Supreme Court transcripts
Do you need audio recordings of the Supreme Court hearings? How about transcripts of those audio recordings available for bulk download? Are you responsible for helping people find data as well as government information? Are you looking for alternative sources for government data — in bulk? Well, if you are not already subscribed to Jeremy Singer-Vine’s wonderful mailing list Data is Plural, you should be. Here is just one example of what you’ll get (taken from the 2017.06.14 edition):
Supreme Court transcripts. Oyez.org bills itself as , among other things, “a complete and authoritative source for all of the [Supreme] Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955.” The site has an API and releases all its material — including timestamped transcripts of oral arguments — under a Creative Commons license . A least two GitHub repositories have aggregated the transcripts and make them easy to bulk-download. For each segment of audio, the transcripts list the start/end time, the speaker, and the text. Related: PuppyJusticeAutomated , a YouTube channel that (a) must be seen to be understood and (b) uses the Oyez API . Previously: CourtListener (DIP 2016.04.13) and The Supreme Court Database (DIP 2016.02.23). [h/t Walker Boyle + Reddit user 21cannons ]
History, People & Culture at State Agency Databases Project
This week’s State Agency Databases Project subject highlight is History, People & Culture, featuring 49 states that project volunteers know to have publicly searchable databases in this subject area. Three examples from this compilation are:
Alabama 1867 Voter Registration Database – Search the 131 volumes of the 1867 Voter Registration Records, which was one of the first statewide government documents that record African-American males living in Alabama. Search by name, race, county, or comments.
Death Notices of Members of Fraternal Orders – Database includes over 50,000 individuals for whom a notice of death was published in the proceedings of a fraternal order. Fraternal orders included and dates of coverage are: Ancient Order of United Workmen, 1879-1908; Knights of Pythias, 1877-1918; Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 1873-1970; Rebekah Assembly of the IOOF, 1891-1953
Wyoming Newspapers – Wyoming State Library – Available through this website are newspapers printed in Wyoming beginning with the 1849 Chugg Water Journal, in an easily searchable format. Browse or search the more than 900,000 newspaper pages converted from microfilm to a digital format. All text is searchable, including news articles, news briefs, obituaries and other items of interest.
For more, see http://godort.libguides.com/historydbs. If you know of state agency produced databases in this area, either comment here or use the “Email me” link on the guide to report a database, which will be forwarded to the appropriate project volunteer.
Montana Library Association passes Resolution to fund US govt publications preservation
Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, the grande dame of government documents — she’s got a GODORT award named after her for gosh sakes! — sent me this announcement. The Montana library Association, at its annual membership meeting in March, 2017, passed a packet of resolutions including their Resolution on Funding the Preservation of Federal Government Publications (text below). The resolution calls on the US Congress to “fully fund preservation of Federal government publications housed in federal depository libraries.”
The resolution has been sent to Montana’s US Senator Jon Tester, who happens to sit on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Please consider taking this text and passing the resolution at other state library associations, especially if your state’s senator sits on the Appropriations Committee. I’ve sent the text of this resolution to CA Senator Diane Feinstein.
Thanks bernadine for all your hard work on this and through the many years!
Resolution on Funding the Preservation of Federal Government Publications
Whereas, Democracy depends upon the public’s access to information from and about the United States federal government; and
Whereas, to preserve the historic record of our country, the United States Congress established a distributed system of Federal depository libraries to safeguard government information from dangers ranging from bit-rot to fire; and
Whereas, the United States Federal depository libraries provide public access to federal government publications and information without charge; and
Whereas, Federal depository libraries spend millions of dollars collecting, housing, cataloging, and providing public access to federal government information, and
Whereas, Federal depository libraries lack enough money to preserve millions of federal government publications in paper, microform, and digital formats; and
Whereas, the U. S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) established FIPNet (Federal Information Preservation Network) as part of the “National Plan for Access to U. S. Government Information” – a strategy for a collaborative network of information professionals working in various partner roles to ensure access to the national collection of government information for future generations. FIPNet contributes to the preservation of both tangible and digital government information, and elevates the public awareness and prestige of local initiatives, specific collections of government information, and the institutions and agencies that have stewardship over them; and
Whereas, GPO is not authorized to provide funding directly to depository libraries that agree to preserve federal government publications; and
Whereas, the United States Congress can authorize GPO to provide funding to depository libraries; and Whereas, GPO needs additional funding and staff to provide on-site support for libraries in the building of an inventory and catalog of all their federal government publications in order to plan for preservation;
Therefore, be it resolved that:
The Montana Library Association urges the U. S. Congress to fully fund preservation of Federal government publications housed in federal depository libraries; and
The Montana Library Association urges the U. S. Congress to authorize the U. S. Government Publishing Office to provide funds directly to libraries for the preservation of the federal government publications (paper, microform, and digital) housed in their libraries; and
The Montana Library Association urges Congress to provide funding to the Superintendent of Documents (GPO) so agency librarians can travel to depository libraries to advise librarians in preservation activities, including inventorying, cataloging, and planning for preservation of government publications.
Adopted by the Montana Library Association Membership March 31, 2017
Carl Malamud conducting audit of public domain in scholarly literature
Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org has long done yeoman’s work in furtherance of the public domain. Who can forget that it was he who forced the SEC to build and maintain the EDGAR database for public access to company filings? And he’s long been on the side of open law (“Law is the operating system of our society … So show me the manual!”).
Now he’s working on a little side project to find out — and more importantly make publicly accessible! — how much of the scholarly journal literature is actually in the public domain:
“Our audit has determined that 1,264,429 journal articles authored by federal employees or officers are potentially void of copyright…In addition, 2,031,359 of the articles in my possession are dated 1923 or earlier. These 2 categories represent 4.92% of scihub.”
This represents only a small chunk of the 63+ million articles estimated to be available in SciHub, the rebel search engine that bypasses publisher paywalls to give free access to over 62,000,000 academic papers (one could, if one were intrigued, access SciHub via onion link in the Tor browser). After his analysis is done, he’ll be making it publicly available. Way to go Carl!
Read Carl’s entire tweet thread below:
1/10 Public Resource has been conducting an intensive audit of the scholarly literature. We have focused on works of the U.S. government.
— Carl Malamud (@carlmalamud) June 6, 2017
Health, Medicine & Safety at State Agency Databases Project
This week’s State Agency Databases Project subject highlight is Health, Medicine & Safety, featuring 43 states that project volunteers know to have publicly searchable databases in this subject area. Three examples from this compilation are:
Arizona Board of Nursing Online Verification – Search by license number or name; records will include information about actions taken by the Board
Drug License Search – Searchable database of licensed prescription drug distributors in the state of North Carolina. May be searched online by company name or license number. Or download the entire database in MS Excel format.
For more, see http://godort.libguides.com/healthdbs. If you know of state agency produced databases in this area, either comment here or use the “Email me” link on the guide to report a database, which will be forwarded to the appropriate project volunteer.
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