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EPA library closings “Orwellian”
Why would a federal agency trash its libraries?, by Jeff Ruch, High Country News, April 9, 2007.
Then, after it had already begun closing libraries, EPA discovered that copyright limitations prevented it from digitizing materials not written by EPA staff. As a result, hundreds of reports from the agency's contractors, as well as academic and corporate researchers, will remain in hard copy, but housed in one of three "repositories." At times, EPA's actions have taken on an Orwellian cast, as thousands of documents and whole collections were hastily dispersed to anyone willing to accept them. The three repositories of documents have grown into giant information dumps whose contents will remain un-cataloged for years to come, and in Chicago, the largest regional library, furnishings -- shelves, desks and cabinets worth some $40,000 -- were sold for $327.Continue reading
Open Formats Legislation Killed in Florida
According to an article in in Linux.com (Microsoft's 'Men in Black' kill Florida open standards legislation By: Robin Miller et al. Linux.com, April 17, 2007), legislation in the state of Florida that would have required the state to develop "a plan and a business case" for using open file formats in documents the state creates was removed from the legislation after Microsoft lobbyists complained about it. Within 24 hours of the amendment being added three Microsoft-paid lobbyists started pressuring members of the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations (COGO) to remove the words they didn't like from Senate bill 1974.
David Berlind has pointed out (Linux.com: Microsoft issues campaign funding ultimatum to open standards legislation backers, ZDnet.com, April 18th, 2007) that the Linux.com article relies on a lot of anonymous sources and, in a quick check of Google News and LexisNexis this morning, I didn't find any other sources verifying the story, yet.
Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that Microsoft and others who have lots of money invested in proprietary document formats would oppose legislation requiring open formats. Matt Asay (Microsoft tries to maintain its monopoly...are you surprised?, Inforworld, April 18, 2007) quotes the Linux.com article and notes:
Microsoft has tens of billions of dollars to protect.... Microsoft will do everything in its power to block open source and open standards. It has, in a very real sense, a fiduciary duty to try to kill it.
We at FGI are strong advocates of open formats for government information because we believe that open formats provide a better opportunity for open exchange, reuse, and preservation of public information. University of Florida political science student Gavin Baker, one of the authors of the Linux.com article, has a useful presentation online (Sustaining the Information Society: New (and Old) Conflicts in the Knowledge Economy, by Gavin Baker, Presented at Campus & Community Sustainability University of Florida Oct. 25-26, 2006) that makes the point quite well. The Linux.com article says of the presentation:
...use of open data formats isn't just about short-term financial savings, but is also about long-term preservation of knowledge; ... proprietary data formats come and go at a dizzying rate, but with open, standardized ones we have a chance to read today's saved information in 50 or 500 years, even if Microsoft or Corel or (fill in popular word processor vendor) is long gone, along with its patented or otherwise "protected" data formats.Continue reading
FCC may propose that broadcasters put their public records online
Here is a welcome proposal that would make broadcasters more accountable by making them put online their "public-inspection" files, which are now usually in paper and available for inspection by the public during limited hours at the studio. The last time this was proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the broadcasting industry opposed the measure as too burdensome.
- Martin to Stations: Put Public Records Online, By John Eggerton Broadcasting & Cable, 4/16/2007.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants broadcasters to put their public files online, including public-affairs-programming logs, requests for political-ad time and the prices charged, according to FCC sources. Some in the TV industry say the move could provide more ammunition for activist groups looking to challenge TV licenses and could add up to more expense and time for stations to convert drawers of papers to a searchable Web database.Continue reading
Jefferson Muzzles awards for 2007
2007 Jefferson Muzzles, Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
Since 1992, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention to those who in the past year forgot or disregarded Mr. Jefferson's admonition that freedom of speech 'cannot be limited without being lost.'
The top 5:
# The Bush Administration # The National Collegiate Athletic Association # The Charles A. Beard Memorial School Board of Knightstown, Indiana # The Philadelphia (PA) Commission on Human Relations # United States Department of DefensePress coverage:
- Bush administration gets Muzzle award, by Zinie Chen Sampson, Apr 10, 2007.
GPO LOCKSS report: Why LOCKSS vs. FDsys?
I do not understand why the GPO report on LOCKSS ( GPO LOCKSS Pilot: Final Analysis, Government Printing Office, April 12, 2007) seems to take an "either LOCKSS or FDsys" approach.*
It is my understanding that FDsys uses the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) reference model and that LOCKSS is 100 percent OAIS compatible (OAIS Formal statement of Conformance to ISO 14721:2003).
To me, this means that the bulk of the work that GPO did to get content ready for LOCKSS would be work that would also prepare content for FDsys. If that is true, the two systems are not incompatible, but complementary. It should not be necessary for GPO to choose one or the other, but, instead, could choose both.
The report notes in its Final Recommendations that "GPO’s emerging enterprise architecture requires that new applications be compatible with FDsys or face the risk of near-term obsolescence" but it does not explain how LOCKSS does not meet this criterion.
In both the report and the Clarification, GPO says that it would require 9 FTEs to harvest and re-publish content to GPO servers in a LOCKSS-friendly format and only 1 FTE to write LOCKSS plugins. This is the "much larger use of staff time" that evidently is the primary reason GPO is using to decide to "devote its resources to the development of FDsys..." and devote no resources to using or enabling use of LOCKSS.
This leads me to more questions about the GPO LOCKSS report. Perhaps these can be addressed at DLC?
- In what way does LOCKSS fail to meet the criterion that "that new applications be compatible with FDsys"
- In what way would content processed for LOCKSS not be usable by FDsys?
- What will the cost be to process into FDsys the 592 serial titles identified in the GPO LOCKSS report?
Finally, the report consistently refers to LOCKSS as a "distribution" system and ignores LOCKSS as a preservation system. The report only mentions the benefits of LOCKSS once ("IP authentication for over 1260 depositories would be cumbersome, and may not be cost effective in relation to the benefit received." p.6) but does not specify what GPO sees as the benefits of LOCKSS. I would suggest that a better evaluation of LOCKSS by GPO would have included the benefits of LOCKSS, particularly as a redundant (fiscally, physically, and technologically) preservation system, and would have included a perspective of LOCKSS as complementary to FDsys, not a competitor to it.
* The report says that GPO tested the LOCKSS technology "as a potential precursor to GPO’s Future Digital System (FDsys)" not as a complement to FDsys. It speaks of a choice between "duplicating effort" or requiring all libraries to use LOCKSS. It sets up scenarios such as "If a title such as this were to be distributed through LOCKSS only..." and "If LOCKSS were to become the only distribution method for e-journals distributed to the FDLP..."
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