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Dodging the memory hole
Abbey Potter’s comments about preserving digital news are also very relevant to the preservation of government information. Potter is the Program Officer with the the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). In her post on The Signal blog, she elaborates on her closing keynote address at the Dodging the Memory Hole II: An […]
State Agency Databases Project: 2014 Statistics
At the beginning of each year, I (Daniel) compile yearly statistics for the pages of the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. Here are a few highlights from 2014. State Pages We had five states top 10,000 visits a year, led by Missouri with 22,069 visits. 1. Missouri (Annie Moots) […]
State Agency Databases Activity Report 4/6/2014
It was a busy week for the volunteers at the State Agency Databases Project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases. FEATURED DATABASE Today’s featured database is from Susanne Caro who maintains the Montana page: Montana Field Guides http://fieldguide.mt.gov/default.aspx “These guides and this website are a collaborative effort between the Montana Natural Heritage Program and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The Animal Field […]
NY Times publishes documents
More than once here at FGI we have lamented the fact that newspapers have not used the web to link to documents (of all kinds, not just government publications) that they cite. The New York Times is doing a better job of this than most. I recently realized that they even have a server named documents.nytimes.com. I noticed this when following a story (Army History Finds Early Missteps in Afghanistan, By James Dao, December 30, 2009) about a new, unpublished Army history of the war in Afghanistan. The report, "A Different Kind of War," was "written by a team of seven historians at the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and based on open source material, it is scheduled to be published by spring." The Times posted the document online http://documents.nytimes.com/a-different-kind-of-war#p=1 , but not as a PDF or other downloadable format, but as a series of page-images. I would certainly prefer to see the option of downloading the entire document and can't see why the Times didn't provide that option. (There are no ads on the pages I viewed, so it isn't a matter of forcing you to view an ad for every page you read.) Presumably the published version will be available for downloading and preservation, but it would be better if this version was also available for downloading and preservation. That would make it easier for scholars to use now and easier to compare changes when the final version is released. I also noticed that, if you go to the root web directory of the Times documents web site (http://documents.nytimes.com) you are redirected to http://documents.nytimes.com/atom which is an RSS (actually "atom" -- a similar format) feed of documents posted. That is excellent! Continue reading
NY Times publishes some FOIA documents
In an investigation on how the Bush administration uses retired military officers to promote its message on the Iraq war, the New York Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantanamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation. The story based on these documents (Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand By David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008) is supplemented online by "Audio, video and documents that show how the military’s talking points were disseminated" (How the Pentagon Spread Its Message and a "Document Archive," which allows users to read and download documents and parts of documents. Of the 8000 pages, only a few are available online, but these include emails, a "Talking Points Memo," excerpts from a Transcript of meeting with Mr. Rumsfeld, and a Pentagon document that reports "Monitoring of Analysts." Together, the audio-visual presentation and the documents are a small model for how newspapers could be using the power of the web to enhance their coverage and utility. I would certainly like to see all 8000 pages online! The story itself is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the daily news.
Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who could be counted on to deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of their own opinions." ...Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.Continue reading
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