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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.

Quigley and Lance re-introduce H.Res 110: public access to CRS reports

Man, this week is Sunshine-week-alicious! The Sunlight Foundation has long advocated for -- along with FGI, library- and open govt organizations -- the free public access to Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports. CRS Reports are commonly not available to the public as CRS has this arcane and outdated rule that CRS reports are privileged communication between Congress and CRS. But CRS reports ARE available randomly online and Proquest, Penny Hill Press and other commercial publishers have long published them for a fee (I've even heard that CRS subscribes to Proquest to get access to their own reports historically!). But this all may change. According to the Sunlight Blog, Representatives Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) have reintroduced the bipartisan House Resolution 110 "Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2013" (text not received by GPO yet so not publicly available on Thomas). The Resolution would direct the Clerk of the House of Representatives to provide members of the public with Internet access to certain Congressional Research Service publications. Easy-peasy right?! More than 30 organizations -- including Sunlight Foundation and FGI -- have signed on to a letter supporting the resolution. Please consider contacting your Representative and ask them to support H.Res. 110!

Open CRS Resolution Support Letter

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Check out LoC’s Area Studies webinar on Web archiving

Y'all should attend. The speaker is Abbie Grotke, who was one of our group of guest bloggers from the End of Term Archive last month. Register early. Or have a viewing party so you can share one Webinar connection with multiple people. But do it. You won't regret it!

FEDLINK invites you to the next Library of Congress Area Studies Webinar Series: "Web Archiving at the Library of Congress and Around the World," to be held on Thursday, August 30, 2012, 2:00-3:00pm ET. Since 2000, the Library of Congress has been archiving born-digital web content documenting a variety of events and themes. The Webinar will provide an overview of the Library's web archiving program and a look at international work and collaborative efforts by libraries, archives, and other organizations. The speaker is Abbie Grotke, the Web Archiving Team Lead in the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the Library of Congress. She came to the Library in 1997 to work on American Memory digitization projects. Since 2002 she has been involved in web archiving and the digital preservation program at the Library of Congress. REGISTRATION INFORMATION: This program is FREE however there is a maximum capacity so registration is required. The webinar will be recorded and available for later viewing if you are unable to participate. Please register by Tuesday, August 28, 2012 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GNBSWYM. If you experience problems with the registration link - please email your name/email/library name to fliccfno@loc.gov and we will get you manually registered for the webinar. For more information or to request ADA accommodations, please contact Dr. Anchi Hoh, Program Management Specialist, at adia@loc.gov.
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Lunchtime listen: LC National Jukebox, Smithsonian Folkways and Animal Cams

Just finishing up the first Webinar hosted by the ALA Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) entitled "Lions, and Podcasts, and Videos! Oh My!" Kathryn Yelinek from Bloomsburg University did a great job in showcasing audio-visual resources available from the US Government. Check out the following:

While tangible print documents have dominated traditional government sources, the United States government has always produced information in a variety of formats. This session is intended to introduce librarians to the rich variety of online government audiovisual material. Come and learn how to point your patrons to folk music recordings, historical videos, and more (there might be lions!) About the Presenter: Kathryn Yelinek received her MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh and her MSIT from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. For the past seven years, she has served as Coordinator of Government Documents for Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. While still a bibliophile at heart, she's becoming more aware of the educational benefits of audiovisual material.
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U.S. Copyright Office Posts Two RFI’s About Crowdsourcing and Developing a “Virtual Card Catalog” of Historical Records

Yesterday, the U.S. Copyright Office posted two RFI's. The first, is to learn more about software to build a virtual card catalog of historical copyright records. The second, is to learn more about crowdsourcing the data capture from about 70 million catalog cards. For those of you interested, you can find highlights, links to the full text docs, and a bit of background in a new LJ infoDOCKET post. Direct to: U.S. Copyright Office Posts Requests for Information About Crowdsourcing and Developing a “Virtual Card Catalog” of Historical Records (via LJ infoDOCKET Continue reading

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Help improve public access to Congressional/legislative information #FDLP

FGI just signed the letter below written by the Sunlight Foundation asking Congress to improve public access to legislative information by directing the Library of Congress to make their Thomas database accessible in bulk format. If you and/or your organization believe that free access to Congressional information is of critical importance, please please consider adding your name to the list of signatories on the letter. Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation's policy counsel and director of the Advisory Committee on Transparency, requests that people sign on by COB on Monday April 2nd. Interested people may also email Daniel at dschuman@sunlightfoundation.com) with how they would like to be identified on the letter. Daniel thanks you and so do we!

Dear Congressman/Senator: We are writing to ask you to improve public access to legislative information by directing the Library of Congress to publish the THOMAS database online. Congress created THOMAS with the mission of making federal legislation freely available to the public. While times have changed, and technologies have changed, THOMAS has not kept up. As a result, millions of Americans access basic information about legislation and congressional actions through online information providers like GovTrack, OpenCongress, and Washington Watch. These free non-governmental websites are forced to rely on brittle programs to harvest information from THOMAS’s complex website. This harvesting is imperfect, expensive, and time consuming. The better approach -- which has been adopted by industry and many in government -- is to publish legislative information "in bulk" in addition to other means. Bulk access would in essence make the entire legislative database available for download, instead of requiring users to gather information by visiting hundreds or thousands of web pages. It would make it easier for third parties to build innovative new tools, and ensure that Americans have the most accurate information at their fingertips. Congress already expressed its support for bulk access downloads in 2009, but the Library of Congress, which oversees THOMAS, has not acted. In the meantime, GPO, the executive branch, and the House of Representatives are already publishing information online in bulk. The time has come for action. In this year's legislative branch appropriations bill, we urge you to direct the Library of Congress to implement bulk access to THOMAS within 120 days. The Library should also immediately create an advisory committee on improving public access to legislative information composed of people inside and outside of government. Congress should ensure that THOMAS lives up to its potential of making the legislative branch more open and transparent. For more information, please contact Daniel Schuman, policy counsel, the Sunlight Foundation, at 202-742-1520 x 273 or dschuman@sunlightfoundation.com
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