Anecdote of unusable decade-old proprietary technology
In a column called Dead Media Everywhere, writer John C. Dvorak highlights a problem we at FGI have written about before - proprietary digital formats that quickly become unusable. In this case, the propritery technologies are late 1990s digital cameras and their associated proprietary file formats:
So I'm digging around the archives (aka closet) and I find two old digital cameras that cost $500 to $1,000 when new and now cannot even be used unless I can find the old software and cables. This is a new form of dead media: old digital cameras. I was actually hoping to take some pictures with these "antiques" to post on my blog. No dice. The first camera is the fascinating Agfa 1680. It still works, but so far I have been unable to find any way to read its SmartMedia cards, since the camera uses a strange file format. And I have long since lost the cables that would let me transfer the photos directly from the camera. The other classic I unearthed was an old Olympus D300-L. This 1996 camera has no removable media. I was never a fan of this, but was always assured that it wasn't important. Yes, it's not important if you can ever find the extremely weird cable that hooked to the camera to transfer pictures (slowly). See the images here: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=3409. Continue reading
Maybe it’s trains, trucks and planes
In his recent Depository Library Council Plenary Address, Public Printer Bruce James compared the curent changes in the documents world (paper to digital) to the Government Printing Office's switch from steam power to electric power in the early 1900s, and to the abandonment of horse drawn wagons in favor of gas powered delivery trucks. I've been thinking about that a lot, knowing that outside the government documents world, digital takes its place alongside print but hasn't come close to replacing it. Even today, e-books are an insignificant fraction of the $28 billion spent on books in 2004. Maybe we need a new metaphor in thinking about the distribution of government information. Instead of buggies vs. cars, let's think of trains, trucks and planes. As most of us know, the Pony Express was replaced by mail trains in the 19th Century. Horses simply couldn't compete in terms of speed. But when the Post Office aquired trucks in the early 20th Century (or therebouts), they didn't stop using trains. Trains still had a purpose in the postal distribution system. Later in the 20th Century, airplanes became available but that didn't put the trucks or trains (or boats, in Alaska) out of business. Each mode of delivery survived not because of misplaced nostalgia, but because each mode had at least one application not well served by the others. Could that not be a parallel for print and digital? Tell us what you think! Continue reading
Your library may have the only paper copy of a government publication
On page 24 of issue 136 of the U*N*A*B*A*S*H*E*D Librarian, there is an article by Bernadine Abbott Hoduski that you should read today even though you have to go offline for it. The title of the article, like my blog entry, is Your library may have the only paper copy of a government publication. The thrust of the article is that often you cannot be sure you are not tossing the last copy of a given government publication. Ms. Hoduski cites a number of reasons why this may be so:
Collections in depositories are not complete because 1) libraries came into the [Federal Depository Library] program at varying dates and they did not receive retrospective publications, 2) after the 1962 Act was passed it took at least 20 years before the law was strongly enforced, 3) most depository libraries did not and do not collect everything, 4) GPO often received insufficient copies of a publication and therefore many libraries, including regionals did not receive the publication, 5) some of the microfiche received is of such poor quality that it is unusable, and 6) there are gaps in the microfiche runs because contractors failed to deliver all the fiche in a series or never received the publication to fiche.Ms. Hoduski goes on to explain why we cannot expect a complete collection of all government publications at the National Archives, Library of Congress, or any of the other national libraries. Ms. Hoduski concludes her article by noting the Government Printing Office's proposal to digitize what they call the legacy collection. Ms. Hoduski appears to support this concept if the project does not inadvertently destroy the last paper copy of a publication. I share her concern and mostly agree with her plan to avoid the destruction of last copies:
Before this project goes any further we need a complete inventory of what is out there at in NARA (National Archives), the Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, National Agricultural Library, other federal libraries, the Senate and House libraries, the regionals, selectives, and former depository libraries. We need the pre-1976 cataloging records digitized, edited and made a part of the new integrated library system at GPO. Where there are no cataloging records we need them.I believe that such an inventory would have uses far beyond insuring that we did not destroy a last paper copy. Such an inventory could:
- Help us determine the optimal number of preservation copies, by comparing the number of surviving copies of a given item to the number of copies originally distributed.
- Radically raise the number of government publications accessible through OCLC Open WorldCat, which would increase their use.
- Open up new print-on-demand markets for the Government Printing Office as more people became aware of materials.
- Improve collection development plans of depository libraries because they would know neighboring collections better.
Fall 2005 DLC Meeting Content Watch: Three weeks w/o vision
The Fall 2005 meeting of the Depository Library Council closed three weeks ago today. While we commend GPO for posting many of the educational sessions from the meeting, they are being sluggish in posting Council Visioning materials and other Council related content. As of this writing, the following material was missing in action on their official proceedings page: Council Discussion, Questions and Answers Coming Soon! Sunday: Council Session: In the Age of Massive Digitization: Libraries, Government Information and the Public - Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information Monday: Council and FDLP Visioning Session GODORT Meeting Arlene Weible, GODORT Chair, University of North Texas Libraries Tuesday: Council and FDLP Visioning Session: Report from Breakouts GPO Access Open Forum / New Databases Council and FDLP Visioning Session, Wrap-up Continue reading
New page for information seekers
Based on some user comments and our search logs, we at Free Government Information have realized that a number of people come here to look for information FROM the government, while our emphasis is on information ABOUT government information policy. Don't despair, we listen! We have established a bare-bones Where to Find Government Information page that we hope will allow accidental visitors to find a place to start. You can also get to the page by clicking on "Find govt information" at the top of each FGI page. We probably WON'T add links unless they are really outstanding, since we don't want to replicate the outstanding work so many docs librarians have already done. Still, if you have a major suggestions for the page, please let us know. Continue reading
Latest Comments