Author Archives: dcornwall

Now representing 27 states, our Government Podcasts directory has been updated with all the state and local government podcasts we could find. We also had help from librarian Amanda Stone. Please look over the revised directory and send us anything, especially state and local gov't podcasts that we missed. Remember our criteria: 1. It must have audio or video produced either by a state agency, local government or an elected official. 2. It must be hosted on a government server (.orgs/.edu that clearly id themselves as a gov't body ok). 3. The agency must put the CAST in podCAST by having an obvious way to subscribe to the podcast feed (RSS, iTunes, etc). Posting static audio files and expecting people to manually download files one by one won't cut it.) Thanks for checking this list for us! Continue reading →

Continue Reading →

If you're trying to understand how LOCKSS works and why anyone would want their own copies of government data when GPO/Google/[Your Third Party Here] will keep it safe and free forever, check out these two recent news items from LOCKSS:

• LOCKSS Team featured by Library of Congress (04/24/07) Pioneers of Digital Preservation on the Library of Congress' web site features an overview of the LOCKSS program.
• Presentation at CNI (04/17/07) Vicky Reich and David Rosenthal talked at the CNI meeting in Phoenix, AZ. Vicky gave an overview of the status of the CLOCKSS program, and David talked on Can We Afford To Preserve Large Databases?.

The LC page not only demonstrates that LOCKSS can be a trusted and TESTED partner in digital preservation, but also explains an excellent plain English explanation of how the system works. David Rosenthal's CNI powerpoint touches on the non-technology reasons why information solely in the hands of the government is at risk, especially his slide 18:

Example: Insider Attack ● Political interference (Hansen 2007): – 2006 Earth Science budget retroactively reduced 20% – ''One way to avoid bad news: stop the measurements!'' – Suppose the data itself turned out to be ''inconvenient'' ... ● Remove it (e.g. EPA pollution database) ● Alter it? ● Independent replicas essential – Independently administered in different jurisdictions – Mutually audited so they're tamper evident

The rest of the presentation is a good though slightly technical primer on performance requirements for digital preservation and the need for further research. Also has some scary things to say about RAID. More evidence that no ONE system, not even a Future Digital one, is enough to safeguard America's government information. No system is safe from its parent - particularly when that parent is so reluctant to fully fund information access and preservation. Continue reading →

Continue Reading →

As you know, FGI has been paying renewed attention to government podcasts. After moderate searching on some people's favorite search engine, I have concluded that the 25 states listed below have no state government podcasts: Alabama - AL - www.alabama.gov - Nothing found 4/26/2007 Alaska - AK Nothing found 4/26/2007 Arizona - AZ Nothing found 4/26/2007 Colorado - CO Nothing as of 4/26/2007 Hawaii - HI Nothing Found 4/26 Idaho - ID Nothing found 4/26 Iowa - IA Nothing found 4/26 Louisiana - LA Nothing found 4/26 Maine - ME Nothing found 4/26 Maryland - MD Nothing found 4/26 Massachusetts - MA Nothing found 4/26 Montana - MT Nothing found 4/26 New Hampshire - NH Nothing found 4/26 New Jersey - NJ Nothing found 4/26 New Mexico - NM Nothing found 4/26 North Dakota - ND Nothing found 4/26 Oklahoma - OK Nothing found 4/26 Pennsylvania - PA Nothing found 4/26 Rhode Island - RI Nothing found 4/26 - but ri.gov looks like they're getting ready to podcast in near future. South Carolina - SC Nothing found 4/26 South Dakota - SD Nothing found 4/26 Vermont - VT Nothing found 4/26 West Virginia - WV Nothing found 4/26 Wyoming - WY Nothing found 4/26 Am I right? I am defining a government podcast as follows:

1. It must have audio or video produced either by a state agency, local government or an elected official.
2. It must be hosted on a government server (.orgs/.edu that clearly id themselves as a gov't body ok).
3. The agency must put the CAST in podCAST by having an obvious way to subscribe to the podcast feed (RSS, iTunes, etc). Posting static audio files and expecting people to manually download files one by one won't cut it.)

If you know of a podcast in the 25 states listed above that meets the three conditions above, would you please let me know in comments or in an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska.net? Thanks! So far my search has turned up more than a dozen state/local podcasts that I'll soon by adding to our Government Podcasts page. As a teaser, check out the OH DNR Ohio Outdoor Notebook Radio Spots at http://www.dnr.ohio.gov/notebook/default.htm, one of the few podcasts I know that will give you the lowdown on Sassafras tea! UPDATE 4/27/2007 - Thanks to Amanda Stone of the South Carolina State Library for pointing the locally produced podcasts of the South Carolina Educational Television Commission, commonly known as ETV. See our government podcasts page for details. Continue reading →

Continue Reading →

Intrepid FGI Reporter James Staub got in about 20 minutes late to this session and the audio and the rough transcript reflect that. Non-anonymous corrections are welcome. Rough Transcript: 200704151330 FDLP/DLC : LOCKSS cowell@stanford.edu [I came in late] Scott Matheson 1351 LOCKSS is easy to install 1354 Social solution to a social problem 1357 Although publishers provide authoritative changes that propagate through a LOCKSS group, there's still a cache of original material. 1400 Technical description of what happens: “patron gets content” 1401 closed stacks analogy 1408 Q how do you reconcile old computers and massive needs for storage space? DOE collection is 3 terabytes 1411 Q security – viruses? 1413 Comment – large collection publishers should themselves be LOCKSS Alliance partners 1414 Space really hasn't been an issue so far. 1415 What a failure looks like – SM displays a failure at permanent.access.gov that was averted by LOCKSS 1420 Q Why did GPO choose to republish? Patricia Kenly, Georgia Tech 1423 workshop this summer 1429 our Associate Director has called LOCKSS our preservation strategy for digital information 1429 open source is good patricia.kenly@library.gatech.edu 1430 Q can we digitize, gather, republish, and LOCKSS older government information to make it available? EC: yes SM: your IT people understand redundancy EC: LOCKSS team is looking more at front-end crawling, and having discussions with Archive-It Continue reading →

Continue Reading →