Notable government documents 2013 – first call for nominations!
GODORT wants YOU! to nominate particularly interesting, news-worthy, outstanding government documents for their annual Notable Documents column in Library Journal. It's quick and easy, helps libraries with collection development, and makes readers aware of important documents at various levels of governments (state, local, international and federal). Do it today!! Continue reading
Libraries Work Together to Preserve Canadian Federal Government Electronic Publications
The following is a press release (PDF) from the Canadian Government Information Private LOCKSS Network (CGI-PLN). Questions and comments should be directed to Amanda Wakaruk, amanda.wakaruk AT ualberta DOT ca.
Media Release - please forward Libraries Work Together to Preserve Canadian Federal Government Electronic Publications Librarians at eleven organizations have formed a partnership to preserve Canadian electronic government information. This partnership, known as the Canadian Government Information Private LOCKSS Network (CGI-PLN), has established a geographically distributed infrastructure to preserve government information in a secure environment, helping ensure access to digital content in the future. Continue reading
Demonstrating the Need for Print Legal Materials
[Editor's note: the following is a guest post by Emily Feltren, Director of Government Relations for the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). This post grew out of a conversation we had about "advocacy tips" sent out to the listserv of the Northern CA chapter of AALL (NOCALL) to which I subscribe. This is a great example of how a community can advocate successfully about the important work that FDLP libraries do to collect, describe, preserve, give access to government information. Emily can be reached at efeltren AT aall DOT org.] Continue reading
The Constitution Annotated … on your phone!
The Government Printing Office (GPO) announced today the launching of a new app and web publication that make analysis and interpretation of constitutional case law by Library experts accessible for free to anyone with a computer or mobile device. The information is from The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation, commonly known as the Constitution Annotated. The new app and improved web publication will make the nearly 3,000-page “Constitution Annotated” more accessible to more people and enable updates of new case analysis three or four times each year. The new Constitution Annotated app is available for the iOS platform and allows users to read the entire document; browse by section – such as by article of or amendment to the Constitution; view and navigate content from a table of cases and index; and search all text. The app can be downloaded for free from iTunes. A direct link is here: http://beta.congress.gov/constitution-annotated/. An Android version is under development. The complete press release is attached below as a pdf. Continue reading
Biggest Causes of Loss of Digitial Information?
David Rosenthal, in a post on his blog, gives a brief presentation on the principles behind the LOCKSS technology. In it, he explains some of the thought behind it (with useful links!). One of the key questions of digital preservation is "What are the causes of data loss?" David notes that most people would answer this question with the usual suspects: Media failure, Hardware failure, Software failure, Network failure, Obsolescence, Natural Disaster. But, David says, if you ask the people who run large data centers you get a different list: Continue reading