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Cataloging Didn’t Get Results in Alaska
Update: September 4, 2008 It breaks my heart and embarrasses me to do this, but I've discovered that the circulation figures I used for the post below were flawed. Specifically, the reports I consulted treated internal processing as a checkout. Once we recalculated our circ stats to only include transactions involving real patrons and ILL transactions, we found that our document circulation has been relatively low and flat for the last five years. No visible bump from cataloging the collection. Is this the end of the story? I doubt it. First, we only completed the retro project this year, so a number of documents haven't been available in the catalog for too long. Second, staff are now in a better place to identify and promote federal documents then we were last year. This may make higher circulation possible. But I don't know. I'll get back to you. - Daniel ======Original Post========== At the Alaska State Library, we recently completed a barcoding project which finally let us put all of our manual shelflist items into our catalog for our patrons to find. This also meant that our holdings went onto Open WorldCat for others to find. I'm happy to report that we've had a 7% increase in checkouts of federal documents compared to the previous fiscal year. I'm sure the cataloging project was responsible because the rate of increase for documents checkouts outperformed other parts of the collection. Since the project was only completed in the fiscal year that ended on June 30th, I expect to see more growth in documents checkouts in the coming year. There are many ways to make open a tangible collection to the world. Good cataloging is a start! Continue reading
The Federal Government Must Reimagine Its Role As An Information Provider
Here is a pre-print (not-final version) of a paper with fascinating ideas about distribution of government information:
- Robinson, David, Yu, Harlan, Zeller, William P and Felten, Edward W, "Government Data and the Invisible Hand" (2008). Yale Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 11, 2008.
...reduce the federal role in presenting important government information to citizens. Today, government bodies consider their own websites to be a higher priority than technical infrastructures that open up their data for others to use. We argue that this understanding is a mistake. It would be preferable for government to understand providing reusable data, rather than providing websites, as the core of its online publishing responsibility.While the paper does not address preservation and long term access explicitly, it does suggest that the government should provide a "permanent location" with a permanent URL for "each piece of government data." It also implies (I think) that something like LOCKSS will ensure authenticity and permanent access ("As long as there is vigorous competition between third party sites, we expect most citizens will be able to ?nd a site provider they trust.") I believe that oversimplifies the problem and relies too much on hope and not enough on a social commitment to preservation through public funding of memory organizations. Thanks and a tip of the hat to Joshua Taubere (GovTrack.us) for pointing to this article. He describes and comments on the paper in a post on the Open House Project blog: (Government Data and the Invisible Hand June 6th, 2008 by Joshua Tauberer). Continue reading
Good news and bad news about UK GIS data
Today, some mixed good news/bad news about the availability of free public data in the UK. As we've noted here before (e.g., Privatized Data Woes in Britain and News from abroad: UK open statutes & RFID in Canadian coins and The Semantic Web + Government Information = Serendipitous Reuse) the British government sells limited-use licences to its GIS data on a cost recovery basis. Now, as part of a proposed national geoportal, the UK would "create a single point of entry on the web to data held by public bodies such as local councils, Ordnance Survey (OS), the British Geological Survey and the Environment Agency." But, as the story says, "A new system will make geospatial information available without charge - yet we'll still have to pay."
- An Inspired debate on access, by Michael Cross, The Guardian, May 22 2008.
First, some very good news. Civil servants revealed last week that the British government has begun work on a system to make all the geospatial data it holds on the natural environment available for free inspection and re-use. Now the bad news. In this context, "free" means we will still have to pay to download much key data, especially if it is to be published or otherwise used commercially.Continue reading
Classifying the Unclassified – Blanket Secrecy License?
On May 9, this past Friday, the White House issued a memorandum doing away with the old category of "Sensitive But Unclassified" and replacing it with "Controlled Unclassified Information." The memo is titled, "Memorandum For The Heads Of Executive Departments And Agencies - SUBJECT: Designation and Sharing of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)". Here is how the memo defines CUI (bolding mine):
a. "Controlled Unclassified Information" is a categorical designation that refers to unclassified information that does not meet the standards for National Security Classification under Executive Order 12958, as amended, but is (i) pertinent to the national interests of the United States or to the important interests of entities outside the Federal Government, and (ii) under law or policy requires protection from unauthorized disclosure, special handling safeguards, or prescribed limits on exchange or dissemination. Henceforth, the designation CUI replaces "Sensitive But Unclassified" (SBU).This is such a broad brush that it could be used to exempt anything from public disclosure. By definition, isn't anything the government produces at least somewhat pertinent to the national interests of the United States? Otherwise, why waste taxpayer dollars and government time creating the product? Then there's the allowance for "policy." I'm sure that DoD's 2002 domestic propaganda program probably "required protection" from "unauthorized disclosure" for "policy" reasons. This is a definition that appears to be designed to give the executive branch total control over what information is released by the US Government regardless of existing law. It is an order that should be challenged by Congress today with no funding permitted for its implementation. Assuming the President doesn't back down, it should be one of the first items revoked by the incoming President. Government information items should be properly classified and protected, safeguarded when containing individuals personal data, or public record. No twilight zone of "It's unclassified, by I can't give it to you for reasons of government policy." Continue reading
Movement for the Liberation of Old Papers
Erik Ringmar, professor of social and cultural studies at the National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, wants others to join him in putting restricted government documents on the web. I say this is awesome! There's certainly precedent for this kind of activism: Jared Benedict liberated a bunch of USGS maps and just last week, I uploaded the Iraqi Perspectives Report to the Internet Archive. Anyone else out there set free a government document? Leave us a comment.
So, I've taken it upon myself to start an organisation called MLOP, the "Movement for the Liberation of Old Papers". What I do is hack into restricted websites, download the documents I'm interested in, and then use my favourite open-source paint program to remove the copyright statements from each page. Next I assemble the pages into one single pdf file and upload it to the Internet Archive, where it will become universally available to both researchers and citizens. Yes, it does take a bit of time, but it's a very worthy cause (and I have a hardworking research assistant to help me). I feel strongly about this, and I'm prepared to live with the legal consequences of my actions. This, after all, is the new frontier of civil rights - the right of access to information. How else can corruption be stopped and falsehoods exposed? How else can people in power be held accountable? I'd go to prison for the old parliamentary papers if I had to. Ever after I would proudly brag about having liberated an old House of Commons report from the clutches of market capitalism.Continue reading
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