Today the Government Printing Office announced:
The Superintendent of Documents is pleased to announce the launch of the enhanced version of the Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) - http://catalog.gpo.gov/. This version of the CGP is the online public access catalog (OPAC) module of the Government Printing Office's (GPO) new integrated library system. With the availability of the new CGP Phase 1 of a larger modernization plan to replace older legacy systems is complete.Unlike the previous version of the CGP, which only went back to 1994, the new catalog allows you to find documents back to 1976. It is also easy to find the nearest libraries that are supposed to hold a given item. It's been a long time in coming, but it does seem to be a step forward in providing access to vast number of government publications that have good information, but not the good fortune to be on the 'Net. Thanks GPO! I'd also like to compliment GPO for sticking with the easy to understand name of "Catalog of Government Publications" instead of "Franklin." This responsiveness to community input is much appreciated. As nice as the new CGP is, one could wish for more that I've seen in other catalogs/databases, but that will be for another posting. Continue reading
Docs Librarian vs Google: Local Government in Alaska
Recently I helped a gentleman who e-mailed saying he was having trouble finding publications about Alaska local government, specifically our county equivalents. Like Louisiana, Alaska does not have counties. Louisiana has parrishes. We have boroughs in Alaska. My patron had spent more than an hour searching both Google and Yahoo! using "boroughs" in combination with Alaska and other search terms, but found nothing. So he e-mailed me. Within two minutes, I found him several web publications relating to boroughs from our Commerce Department pages. The patron's problem was that he spelled boroughs as "burrows." Don't laugh. If you hear the phrase "I want the population of Alaska's boroughs" for the first time, I think "burrows" is a perfectly acceptable way to spell boroughs as unit of government unless you are from New York or live in Alaska. Since "burrows" was spelled correctly, Google couldn't suggest the alternate term "boroughs." That's one of many advantage we librarians have - we can sort through homonyms! Continue reading
LOCKSS Demystified in RLG DigiNews
The February 15, 2006 issue of RLG DigiNews contains an interview with Vicky Reich of LOCKSS. This interview is an excellent primer on the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system and answers some common concerns expressed by some in the government information community such as:
- What kind of content is captured from publisher websites and how is it stored?
- How does the LOCKSS system ensure, over long periods, that the content in the system is the same as when it was originally collected from the publisher?
- What are the costs to institutions for using a LOCKSS box? What resources are required (e.g., time, programming) for working with publishers, adding a title, maintaining the LOCKSS box, etc.? What are your costs for maintaining and developing the current system?
- How are you dealing with format obsolescence?
- How are you addressing obsolescence of the LOCKSS box itself?
- Secrets are dangerous. Aim for 100% transparency and audit ability in everything.
- Legal frameworks change and paper trails are not reliable. Bundle and preserve legal rights and restrictions with the content to the greatest possible extent.
- Guard against technical arrogance. Build and use open source software and nurture a critical and contributing technical community. The LOCKSS software is fully documented and available on SourceForge.net. New updates are released about every six weeks. It’s easy to install a LOCKSS box.
- Collection development is a local activity.
- Building publisher relationships is a collaborative activity. The LOCKSS Alliance community is documenting practices for working with external content providers, such as electronic journal publishers and government entities (state and federal). Members are documenting practices for working with providers of internal content, for example electronic thesis and dissertations, manuscripts, and special collections.
- Our industries’ business relationships have worked fairly well for 500 years—endeavor to strengthen these, not to break them.
Using FOIA to locate UFOs
One of the more unusual uses of the Federal Freedom Information Act that I have run across is the Coalition for Freedom of Information's (CFI) effort to obtain UFO related records from NASA and the Air Force. Despite being related to UFOs, the page linked above has fairly rational sounding FOIA requests and gives details of NASA responses. While I haven't verified their claims, their back and forth with NASA illustrates the difficulties of using FOIA to obtain material on obscure government activities. CFI isn't your typical tin-foil basement UFO group either. According to items I've run across they have links to former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta and the SciFi Channel. Free Government Information takes no stand on UFOs, but supports the efforts of the public to find out how the government has investigated this phenomena. Continue reading
New Navy Web policy includes remarks on blogging
Thanks to Secrecy News for posting the new DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY POLICY FOR CONTENT OF PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE WORLD WIDE WEB SITES. After briefly reading through this 16 page document, I came across this interesting note on Navy blogging on page 14 of the PDF file:
5. Interactivity. DON commands/activities may maintain interactive Web sites to the extent that they allow visitors the ability to query the command via electronic mail (e-mail). Commands/activities are cautioned that establishing and maintaining this interactivity can be extremely labor-intensive. a. DON commands may not operate unmoderated news groups, bulletin boards, or any other unrestricted access posting services. This specifically prohibits a publicly accessible, interactive site that supports automatic posting of information submitted by personnel other than those authorized by the command to post information. Some Web logs (blogs) may fall into this category. This does not, however, prohibit the command from posting frequent messages from the commanding officer or messages from the command’s constituents. There is also no prohibition on blogs operated by individual members as private citizens. The DON recognizes the value of this communication channel in posting current information and supporting the morale of personnel, their family and friends. As long as personnel adhere to specific restrictions on content, the DON encourages the use of blogs and recognizes this free flow of information contributes to legitimate transparency of the DON to the American public whom we serve. Continue reading
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