Lost Docs Blog Report on Department and Agency Receipt Postings
Report In addition to the Lost Docs monthly report we at the Lost Docs Blog will also frequently issue different reports and updates. The report that follows focuses on the departments and agencies which are represented by the GPO receipts collected thus far. For future reports we hope to provide more in depth analysis including that of cataloging times. Of the 696 fugitive document receipts ( “false positives” excluded, those with records in the CGP at the time they were reported) the top five departments and agencies, ranked according to the number of receipts received, are as follows, with the department listed and then any agencies within that department for which we received a sizable number of receipts. Please remember that the reporting here is based only on those GPO receipts forwarded to the Lost Docs Project Blog. Our numbers are not based on the total number of fugitive documents reported to GPO.
- Department of Health and Human Services.....194 (28% of total receipts) National Institutes of Health 151 (78% of total HHS receipts,including NCI) National Cancer Institute (NCI) 112 Other agencies and offices within the department 43
- Department of Justice.........125 (18% of total receipts) Bureau of Justice Statistics 13 Office of Justice Programs 10 FBI 7 Other agencies and offices within the department 93
- Department of Interior.....80 (11% of total receipts) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (formerly MMS) 29 (36% of total Dept. of Interior receipts) National Parks Service 23 Bureau of Land Management 22 USGS 6
- USDA.......43 (6% of total receipts) US Forest Service 7 Other agencies 36
- Department of Commerce.....37 (5% of total receipts) NOAA 34 (92% of total Dept. of Commerce receipts) Census Bureau 3
- If you report a fugitive document to GPO, send your e-mailed receipt to lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We welcome any item reported to GPO in the past month. It is best if you can send us the receipt the same day you get it from GPO. Some e-mail programs will support auto-forwarding. If so, please consider autoforwarding items where the subject contains "lostdocs submission."
- Visit the blog at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info and comment on the listed items. Comments can include -- Did your library receive the item? Did you find it in the CGP? Do you think the item is out of scope for the CGP? Did you report the item as well and so on.
- Post the blog link to your website or share it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media.
- Subscribe to the blog feed at lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/feed/ or better yet incorporate the feed into your website or blog.
Privacy then and now: Some history of the “Patriot” Act
Declan McCullagh describes how the pre-2001 "Enhancement of Privacy and Public Safety in Cyberspace Act," which was unacceptable to Congress, morphed into the "Combating Terrorism Act of 2001" and then into the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001," which was rushed through Congress and passed without giving members time time to read the changes that had been incorporated in it.
- How 9/11 attacks reshaped U.S. privacy debate, by Declan McCullagh, cnet, (September 9, 2011). After the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, however, the sentiment in political circles quickly shifted from protecting electronic privacy to facilitating government surveillance. The privacy bill approved by the committee by such a lopsided margin disappeared. ..."Perhaps the biggest systemic change in the way the government conducts investigations since 9/11 is the transition from targeted surveillance--where the government picks a target and spies on that person--to untargeted wholesale surveillance, where masses of people are surveilled," says Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "And then the government decides who it wants to focus on."
- Poll: OK to trade some freedoms to fight terrorism, By Jennifer Agiesta, Associated Press (Sept 6, 2011). Ten years after the 9/11 attacks led to amped-up government surveillance efforts, two-thirds of Americans say it's fitting to sacrifice some privacy and freedoms in the fight against terrorism, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. ...A slim majority -- 54 percent -- say that if they had to choose between preserving their rights and freedoms and protecting people from terrorists, they'd come down on the side of civil liberties. The public is particularly protective of the privacy of U.S. citizens, voicing sharp opposition to government surveillance of Americans' emails and phone calls.
