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Census Bureau Director Resigns
Robert Groves, the Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, resigned today.
- Looking Forward, Looking Back, Robert Groves, Director's Blog (April 10, 2012). I have had the honor of directing the Census Bureau since July of 2009. As was reported today, I was offered the provost position at Georgetown University and have accepted it, with a start date of late August, 2012.
- Census Bureau director resigns, By Andrew Lapin, Government Executive (April 10, 2012). The Census Bureau has not immediately announced a replacement.
The Zelikow Memo: Internal Critique of Bush Torture Memos Declassified
The State Department has released a February 2006 internal memo from Philip D. Zelikow, counselor to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, opposing Justice Department authorization for "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the CIA. All copies of the memo, which reflect strong internal disagreement within the George W. Bush administration over the constitutionality of such techniques, were thought to have been destroyed. But the State Department located a copy and declassified it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive.
- The Zelikow Memo: Internal Critique of Bush Torture Memos Declassified, National Security Archive, George Washington University (April 3, 2012).
- Approving Torture and Destroying Documents: More Notes on the "Zelikow Memo", by Nate Jones, Unredacted, the National Security Archive blog (April 4, 2012).
- Document Friday: The Torture Memos, We Now Know, by Nate Jones, Unredacted, the National Security Archive blog (April 6, 2012).
- CIA Committed ‘War Crimes,’ Bush Official Says, By Spencer Ackerman, Wired "Danger Room" blog (April 4, 2012).
The Most (And Least) Lucrative Committees In Congress
A fascinating story about how campaign contributions flow to members of the committees that big donors are really interested in and how this makes a huge difference to lawmakers, who need a steady stream of donations to fund their re-election campaigns.
- The Most (And Least) Lucrative Committees In Congress, by Andrea Seabrook and Alex Blumberg, Planet Money, National Public Radio. (originally published on March 30. It was updated on April 6.) Both parties rank each committee for its fundraising potential. There are lists of the A, B, and C committees, and fundraising targets for the members. Those lists aren't public. Many lawmakers say these lists exist, but no one would give one to us. So we created our own list, based on publicly disclosed fundraising numbers. At our request, Lee Drutman of the Sunlight Foundation, crunched data going back to the early '90s.
- Ways and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce are top House fundraising committees, Lee Drutman, Sunlight Foundation (April 2, 2012). The analysis was conducted at the request of and in collaboration with This American Life and Planet Money public radio programs. It is featured on the March 31, 2012 episode of This American Life.
- Take the Money and Run for Office, This American Life 461. (Originally aired 03.30.2012).
Crazy born digital content
One of the best things that could happen for digital preservation is for producers of digital content to understand that they need to produce preservable content. If producers and publishers created digital content in neutral, preservable formats, we would not have to spin our wheels with the Sisyphean task of constantly trying to fix un-preservable content with techniques such as emulation and format migration. For publishers (and of course this includes government agencies) to create preservable content, they would have to understand that their essential role in the information lifecyle includes creating information that is preservable -- not just instantaneously deliverable in the short-term. Although there are efforts to develop this understanding and to create appropriate formats and processes, most born-digital information seems to be generated with only the most short-term utility in mind. A lot of born digital content is badly-formed and uses non-standard, proprietary, and closed formats. All that brings me to this example of what looks to be shoddy content creation.
- 2011 U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Annual Report On Intellectual Property Enforcement. U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, March 2012.
In June 2010, the Administration, through the IPEC‘s Joint Strategic Plan, emphasized the protection and enforcement of U S intellectual property rights These rights drive the economy, create jobs for American workers, promote innovation, and secure America’s position as the world’s leader for creativity and ingenuity The 2011 Annual Report provides an illustration of the coordinated efforts that the U S Government is undertaking to address the challenges of enforcing intellectual property of U S rightholders abroad, securing supply chains, pursuing sources of counterfeit and pirated goods, and meeting the challenges posed by emerging criminal trends such as the online sales of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, economic espionage, and targeted theft of trade secretsThis is probably just some odd, unique production mistake. But that is the point: When an agency cannot even take the time to make sure its born digital text has periods at the end of sentences, how can we expect agencies to produce digital content that conforms to preservation technology requirements? There is a lot of work to be done before we can ensure the public that we can preserve digital government information! (Hat tip to Mike Masnick who, in a highly critical review of the report, says, with tongue in cheek, that the reason the report "seems to do away with the grammatical icon known as 'the period' at the end of sentences" might be that the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator found it "too expensive to license.") Continue reading
Who Is Protecting the People’s Property?
April 10, 2012 / Leave a comment
A new article worth reading!
- Who Is Protecting the People's Property?, by Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, SRRT Newsletter, Issue 178, (March 2012).
...Some librarians are discarding the paper Serial Set when they buy the digital version. The publishers were only able to digitize the whole set because missing volumes were provided by libraries... Tax supported libraries and librarians preserved them for several hundred years. But now, preserving them has become a burden and space is needed for the machines needed to read the digital version that libraries will pay for with more tax dollars.
...We need to think and plan like librarians and prepare for the future. Our collections were built by thousands of librarians who cared about future readers. Some of them have retired rather than see their collections destroyed. Some have been persuaded to sign letters of support for policies they do not support. Some are desperately trying to protect their collections. Some have had their collections taken away and some have had their jobs taken away. Most of them are still trying to serve the needs of the American people. Documents librarians need your help to convince library directors and the policy makers of ALA to protect the past to ensure a good information future for all...
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