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GPO’s “Google”?
A Washington Times article about FDsys describes it as GPO's "Google" for Federal Documents:
Web users could just as easily use Google or other search engines to find government information, but FDsys assures access to the original, authentic versions of government documents.I am amused by the comments posted to this article so far:
Why would you call this "Google" for documents, unless you are simply try to get web hits by using the google name. I went to the site and it is not immediately clear where in tarnation to find anything. I'm 38, computer literate and immediately find the site unappealing, and definitely not user friendly. The genius of google is it's simplicity. The GPO site is just like the GPO building itself Old, archaic, and difficult to navigate. I suppose if I was in the business of publishing paper copies, I wouldn't want people finding things easily online either.Perhaps a government documents librarian could help you navigate it? ;-)
$20 million, five years, and it's still not as good as Google - classic government work. Why didn't they just give the docs to Google and let them do it?Because Google would mess it up even worse. Look at Google Books and how they block full access to public domain government documents! Sigh...why did the article have to mention Google?
I found the search engine very easy to use and very powerful -- apparently it's metadata-aware, so it can do much more sophisticated searches than Google allows. It also looks like they built in a nice drilldown feature that lets you find what you're looking for when you don't know what you're looking for.Glad this user noticed that. And my favorite quote:
It's a good start at providing information to interested citizens. The information overload will be intense.Yes, it is a good start. But the info overload is already intense! Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 14
The Obama administration is well into the civic wilderness of administration at the national level. Several nominations have faltered and failed. The extremely critical , and massive, economic recovery legislation is wallowing in the half-century long trench philosophical warfare between democrats and republicans. Obama attempts to include the republicans in the discussion, they continue to hold their approval. So far the age of bipartisan tranquility is still aborning. Though the election in November clearly pointed the way to a desired change, our political parties do not want to follow the suggestion. While the quick cannon shot of opportunity fades with time, the Government Printing Office announced today the first public release of FDsys. Described as "a one-stop site to authentic, published government information. FDsys allows GPO to receive information from federal agencies in all three branches of government and create a repository for permanent, public access. More than 154,000 documents are currently accessible, with additional documents being added daily. FDsys offers incredible search capabilities for users such as: searching by Congressional Committee, a Member of Congress, keyword and date. FDsys will replace GPOAccess in mid-2009 and releases with additional functionality will occur throughout the next several years." The upshot for this small milestone on the journey to ALA's summer conference -- the more things change, the more they stay the same. We have our work cut out for us. While the GPO continues to evolve in many good ways, and while we have a President whose rhetoric and policy perspective mirrors our own civic sensibilities, we should not be too surprised by the staying power of partisan muck to gum up the civic machinery of hope and change. See you on Day 15. Continue reading
Guide of the Week: Transition to Digital Television
Sad to say, for the second time during this Guide of the Week: Transition Edition, I've come up empty. While the General Accountability Office identified the Transition to Digital Television as one of 13 critical transition issues, there appears to be no librarian-produced guides linked to ALA GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki to inform people about this issue. If you know of one, please post it to the Handout Exchange. As a consolation prize, it turns out that the phrase "Digital Television Transition" is a good way to kick the tires on the public beta of GPO's new FDSys at http://fdsys.gpo.gov. Type in the words without quotes and you'll get 2,654 results. That seems too many to look at once? Then use the "narrow your search" options in the left hand column. You might start with "congressional hearlings (761)" That brings you a new list of "narrow your search" options. From there you might choose "House appropriations committee (81)" After that, try clicking on "see more" under "keywords." Try clicking on "public broadcasting" and you'll find four hearings. The search results contain snippets with your search terms and come from several different congresses. As long as I'm talking about FDSys, I want to say THANKS to GPO for including "find in a library" links that are equal in effectiveness to their "purchase this item" links. Next week I'll be dealing with librarian produced guides relating to "Defense Readiness" So if you have any guides relating to that topic, please try and post them to the Handout Exchange this week. Continue reading
Calls for Comment on Proposed Federal Data Collections
I'm forwarding this heads-up from the Association of Public Data Users (APDU) list. Over the last two weeks, there have been quite a few calls for comment on proposed data collections published in the Federal Register (see below with due date). Maybe it's because I haven't had my coffee yet this morning, but I was a little peeved by my failed information search. I found the Census Bureau's FR posting (Federal Register: January 7, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 4) Page 672) (btw, I tried in FDsys.gpo.gov but they've not loaded Volume 74 yet) but at first was stymied because the summary page has no link to the Census Bureau's Web site, and does not have contact information or any link to more information. The full listing has the information, but comments must be written, no Web submissions :-| Ok fine, I go to www.census.gov and after more than 5 minutes of search/browse, give up on finding exactly *how* to submit comments on the proposed "Quarterly Financial Report" or "Survey of Local Government Finances." What's even worse, census.gov does not have a "contact us" link on it's first page. I finally found it in the footer of a second level page, but could find nothing in the Question and Answer Center about RFCs, proposed data sets etc. *sigh* I guess this is turning into an FDsys comment. I noticed in FDsys that you can sign up to receive the daily Federal Register Table of Contents which is cool. But there needs to be a way to browse only the requests for comments (or rules changes, notices...) of specific agencies in the FR as well as receive email or RSS of requests for comments. There also needs to be a link in the FR to the agency in question and not just their top level site but to the place on the site with information on the RFC and directions for how to submit comments. And lastly (this is not an FDsys comment but a general agency comment) RFCs should be submitted online. So go ahead and submit comments for the proposed data collections below, I dare you.