Law Libraries & the Ithaka Report: The Law is of “General Interest”
As FGI readers know, Ithaka S + R’s final FDLP modeling report is available on the FDLP Desktop. GPO deemed the final report “unacceptable under the terms of the contract.” But since an entire day of the fall Federal Depository Library Conference will be devoted to the discussion, "Creating Our Shared Vision: Roles and Opportunities in the FDLP,” I thought I’d slog through the 245 page report, as best I could. I’m not far along in my reading, and can’t yet comment on the whole, but I’m already disagreeing in part. In particular, I was disappointed that a section, on which I commented in the draft stage, still mischaracterizes legal materials. On page 33, the report states:
Law libraries and the court system have a significant but concentrated interest in federal government documents. Their overall collections are often heavily focused in three key categories: current and historical statutes and the US Code; current and historical versions of the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations; and court decisions. Other materials – including contextual materials such as the Congressional Record, which supports the investigation of legislative histories – may also be of significant value to some users of these collections. Legal scholars and law students use these materials in a variety of ways, including for research projects, journal editing, and in the preparation of court submissions. For judicial purposes in particular, these materials are essential records of the operation of the federal government, in many ways more like archival documents than general-interest publications.Just in this one paragraph, I have several concerns. First, administrative decisions are left out. Academic law libraries’ government documents collections are focused on statutes, regulations, court decisions (judicial branch), and administrative decisions (executive branch). Administrative decisions are among the most challenging documents to collect and manage, but there is not a law school in the country that doesn’t care about them. Second, the public is left out. Self-represented litigants, historians, social science researchers, high school debaters, and citizen-advocates use legal materials. The focus on “legal scholars and law students” limits the mission of law libraries, when in fact, our mission – and patron base - is often quite broad. Third, the word “archival” was left in. I objected to the use of “archival” during the drafting process and I object to it now. The law – the law that governs all of us – is a general-interest publication. The law is a growing and changing body, which does make it hard to characterize. Patrons need “current” law, but sometimes the “current” law is five, ten, or fifty years old. To say “archival” misses the point, and actually minimizes the importance of a collection of legal materials. We don’t have every volume of the Code of Federal Regulations back to 1938 because the colors look lovely on the shelves. We keep them because patrons – all types of patrons – need and want a “snapshot in time.” For example, if you are suing a polluter, you would need to know if the polluter was actually in compliance with the environment regulations at the time it polluted. Or, if you were convicted of a crime in the past, and now are applying for a change in your immigration status, you would need to know if the crime was a felony at the time of the conviction. We exhort our patrons to update their research, to make sure they aren’t relying on a law that has been amended or overturned. At the same time, we assist patrons in finding the law as it existed when a particular action or crime occurred. Law libraries are special libraries, much like engineering or health sciences libraries. Legal research may require specialized collections, tools, and assistance, but the law itself isn’t special. It belongs to all of us. I can’t think of a better definition of a “general-interest publication” than that. Continue reading
JSTOR: 500,000+ Articles (6% of JSTOR Database) Now Free to Anyone in World
JSTOR has just announced that they're beginning to rollout free GLOBAL access to more than 500,000 articles (from about 200 publications) published published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere. We've just posted a number of links on INFOdocket that include: 1. Comments by Laura Brown, Managing Director of JSTOR, who talks about the program and DOES discuss the timing of the announcement given the recent Aaron Swartz news. 2. The Terms of Service 3. A One Page PDF With Links A Few Representative Articles Available 4. FAQ (Worth Reviewing) 5. Info Abt Where Users Might Be Able to Find Access to More of the Database (e.g. Public Libraries) http://infodocket.com/2011/09/07/just-announced-500000-articles-6-of-jstor-holdings-now-free-to-anyone-in-world/ Note: I realize that this might not be on topic but since JSTOR was recently mentioned on the FGI Blog so I thought I would post the news. Plus, who doesn't enjoy new tools to share with friends. Continue reading
Just Announced: 500,000+ Articles (6% of JSTOR Holdings) Now Free to Anyone in World
JSTOR has just announced that they will provide free GLOBAL access to more than 500,000 articles (in about 200 publications) published published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere. We've just posted a number of links on INFOdocket that include: 1. Comments by Laura Brown, Managing Director of JSTOR, who talks about the program and DOES discuss the timing of the announcement given the recent Aaron Swartz news. 2. Terms of Service 3. A One Page PDF With Links A Few Representative Articles Available 4. FAQ 5. Info Abt Where Users Might Be Able to Find Access to More of the Database (e.g. Public Libraries) http://infodocket.com/2011/09/07/just-announced-500000-articles-6-of-jstor-holdings-now-free-to-anyone-in-world/ Note: I realize that this might not be on topic but since JSTOR was recently mentioned on the FGI Blog so I thought I would post the news. Plus, who doesn't enjoy new tools to share with friends. Continue reading