Lost Docs Report/Update on July-October, 2009 Fugitive Documents
Report/Update In addition to our usual monthly report, we at the Lost Docs Blog will from time to time revisit, check, and update posted document receipts that at the time of their corresponding monthly report were still classed as fugitives. The following report focuses on the receipts posted from July-October 2009, the beginning of the Lost Docs Blog project. Of the 46 reported fugitive documents posted July-October 2009, 19 (41.3%) have been cataloged, 5 of these since July-October 2009; 27 (58.6%) documents remain fugitives, as of July 1, 2011. We are appreciative of those records that have been created. For more information visit the Lost Docs Blog at http://lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/. To view a list of cataloged titles visit the spreadsheet of documents at https://spreadsheets0.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?hl=en&key=tl4VYlDzjJMGqw-3WLAYA1g&hl=en#gid=0 APPEAL If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us: 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. Continue reading
June Lost Docs Report and Appeal
REPORT In June 2011, we received and posted 63 reports to GPO from librarians reporting documents that had seemingly fallen through the cracks of the cataloging process. The reports were originally sent to GPO between April and June 2011. This month of the 61 reported documents posted by us, 3 (5%) have been cataloged and are in the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) as of this writing. See these records for yourself by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with June 2011 dates. We are appreciative of these new records. From June, 54 items remain listed as "fugitive documents." Four documents reported to GPO appeared to already have public CGP records and we classed them as "false positives." Please remember that our listing of "fugitive documents" reports is only as complete as you make it, since GPO does not yet publish any statistics we're aware of on fugitive documents/document discovery. APPEAL If you like the concept of a public listing of fugitive documents reported to GPO, there are a number of easy ways to help us:
- 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.
President’s Twitter Town Hall
Good coverage of the Twitter Town Hall:
- Plenty of 140-character questions, few new answers in Obama's Twitter town hall, by Joseph Marks, NextGov (07/06/2011). ...fewer than two-dozen questions asked during the 75-minute town hall included one question by [the Speaker of the House] and [one from a] New York Times columnist. ...White House staff posted several Tweets to summarize a single answer, sometimes leading to strange non sequiturs...
- The 'Twitter Town Hall' that so really wasn't, by Megan Crepeau, Chicago Tribune (July 7, 2011) Obama's event wasn't really Twitter, and what's more, it wasn't really a town hall.
Another Google Search Is Gone
Google Realtime Search Goes Missing, by Vanessa Fox. Search Engine Land (Jul 3, 2011).
As Deal With Twitter Expires, Google Realtime Search Goes Offline, by Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land (Jul 4, 2011).
Google Doesn't Need Twitter Anymore, So It Just Let Their Deal Expire, by Matt Rosoff, Business Insider (July 4, 2011).
Continue reading
Promises, Promises…
July 5, 2011 / 1 Comment on Promises, Promises…
Following up on yesterday's post about Another Google Search going away: Gary Price notes that Google had promised an archive of Twitter posts and that Google has recently removed another service:
- Google Realtime Search Offline; It Will Return But What About Complete Twitter Archive Google Was Planning?, by Gary D. Price, INFOdocket (July 4, 2011).
- Official: The Google Wonder Wheel Is Gone, by Gary Price, Search Engine Land (Jul 3, 2011).
I find it significant when for-profit companies develop products and then take them offline or when they fail to deliver on promised products. I don't begrudge them the right to do this and I'm not surprised when they do. I find it significant, though, when libraries rely heavily on such services, particularly when they replace services and collections that libraries have traditionally provided to their user communities. Libraries always rely on commercial products, of course, from the old print volumes of Readers' Guide to fancy online abstracting and indexing services. But there is a difference between using such products to supplement and enhance services and collections and using them to replace services and collections. When libraries decrease their own services and minimize their own locally-controlled collections and act as little more than a gateway to commercial services, they do their user communities no favors. There is a lot being written about the role of libraries in the digital age and a lot of libraries are seemingly content to "let someone else do it." When libraries give up to publishers and for-profit companies the traditional library roles of selecting, acquiring, organizing, providing access to and services for information, and (libraries hope) preserving that information, they are abrogating their essential role, their defining characteristics. Such decisions will surely weaken libraries as an institution. But what about their user-communities? Such decisions leave the communities at the mercy of private companies and the marketplace and without a say in what information is important to them. IBM, a big company that has had its ups and downs, pointed out recently: This isn't surprising. What is profitable comes and goes. What is important for a user community shouldn't be left to the whims of the marketplace; it should be in control of the community through its own institutions. When we consider the information that is important to a user community, that institution is, by definition, the library. Then promises can be made by -- and kept by -- the community itself. Continue reading →Continue Reading →