Documents Librarianship: Love at First Sight
If you are wondering what government information is, what Federal Depository Libraries do, and why you should care, please look over Grace York's 2002 presentation Documents Librarianship: Love at First Sight. This is a nice overview of different areas of government information that have direct impact on the nation's citizens and how that information has been disseminated. Thanks Grace! Continue reading
New Future Digital System document released–adopts OAIS, contains detailed mgt structure
The Future Digital System site had this new item posted in the last week:
Master Integrator acquisition update: The draft RFP for Master Integrator (MI) services is now available through FedBizOpps. Questions and Comments related to the draft should be submitted to Herb Jackson at hjackson@gpo.gov no later than January 20, 2006.This 16 page document may be worth a close reading, as it outlines the goals of the FDSys system, provides background on GPO's new technology management office, and provides background on FDSys. The background on FDSys is interesting enough to post here and now:
2.3 FDsys Background FDsys will ingest, preserve, provide access to, and deliver content of all three branches of the U.S. Government. The proposed future system is envisioned as a comprehensive, systematic, and dynamic means for preserving electronic content free from dependence on specific hardware and/or software. The system should automate many of the electronic content lifecycle processes and make it easier to deliver content in formats suited to customers’ needs. Continue reading
HOAX – FBI watching interlibrary loan requests?
The Dartmouth Student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security over an Interlibrary Loan request has confessed to making up the entire story. No motive was offered for this bizzare tale, and sadly, in my personal view there is no way the student can be prosecuted for this lie that will be used to discredit legitimate concerns about domestic spying. Unless he told his story to law enforcement personnel, there are no statutes that have been violated. But hopefully his university will take some action. Whether its mandatory counselling, explusion or a defamation suit, I don't know. But truth should count for something. While the comments above are strictly my own, I think I speak for all FGI volunteers when I say we don't apologize for posting the original story. Both James R. and I (in comments) indicated that this story might not be true but would be worrisome if it was. Without the international media attention, this story might never have been exposed as a lie. Continue reading
Washington State Library stores and serves state e-docs
Over the past two weeks, I have been profiling libraries that have been taking up the challenge of storing and serving electronic government documents to their users. My intention is to show that this can be done without breaking their institution's bank. Today I offer the last profile in this current series, the Washington State Library. The Washington State Library (WSL) currently stores 1,500 state documents taking up 1.57GB of storage space. Using an existing computer in the library, they have 321GB of storage space left. At the current average document size, the Washington State Library could store more than 300,000 additional documents. WSL believes that time spent processing digital documents is similar to what they have to spend on print and has a similar workflow. Source: Personal Communication, Judy Pitchford, December 16, 2005 This profile is the last of five. The other four were:
Thousands of CRS reports stored and served by University of North Texas Library
The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries has accepted the challenge of locally stored digital materials in part by keeping an archive of 8,000 reports from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). These reports currently take up 12GB of a 250GB hard drive. At the average CRS document size, UNT has room for more than 152,000 more CRS reports. UNT has used a modified form of the free, open source Keystone Digital Library system to allow their collection to be searchable and browseable from their CRS home page at http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/. Most of the funds for the original setup of the CRS archive came from a 2002 NewsBank/Readex/GODORT/ALA Catharine J. Reynolds Research Grant Award of $2,000. Considerable staff time was spend on the Keystone software and there is ongoing staff time used in identifying, capturing, scanning, and assigning subjects to the reports. Many of the same things that would be required for tangible reports. Continue reading
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