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ResourceShelf on Washington Post votes database
ResourceShelf has a good overview of the Washington Post votes database in its Resource of the Week (Thursday, December 15, 2005) column by Steven M. Cohen. He says:
This is an impressive ready reference tool that should be bookmarked. Editor's Note: In case you're wondering, this database should be searchable soon.For more remixes of government information, see our remix page. Continue reading
GAO has RSS feed
The Government Accountability Office now has an RSS feed. See their web site feeds page for links and information. Continue reading
New Remix from the Washington Post
We've added this to the remixes page. Votes Database, Washington Post. This site lets you browse every vote in the U.S. Congress since 1991. The data comes from several sources: the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Women in Congress site and the Women in the Senate page, THOMAS, and the Web sites of the Senate, the Clerk of the House of Representatives Continue reading
GPOExpress
GPO has announced a new service. The announcement says, GPOExpress is "a nationwide convenience printing contract that allows Government personnel to walk into a printing company, day or night, at any of the thousands of locations throughout the United States and Canada -- to take care of small printing needs." Sherburne quotes Bruce James as saying, "This is GPO's next step in streamlining small printing procurements while increasing flexibility for our customers."
- Coming Soon... The GPOExpress Program Government Printing Office, November 22, 2005.
- GPO Awards Contract to Kinko's: Launches GPOExpress with FedEx Kinko's November 29, 2005 -- (WhatTheyThink.com Exclusive, By Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor)
Analysis of Google Print/Library/Book Search
A Risky Gamble With Google, By Siva Vaidhyanathan, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/2/2005, Section: The Chronicle Review, Volume 52, Issue 15, Page B7. [subscription required]. Also available without subscription here.
Siva clearly identifies the problems of relying on Google as a replacement for libraries: it "offers us at least three reasons to worry: privacy, privatization, and property."
This particular project, I fear, opens up more problems than it solves. It will certainly fail to live up to its utopian promise. And it dangerously elevates Google's role and responsibility as the steward — with no accountability — of our information ecosystem. That's why I, an avowed open-source, open-access advocate, have serious reservations about it.... We need services like that provided by Google Library. But they should be "Library Library" projects. Libraries should not be relinquishing their core duties to private corporations for the sake of expediency.
Siva is assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University and author of Copyrights and Copywrongs and The Anarchist in the Library.
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