This is BIG: GPO + LOCKSS (update)
Last week, James made a modest announcement of the biggest development in digital deposit in decades.
This means that GPO is assisting the LOCKSS-USDOCS project in preserving content harvested from fdsys.gov. That means we are developing a geographically distributed network of digital archives. There are already 18 libraries participating, including 4 regionals. As James pointed out, this "replicates key aspects of the FDLP in the digital environment and furthers the concept of 'digital deposit,' an essential component of the digital FDLP." One indicator of the importance of this project in the world of digital preservation is that the Association of Computing Machinery's technology newsletter, ACM TechNews, lists the project today.- Stanford Helps to Digitally Preserve Mountains of Documents, ACM TechNews, June 21, 2010.
New APIs coming to Data.gov
Data.gov To House New APIs, By Dawn Lim, TechInsider (06/21/10).
A series of new application programming interfaces - tools that facilitate interaction between datasets and other software programs - will make it easier for developers to play and interact with the content on Data.gov, the online repository of federal information and a cornerstone of the open government initiative. But those are just the preliminary steps to establishing a self-running ecosystem that will convert raw government data into valuable content and interesting applications, a White House technology expert said last week at a government IT forum.Continue reading
Data.gov’s plans for map mashups
Data.gov's next big thing: Mashing up federal stats with maps, By Aliya Sternstein, NextGov (06/18/2010). Within the next month, data.gov will offer the public a chance to preview a so-called viewer that will let them combine many of the 270,000 data sets posted on Data.gov with maps. Continue reading
Mashup of US migration patterns
Here's a nice little mashup from Forbes. They created an interactive map visualizing migration data into and out of US counties based on 2008 IRS data*. The black lines represent people moving to a certain place, the red lines are people moving out. TONS of people moving to SF (where I live). No wonder I have to stand in line so long for my strawberry balsamic ice cream fix from BiRite Creamery! *I went looking for said IRS migration data and found that:
The County-to-County Migration Data are updated annually and available for purchase as follows: * $200 per year for the entire United States * $10 per year per State * $500 for the entire United States for all yearsIt's unfortunate to say the least that IRS feels the need to charge for access to public domain data that the public has already paid for once already. Has anyone come across other data sets like this? please leave us a comment. [Thanks BoingBoing!] Continue reading
GPO joins LOCKSS: digital deposit a reality
According to yesterday's press release, GPO has joined the LOCKSS alliance! The Stanford News Service also wrote a story about this historic event, complete with a goofy picture of yours truly :-) But what the GPO press release didn't explain is that, as part of GPO's participation in the LOCKSS Alliance, GPO will assist the LOCKSS-USDOCS project (which I'm organizing) in preserving content harvested from fdsys.gov in a geographically distributed network of digital archives. GPO has put LOCKSS permission statements (for example here, and here and here) throughout the FDsys.gov site in order for LOCKSS-USDOCS to harvest GPO content. LOCKSS-USDOCS -- which is 18 libraries strong (including 4 regionals!) and growing -- replicates key aspects of the FDLP in the digital environment and furthers the concept of "digital deposit," an essential component of the digital FDLP. We're actively looking for other libraries to participate in the project, especially regionals. Together we can provide an essential digital preservation piece to the FDLP. Please contact me (jrjacobs AT stanford DOT edu) with questions or interest. --That is all. Continue reading