State Agency Databases Activity Report 2/3/2013
This week at the State Agency Databases project at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases: NEW VOLUNTEERS AND A STATE HAND-OFF This week we officially welcome three new volunteers to our project:
- Susan Paterson (University of British Columbia) - District of Columbia
- Siu Min Yu (Rice University) - Maryland
- Flora Shrode (Utah State University) - Utah
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Kansas
- Minnesota
- Oklahoma
- Adoption Resources in South Dakota
- South Dakota Resource Directory for the Elderly
Coffee Break Listen: Open PACER!
Steve Schultze, Princeton University, Associate Director at the Center for Information Technology Policy, gave this talk as part of a series of 3-minute lightning talks on transparency hosted on Capitol Hill by the Advisory Committee on Transparency, a project of the Sunlight Foundation.
- My Bill to #OpenPACER in memory of #aaronsw -- Open for Comment and Available on Github, by Steve Schultze. Freedom to Tinker (February 1, 2013). (video and transcript with links and downloadable slides). ...the courts offer electronic records through the PACER web site, which charges for search results, docket lists, and documents. ...PACER is making a killing, with $120 million dollars in revenue for 2012. Even with a highly inefficient system architecture, they only manage to spend about $20 million dollars on PACER expenses per year. Where does the rest of the money go? They spend it on other stuff. This is illegal. In 1992, Congress passed a law saying that the courts could charge only to recoup costs. Ten years later, Congress strengthened that law and said that it expected the courts to move to a free system. PACER fees have increased 42% since then. ...Open PACER is a bill that, once and for all, mandates that the courts provide free access to our public record. The bill is open for comment at openpacer.org. It is written in GPO-compliant Legislative XML, which anyone can edit and submit for incorporation via a tool called github.
Having Trouble with New American Factfinder? GPO suggests a workaround browser problems
The "workaround" is to clear your browser's cache, cookies, and history. The Census Bureau also suggests viewing the site in either Internet Explorer 9 or 8. The Bureau and its contractor should be really, really embarrassed about this and fix it quickly.
- Workaround Solution for Redesigned American Factfinder Browser Issues. FDLP Desktop (31 January 2013).
The U.S. Census Bureau has brought to our attention that the newly redesigned American FactFinder does not render properly in some Web browsers. Users have reported issues with various versions of Mozilla Firefox (FF) and Internet Explorer (IE).
The Census Bureau is investigating the matter. In the meantime, their recommendation is to clear the browser's cache, cookies, and history as a temporary solution. In addition, they recommend viewing the site in either IE 9 or 8. If issues are encountered, the following instructions are specific to IE 8 and up.
- Click on the "Tools" icon.
- Select "Internet Options".
- Under the "General" tab, click on the "Delete" button under "Browsing history".
- Select the following:
- Temporary Internet files
- Cookies
- History
- Deselect:
- "Preserve Favorites website data"
- Click on the "Delete" button.
To clear the browser cache, cookies, and history for other browsers, visit the American FactFinder FAQ or check the browser's Web site for browser-specific instructions.
Be advised that clearing your browser's cache, cookies, and history may impact saved sessions for other Web services.
Muckrock waives FOIA fees in Tribute to Aaron Swartz. Activists Flood Government Agencies
I just noticed this post over at Wired Magazine's Threat Level blog, Activists Flood Government Agencies With FOIA Requests in Tribute to Aaron Swartz. Last week, Muckrock, the site that helps journalists, lawyers, and the public submit FOIA requests for a small fee ($20 for 5 requests), waived their fees in tribute to the transparency fights of computer programmer and internet activist Aaron Swartz who committed suicide a few weeks ago. I hope Muckrock will post all of the documents received via these requests. According to Muckrock:
MuckRock has begun processing 153 free FOIA requests submitted in honor of Internet pioneer and transparency activist Aaron Swartz, who died earlier this month at age 26. Swartz, among MuckRock's first users and supporters, used public records laws to attempt to find out more about why the federal government was pursuing Internet piracy charges against him. He also filed requests related to alleged WikiLeaks collaborator Bradley Manning and the U.S. Mint, among many other topics. In a Jan. 18 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking about Swartz’s prosecution, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) asked, “was the prosecution of Mr. Swartz in any way retaliation for his exercise of his rights as a citizen under the Freedom of Information Act?” As a way to honor Swartz’s legacy and to further his transparency work, MuckRock encouraged users to file requests in his honor free of charge. The requests cover all corners of government, ranging from the Department of Homeland Security’s documents relating to the high profile Tar Sands Blockade to the city payroll for Everett, Mass. Updates on the requests will be available at the File for Aaron profile page. Swartz’s own requests can be found here.I'm really glad Muckrock is doing this, and also happy to see that they post all requests and FOIA'd documents on their site. I've added Muckrock to our Archive-it FOIA collection. Continue reading
ERIC suspends some full text over privacy concerns
I'm not sure how long this has been going on, but in trying to retrieve a report from the Education Resources Information Clearinghouse (ERIC), I received this "error" message:
Dear ERIC Community, We have currently disabled access to many ERIC full-text PDFs due to the discovery of personally identifiable information in some documents. A team is in place to check each PDF to see if it contains personally identifiable information. Due to the quality of many of the documents, a large portion of the search has to be done by hand. This will take several weeks, but our primary concern is to protect the privacy of individuals. To minimize the burden on our users, we will prioritize searching the PDFs that users request. If you would like to request a PDF to be returned online, please fill out this form, which requires only the document’s ERIC record number and your email address. Full-text PDFs will be returned on a rolling basis. We will be posting the list of newly released documents here. We are sorry for the inconvenience and want to thank you for bearing with us through this unexpected delay. The ERIC TeamIt seems like a responsible enough message and they are trying to assist researchers who need documents. It would have been nice if the message had a date stamp so we could see how long it will take ERIC to rectify this situation. I'm also wondering about the status of ERIC fiche collections. Wonder if we'll see withdrawal requests from ERIC and whether that would wind up highlighting the personal information they're trying to withdraw. Continue reading