Publisher argues free access to research violates transparency initiative
Publisher argues free access to research violates administration's transparency initiative, By Aliya Sternstein, NextGov (07/30/2010).
...But a mother of two children diagnosed with a rare disease, who also testified at the hearing, said access to such articles has been critical to treating their illness....Continue reading
Welcome Emily Keller, guest blogger for August and thanks Shari Laster!
Welcome to the podium Emily Keller to the guest blogger podium for August 2010! Emily is the Political Science and Public Affairs Librarian at the University of Washington (full bio). Thanks also to Shari Laster for posting to FGI for the month of July! Take it away Emily! Continue reading
Emily Keller, Blogger of the month August, 2010
Emily Keller is the Political Science and Public Affairs Librarian at the University of Washington Libraries. Her primary focus is on reference and instruction, but she is also a self-described govpubs groupie with an interest in gov/mil 2.0 and integrating government information into general reference and instruction. You can find her on twitter too. Continue reading
Happy birthday US Census!
Happy birthday [w:United State Census]! It was on this day in 1790(!) that the counting of the first US census was begun. Title 13 of the US Code defines the census and the collection and publication of the census and other statistics required to make the federal govt run. So happy birthday census! You don't look a day over 200 :-)
The first enumeration began on Monday, August 2,1790, little more than a year after the inauguration of President Washington and shortly before the second session of the first Congress ended. The Congress assigned responsibility for the 1790 census to the marshals of the U.S. judicial districts under an act that, with minor modifications and extensions, governed census-taking through 1840. The law required that every household be visited and that completed census schedules be posted in ‘‘two of the most public places within [each jurisdiction], there to remain for the inspection of all concerned...’’ and that‘ ‘the aggregate amount of each description of persons’’ for every district be transmitted to the President. The six inquiries in 1790 called for the name of the head of the family and the number of persons in each household of the following descriptions: Free White males of 16 years and upward (to assess the country’s industrial and military potential), free White males under 16 years, free White females, all other free persons (by sex and color), and slaves.Continue reading
July 2010 Lost Docs Report and Appeal
Note: There was no report for June 2010 owing to scheduling difficulties. Reports sent to us in late May through July were posted in July. REPORT In July 2010, we posted 32 "lost docs" e-mail receipts sent by GPO to the librarians who reported these missing documents. These civic minded librarians in turn e-mailed us their receipts. Of the 32 reported items that were posted to the blog in July, two items have been cataloged by GPO since the initial report. You can view this list by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/found/ and looking at the postings with July 2010 dates. We are appreciative of these new records. This month we reluctantly concluded that two of the items reported to GPO and posted to the blog in July were already in the Catalog of Government Publications. You can view these items by visiting lostdocs.freegovinfo.info/category/false/ and looking for items with July 2010 dates. We say "reluctantly concluded" because of two factors. First, the people who made these particular reports have a reputation for checking the catalog before submitting their reports. Second, both of these reports were for electronic documents and it appears from the 005 Marc fields that the records were worked on after the date of the fugitive document report. This almost sounds like URLs were added to a preexisting record. Were this the case, then we'd class these two e-docs as "found" rather than "false positive". But since the most recently published GPO cataloging policy we're aware of says they create new records for every format, we can't say for certain that adding a URL to an existing print record is what happened. If you have a good explanation for these records or are aware of a change in GPO cataloging policy, please let us know. 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.