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NARA does digital-deposit… but not to libraries.
Here at FGI, we are long time advocates of digital deposit: the deposit of born-digital government information into Federal Depository Libraries. We know this can be done, but, for a variety of increasingly unjustifiable reasons, neither FDLP libraries nor GPO have been eager to do it. We were intrigued, therefore, to see this story: US […]
Using Wikipedia to promote digital collections
Wielding Wikipedia, by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed. (April 5, 2011).
With its magnetic pull on students who might have otherwise burrowed into the stacks, Wikipedia might seem like a library's natural enemy. But to librarians at the University of Houston the popular online encyclopedia has become a valuable ally, helping to draw more eyes to their digital collections than ever before. At the annual meeting of the Association of College and Research Libraries here on Friday, the Houston librarians explained how they had recently enlisted a student, Danielle Elder, to evangelize the content of their Digital Library on Wikipedia, the eighth most popular website in the world, to see if it would improve exposure for their artifacts. Wikipedia quickly became the No. 1 driver of web traffic to Houston's online collections, surpassing both Google and the university's home page.Continue reading
Call for a historiography of government documents
James Bridle, a book publisher from London, gave a talk on the "Value of Ruins" (listen below) at the 2010 dConstruct Conference. He talks about [w:Geocities], the wayback machine, [w:Library of Alexandria], the Yo La Long Dia, the tragedy of the loss of history and the importance of historiography.
Bridle's bit about the historiography of wikipedia got me thinking that the FDLP, over the last almost 200 years, has been creating, preserving and giving access to a historiography of the US government. It's no hyperbole that this historiography is really important. As we've said many times, the change of format from paper to digital does not mean that libraries no longer need to participate in the historiography of the FDLP. Rather it's even more critical. Won't you join the 20 libraries (and growing!) of the LOCKSS-USDOCS project in continuing to participate in this critical FDLP historiography, this massively important Government document changelog?
[Originally heard from RossK and Judell!] Continue reading
FBI order to Wikipedia “silly” and “troubling”
This is pretty ridiculous. The FBI recently sent a letter to Wikipedia (PDF) demanding that Wikipedia take down the FBI seal shown on the wikipedia article on the [w:Federal Bureau of Investigation]. Does the FBI have nothing better to do than hassle Wikipedia (who's written a thorough and informative description of the FBI)?! As one Redditor named TheCid mused: "Somehow, I think a shit-for-brains lawyer at the FBI thinks Wikipedia and Wikileaks are the same organization, and decided to try to get at the latter via the former."
The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the F.B.I.’s letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites. Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal. Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau’s lawyers had misquoted the law. “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided.F.B.I., Challenging Use of Seal, Gets Back a Primer on the Law By JOHN SCHWARTZ Published: August 2, 2010 [Thanks GovTwit!] Continue reading
NIH encouraging scientists to write for Wikipedia
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is teaming up with Wikipedia. Jay Walsh, a spokesman for Wikimedia, said, "This is the first time the foundation ever met with folks at the federal government level."
- NIH Staffers Get Into the Wiki World, by Ibby Caputo, Washington Post (July 28, 2009)
- NIH Gets Schooled on Wikipedia, by Gautham Nagesh, NextGov, TechInsider (07/28/09).
NIH is encouraging its scientists and science writers to edit and even initiate Wikipedia articles in their fields. This month, it joined with the Wikimedia Foundation, which publishes the cyber encyclopedia, to host "Wikipedia Academy," a training session on the tools and rules of wiki culture, at NIH headquarters in Bethesda.Continue reading
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