Home » Articles posted by James A Jacobs (Page 380)
Author Archives: James A Jacobs
Chronology of Disappearing Government Information, 1998-2002
This document was compiled by Barbara Miller for ALA/GODORT Education Committee With special assistance of Karrie Peterson and includes data collected through May 8, 2002. Chronology of Disappearing Government Information (May 8, 2002), Compiled by Barbara Miller for ALA/GODORT Education Committee With special assistance of Karrie Peterson. [UPDATE May 7, 2015: I’ve upload a copy […]
Tracking identity of visitors to government Web sites
HP aims to help governments check IDs By Alorie Gilbert, News.Com, May 26 16:16:00 PDT 2005.
This short news item describes a new product from Hewlett-Packard that "helps governments check the digital identity of citizens." It can be used "to authenticate visitors to government Web sites, to control access to services and manage citizens' online identity."
This suggests an important question to me: Will GPO use such technologies or will it protect the privacy of users and guarantee full access to to government information by refusing to use such technologies?
Continue readingFree, fully functional access can increase sales!
As GPO looks for a way to find a new business model that allows it "bring revenues in the door" (as Mr. James says) and at the same time provide "free and ready public access" to electronic documents (as the GPO Strategic Plan says), it might do well to look at this:
South African lessons: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). (Lessig Blog, May 27, 2005). In this blog posting, Lawrence Lessig notes the experience of the HSRC in changing their publishing model. They started "to give away all their research books for free online, and offer a high quality print-on-demand service for anyone who wants the paper version. The result: 'the sales turnover of the publishing department has risen by 300%.'" The posting has links to more information.
The clear lessons from this seem to be a) that it is possible to make money by selling paper and ink and b) that giving away digital versions can even increase sales.
Continue readingFingerprinting Library Users
Ill. Library Getting Fingerprint Scanners The Associated Press Friday, May 20, 2005; Washington Post.
NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Library officials in this suburb west of Chicago have come up with a high-tech solution for keeping unauthorized visitors from using their computers: fingerprint scans. The scanners _ to be installed on 130 library computers this summer _ will verify the identity of computer users.Continue reading
New versions of JAL FDLP article now available
May 27, 2005 / Leave a comment
The article, "Government Information in the Digital Age: The Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program" by James A. Jacobs, James R. Jacobs and Shinjoung Yeo, previously available as a pre-print here, is now available in new versions.
- In print: Journal of Academic Librarianship, (May 2005), Vol.31, No.3, pp198-208.
- Official online version: doi:10.1016/j. acalib.2005.02.006
Continue reading →Continue Reading →