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CA state agencies misapply ADA law, documents vanish from CA websites
File this under the law of unintended consequences. A California law passed in 2017 designed to make sure CA government agency websites were accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has had an unintended negative effect on CA agency Websites. The law simply states: 11546.7. (a) Before July 1, 2019, and before July 1 […]
What You Need to Know about the New Discard Policy
GPO’s new Regional Discard Policy and GPO’s recent presentations about it are full of hopeful words and good intentions. We applaud GPO for having good intentions and high hopes, but we question if the Policy can meet those expectations. Introduction of the Policy and its Implementation One definite Goal. Some questionable objectives Preservation of and […]
Having a Plan “B”
In early August, FGI reported on FDLP.gov being hacked as evidenced by a large cat looming over a night time cityscape. Subsequently the FDLP published an explanation dated August 19th why several FDLP websites were unavailable due to an ongoing internal security review. By unhappy coincidence, my library had just uploaded a digitization project description to […]
UK’s Conservative party deletes archive of speeches from internet
The Guardian wrote yesterday, "Conservative party deletes archive of speeches from internet." The Conservative Party has attempted to delete from their website -- as well as from the Internet Archive! -- all their speeches and press releases online from the past 10 years, including one in which David Cameron promises to use the Internet to make politicians 'more accountable'. This is troubling news, but something as old as politicians -- see for example ALA's long-running serial "Less access to less information by and about the US government" which ran from 1981 - 1998. But it should also come as yet another warning to librarians and archivists of the dire need to harvest and preserve government information and store content off of .gov servers.
The party has removed the archive from its public website, erasing records of speeches and press releases from 2000 until May 2010. The effect will be to remove any speeches and articles during the Tories' modernisation period, including its commitment to spend the same as a Labour government. The Labour MP Sheila Gilmore accused the party of a cynical stunt, adding: "It will take more than David Cameron pressing delete to make people forget about his broken promises and failure to stand up for anyone beyond a privileged few." In a remarkable step the party has also blocked access to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a US-based library that captures webpages for future generations, using a software robot that directs search engines not to access the pages. Continue reading
Another one bites the dust: Consolidated Federal Funds Report going away July 31, 2012
Happy friday :-| The Consolidated Federal Funds Report will be going away. Census will still continue to host the 1995 - 2010 historic reports (for now!). According to their web site:
Due to the termination of the Federal Financial Statistics program, the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR) website, including the On-Line Query System, will be shut down on July 31, 2012. Historical CFFR data will be available by request or via a Census Bureau FTP site. Available files will include the U.S. and Individual States Combined, Individual State Files, accompanying reference files, and .pdf publication reports. In addition, the Federal Aid to States and Federal Expenditures by State historical .pdf publications will also be available by request or via a Census Bureau FTP site. For questions regarding future access to these historical files, please contact the Governments Division - Education and Outreach Branch at govs.cms.inquiry@census.govWhat is the Consolidated Federal Funds Report and why is it so critical? Here's Census' description of the resource:
Data are obtained on the amount of virtually all Federal expenditures, including grants, loans, direct payments, insurance, procurement, salaries and wages and other awards (such as price supports and research awards). Data represent actual expenditures (or outlays) with some exceptions. For example, contract amounts may represent obligations, loans and insurance can include cash and contingent liability values, and grants to individuals may reflect benefit commitments. Expenditures are reported by responsible department or agency, and classified by affected program (such as Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief grants or Food and Nutrition Services Women Infants and Children (WIC) Program).That's a LOT of data that will soon disappear! Continue reading
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