- Census Bureau
Quarterly Financial Report (February 9, 2009)
Survey of Local Government Finances (School Systems) (March 13, 2009) - Office of Management and Budget
2007 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)-Updates for 2012 (April 7, 2009) - Bureau of Labor Statistics
Labor Market Information (LMI) Cooperative Agreement (March 3, 2009) - Employment and Training Administration, Department of Labor
O*Net Data Collection Program (January 30, 2009) - Science Resources Statistics, National Science Foundation
Survey of Research and Development Expenditures at Universities and Colleges (March 10, 2009) - National Institutes of Health
Information Program on Clinical Trials: Maintaining a Registry and Results Databank (February 5, 2009) - Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services
Feasibility Test for Design Phase of National Study of Child Care Supply and Demand (February 5, 2009) - Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Health and Human Services
The AHRQ Data Inventory (January 30, 2009) - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services
CAHPS Home Health Care Survey (March 10, 2009) - Surface Transportation Board, Department of Transportation
Class I Railroad Annual Report (February 9, 2009)
Quarterly Report of Freight Commodity Statistics (February 9, 2009)
Some feedback on FDsys beta testing
About 75 people so far have volunteered to provide feedback for GPO's new Content Management System, the Federal Digital System (FDsys) -- testing is open until 1/12/09, there's still time to volunteer by emailing pmo@gpo.gov. We want to thank GPO for the opportunity to kick the tires of FDsys. In the interest of open and public discussion of this very important development in Federal information access infrastructure, we thought we'd share our feedback. GPO has posted its FDSys release phases, and we're happy to see many (but not all) of the enhancements/improvements listed that we suggest in our feedback. Please see scribd where we've posted our feedback. We have some individual comments below. There's been a little chatter on govdoc-l, and while we agree with some of that feedback (faceted search for example), we want so much more from FDsys that it ultimately leaves us wanting for late 2009. [JRJ] Sure, it works, but I want it to work *well*, not only for individual/casual users, but for those thinking about building other services (shoutout to the Open House Project!), or surreptitiously finding links to docs in search engine results for those that don't know that fdsys exists etc. Also, it's unclear if fdsys exposes all the content so that others (e.g. google) can index it and, if so, how (e.g. google sitemaps, OAI, html, etc...). [RB]- While some features of FDSys Beta are truly commendable (i.e. faceted search), it is lacking many features that would make this a more robust, user-friendly, and outstanding database. For one, where is the link to “Find it in a Library”? They have a link to “Purchase Your Own Copy” at the GPO Bookstore, but there is no way to locate the document in a library? That is inexcusable, in my opinion. Also, it lacks any type of sharing capability (i.e. social bookmarking) and RSS alert features for search queries. Oh…and no API! With that said, I realize this is Beta and perhaps these features will roll out in later versions. But we need to remind them to include these features! If no one says anything, it might never happen. There is always room for improvement. Let’s not settle for less. [JAJ] To me, it seemed very cluttered and complex and 'librarianish.' much more like a proquest or lexisnexis interface than a google. there is always a trade off between ease-of-use and flexibility, but, as we have seen with the success and popularity of google, it is probably wise to have a default easy-to-use interface that works for most people most of the time and keep the bells and whistles available to those who request 'advanced search.' the clutter makes me think they were trying really hard to make it look up-to-date and that just reminds me of microsoft's live.com which tries hard, but doesn't work as well as google. we don't need flash, we need simple functionality. I think everyone responsible for FDsys needs a huge "thank you" for the progress that the release of FDsys represents. The WAIS system is so out of date that it is embarrassing; FDsys is designed to be OAIS compliant and that is a huge improvement for long term functionality and flexibility. That said, it still has a long way to go to even begin to match the functionality of current day web apps. Enhancements are coming throughout 2009 and we're excited about this first step for a child that will grow to adulthood quickly. FDsys beta feedback - Jacobs
FDSys Beta Feedback Form FDsys Feedback Cornwall Continue reading
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