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Free Government Information (FGI) is a place for initiating dialogue and building consensus among the various players (libraries, government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, journalists, etc.) who have a stake in the preservation of and perpetual free access to government information. FGI promotes free government information through collaboration, education, advocacy and research.

Strengthening Title 44 part 2: Free Access

Free access This is the second in a series of posts in which we explain the the reasons behind our recent recommendations for strengthening Title 44 of the U.S. Code. Three of our recommendations suggest strengthening the language of Title 44 in order to ensure free public access to government information. Recommendations Retain and enhance Free use […]

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GPO Access Goes Archive Only #FDLP

FYI readers. GPO announced today that their legacy system, GPOAccess, is soon to go archive only. This has been a long and involved process to build FDsys, move content from GPOAccess over to the new platform and now finally sunset the older system. This has been a real community effort with much work by GPO staff as well as continuous beta testing and other input from the FDLP community.

On Friday, November 4, 2011, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) draws one step closer to shutting down GPO Access. Once the Friday editions of daily updated content (e.g., Federal Register, Congressional Record) have been uploaded, GPO will cease updating GPO Access in terms of both database content and HTML pages. This will mark the start of the archive only phase of GPO Access and new content will only be loaded to FDsys. During this phase, GPO Access will remain publicly accessible as a reference archive. In order to make the switchover from GPO Access to FDsys as seamless as possible for users, GPO is in the process of creating one-to-one redirects from GPO Access content to the FDsys equivalent. This will ensure that bookmarks, Web links, URLs in print publications, and other GPO Access references point to valid Web resources. Once this has been completed, GPO Access will be taken offline. A date has not yet been established for the final shutdown of GPO Access; however, it is slated for fiscal year 2012. Libraries should take this opportunity (if they have not already done so) to review their Web sites, presentations, brochures, and other materials that reference GPO Access and work to update or replace these materials. This includes imagery and URLs. Thank you for your patience and assistance while we make this transition.
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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)
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Comparison of Legislative Resources on GPO Access and Selected Government and Non-Government Web Sites

GPO has a new version of its Comparison of Legislative Resources on GPO Access and Selected Government and Non-Government Web Sites (October 2008). It has separate files with tables showing the 34 GPO Access legislative resources studied and the scope of each of eight Web sites examined. (Scope of GPO Access and Government Web Sites and Scope of GPO Access and Non-Government Web Sites. The study compares legislative information available on GPO Access to House.gov, Senate.gov, THOMAS, Lexis-Nexis Congressional, Westlaw, CQ.com, and HeinOnline. The study finds that GPO Access contains a unique mix of online legislative resources not duplicated in total at other sites. ("No Government or Non- Government Web site, other than GPO Access, contains Economic Indicators, Independent Counsel Investigations, State of the Union, United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions (Plum Book), and the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual.") But, "In terms of scope of the legislative resources it provides, GPO Access is behind the other Web sites evaluated. Many of the other sites either contain historical content on their service or link to external sites with historical information, whereas GPO Access possesses current information that generally begins in the mid-1990s." The last study (2003) and previous studies are still available at http://fedbbs.access.gpo.gov/library/compare/. Continue reading

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Google and the Search for Federal Government Information

A couple of weeks ago, Bonnie Klein, of the Defense Technical Information Center, submitted a comment here with a link to an article she wrote about the effectiveness of using Google and other commercial search tools to find government information. I recommend it highly:

In it, Klein notes that "Google and other search engines are commercial enterprises, not public utilities." She addresses in particular the fact that government information gets no priority in ranking of search results: "Business operations and revenue-generating advertising partnerships, not altruism, factor into page ranking." The article examines legal, technical, commercial, and copyright issues, and includes many useful citations. For example, she quotes, Donna Bogatin from ZDNet, who observes that "By requiring that Web pages have inbound links from third-party Web sites, the PageRank based algorithm may result in automatic exclusion of the most relevant pages for a given query simply because no other Websites have linked to them." (Google Search Page Rank Excludes Relevant Websites, by Donna Bogatin. ZDNet, January 26, 2007). This is a good reminder of how government web sites that make it difficult to link to documents ("Documents that exist within databases on GPO Access cannot be bookmarked") automatically lower their PageRank. Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Bonnie for this useful article! See also: Hiding in Plain Sight: Why Important Government Information Cannot Be Found Through Commercial Search Engines, Center for Democracy and Technology. Continue reading

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