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FOIA hearings held this week
Jim A. Jacobs linked to some items about this week's FOIA hearings. The Guardian has published a summary of the testimony by AP. It also includes a link to GAO's report, "Freedom of Information Act: Processing Trends Show Importance of Improvement Plans," [PDF] which was released yesterday. The abstract notes that the FOIA request backlog is increasing at many agencies. However, it also says that it is difficult to properly gage trends in reporting because the time lags are reported in median times, not average times. The Executive Order referenced in the report, "Improving Agency Disclosure of Information," was signed by President Bush on December 14, 2006. It outlined a plan to improve the FOIA process, including improved customer service for requesters and increased access to government information on federal websites. Continue reading
The burden e-gov puts on libraries
James Jacobs commented on the post I published on e-government. He said:
"Evidently (and I haven't checked on this so this is purely an anecdote!), libraries are beginning to be seen as e-govt resources. Good you say, but the worry comes in when librarians are more and more expected to help their patrons fill out the govt forms that they've downloaded from library public computers. In other words, librarians are being seen as defacto public information officers."
From the discussion on this subject that I had in one of my classes, I think what James is saying is true. I'm not a public librarian, so I am basing this opinion off of what I heard my class. My professor, Paul Jaeger, co-wrote an article in Library Journal last year on this subject. He and his co-authors took a poll of librarians to investigate the growing reliance on libraries as an e-gov source. From the article:
"So, as libraries become valuable community access points to e-government services and resources, especially in post-hurricane emergency relief, their efforts as agents of e-government represent an unfunded mandate. The library community must respond with better training and education. However, government agencies that both fund libraries and rely on them for their public access computing and Internet access also must provide greater support." (Bertot 35)
Here is the citation for the article: Bertot, John Carlo, et al. "Drafted: I Want You to Deliver E-Government." Library Journal 131.14 (15 Aug. 2006): pp.34-39.
Continue readingNARA to release ERA in September
Wade-Hahn Chan reported in Federal Computer Week this week that the first part of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) will make its debut in September. ERA is the system that the National Archives is designing to preserve the federal government's electronic records. The first release, according to NARA CIO Martha Morphy, will allow federal agencies to transfer their electronic records directly to the ERA. Four agencies currently submit their records to NARA for archiving; in addition, NARA's Electronic Records Management Initiative has provided all agencies with information on how to handle the formating of electronic documents. The White House has requested a $12 million increase in the budget for ERA for FY2008. Speaking of the Bush administration, a second version of ERA will be developed for the George W. Bush Presidential Library to archive the administration's electronic records. The FY2008 budget requests $38 million to archive these documents. You can learn a bit more about ERA in a video [WMV] linked to on the project's website. I found the FCW article at the eGovernment Resource Centre. Continue reading
Victorian Government’s eGovernment Resource Centre
I am in a class about e-government this semester. In our second meeting, our professor showed us the excellent eGovernment Resource Centre. This website from the government of Victoria, Australia has compiled a large directory of e-government websites and news links. You can browse by topical groupings or just browse through an A to Z index. In addition, the site offers RSS feeds that provide such information as new resources for government web designers and site updates as they happen. I find the Daily Digest feed particularly useful, and I will occasionally link to stories I've found there, such as the one about ExpectMore.gov in my previous post.
Continue readingExpect more from ExpectMore.gov
This headline is cheesy, but I can't resist. ExpectMore.gov is a website from the Office of Management and Budget that was launched last year to provide public reports on the performance of the many federal programs. You can browse through the list of Performing Programs, which are the ones OMB rates as being from adequate to effective, and the list of Not Performing Programs, which are either ineffective or have not adequately demonstrated results. The website explicitly explains why they gave each program its respective rating, and also explains what actions are to be taken to improve the program. This includes improving programs that are already highly rated; visit the report for the On-going Pest and Disease Management Program as an example. Wyatt Kash of Government Computer News recently reported in the article "Federal Web site introduces new analysis tools" on the many improvements ExpectMore.gov began rolling out this week. The website discusses on its What's New page the addition of a CSV (comma space delimited) [ZIP] file containing all the Program Assessment Rating Tool data. Kash's article adds, "Programs have also been more thoroughly tagged with up to three identification tags, said Shea, so researchers are likely to get more useful search results." I didn't see any information about this during a quick surf of the site, but the article indicated these improvements were just beginning to be introduced. Keep an eye out for more information. Continue reading
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