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A personal story about open access
Are citizens who seek government information "busybodies on fishing expeditions"? Are they "persons seeking to embarrass government agencies"? Should each agency set its own fee for copying pages of public documents? Here is an account of one citizen in Oregon who calls attention to bad policies.
- An Oregon Story, By Darrell Flood, Sunlight Foundation Blog (04/08/10) Across the country people are going to government meetings asking for better government. In Oregon the Attorney General is asking people for their input and Darrell Flood answered the call to make sure the elected officials in Oregon know that government information needs to be online and updated in real time. He has graciously shared his experience with us.
New Blog from Archivist of the United States
David S. Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States (AOTUS), has started a blog:
- AOTUS: Collector in Chief We risk losing our memory as a country if we cannot meet the challenges of electronic records management. The fact is, without good records management, it is impossible for us to learn from the past and plan for the future. ...I expect the principles of transparency, participation, and collaboration to change the way we do things, the way we think about things, and the way we deliver services to the public.
The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future
"By an overwhelming margin, technology experts and stakeholders participating in a survey fielded by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center believe that innovative forms of online cooperation could result in more efficient and responsive for-profit firms, non-profit organizations, and government agencies by the year 2020.... This publication is part of a Pew Research Center series that captures people’s expectations for the future of the Internet, in the process presenting a snapshot of current attitudes."
- The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future, by Janna Anderson, Lee Rainie Pew Internet & American Life Project (Mar 31, 2010)
The State of Linked Data in 2010
The State of Linked Data in 2010, by Richard MacManus, Read Write Web (March 31, 2010).
... Linked Data is data that has been marked up using Semantic Web technologies such as RDF (Resource Description Framework) or RDFa (a simpler variation). Minus the acronyms, Linked Data is simply structured data. However one of the reasons the Semantic Web hasn't yet been widely adopted, at least commercially, is that it's often difficult or time consuming to mark up data semantically. RDF in particular has a reputation for being painful to code. With that in mind, the past year has been as much about prompting governments and organizations to put their data up on the Web in whatever form they can.... The most high profile usage of Linked Data over the past year has come from two governments: the United States and United Kingdom.Continue reading
Historians Highlight Humor
We have mentioned the Government Comics Collection at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Library before, including its selection as a Digital Library of the Week by the ALA. This week, the American Historical Association highlights the collection and selects some of their favorites:
- Government Comics Collection of UNL, By Elisabeth Grant, AHA Today (March 30, 2010).
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