Case Study in Historical Fact Checking
[Update 5/9/10: Thanks to Debbie Rabina for sending me a copy of her article and allowing us to post here (PDF). On a side note, how long will it be until ALA goes open access with all of their publications? Librarians should be walking the open access walk!] I'd like to briefly commend this article from the Spring 2010 issue of DttP: Documents to the People: Rabina, Debbie. "Ted Kennedy's Speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention: Researching Pre-digital government information in the Digital Age." DttP: Documents to the People (2010) v. 38, no. 1: 18-22. This article is notable for two reasons. It is a fine example of using current events to leverage interest in government information. The article also serves as a good "how-to" guide on evaluating factual claims past and present. Aside from these two main benefits the article demonstrates the continuing relevance of print resources while showing the usefulness of electronic resources. It rejects a "paper vs. electronic" version of the world in favor of a "both/and" approach. As far as I can tell, this article is not available electronically, but could be acquired through interlibrary loan at your local library. DttP: Documents to the People is aimed at government information librarians, but I believe it would be useful to transparency advocates and researchers of all stripes. Check it out if you can. I find it an important benefit of my membership in the Government Documents Roundtable of ALA. Continue reading
Lots More Links from Resource Shelf
Our friend Gary Price sent a lot of great links you'll want to know about from Resource Shelf. Don't forget that you can always see the latest items from Gary's Docuticker right here on FGI in the left column. You can also find Gary on twitter (@resourceshelf). ***Top of the List*** New: Extremely Useful: NARA Releases List of Digitized Records (NARA Partners & Their Records) http://bit.ly/bjOVyI Source: NARA The Others ------------------ 1. List: Most Popular Baby Names of 2009 and Two Tools to Get "Most Popular Names" back to Late 19th Century. Source: SSA http://bit.ly/baby2009 2) New: Searchable Database: Venomous Snakes and Antivenoms Search (yes, a specialized dbase for every topic) Source: World Health Organization http://bit.ly/cRFiEm 3) California (3 Items): 2010 State Fault Activity Map, State Geological Map, 150 Geological Facts About California Source: CA Department of Conservation http://bit.ly/cali2010map 4) Interview with Archivist of the U.S., David Ferriero: What Happens to Social Media Records? Source: Smart Planet http://bit.ly/interview121 5) Public Printer with GPO Budget News & Graph: 10 Years of GPO Financial Performance Source: GPO http://bit.ly/gpobudget 6) EPA Launches New Web Tools to Inform the Public About Clean Water Enforcement Interactive Web tool allows the public to check water violations in their communities http://bit.ly/b5IwbE Source: EPA 7) NOAA Incident News In Left Column, access to database of Oil Spills NOAA has been involved with since late 50's (Pre-NOAA) http://bit.ly/d8WzGG Source: NOAA 8) Research Paper: From Obscurity to Prominence in Minutes: Political Speech and Real-Time Search http://bit.ly/bTMBwm Source WebSci 2010 Conf. 9) FBI Now Accepts Freedom of Info Requests on the Web http://bit.ly/av7XTB Source: FCW 10) U.S. Embassy in Haiti Now on Twitter http://bit.ly/cXs5Vh also on Facebook http://bit.ly/ayXXij and Haiti: Legal Bibliography from Law Library of Congress http://bit.ly/haitilawbib Thanks Gary! Continue reading
NDIIPP is on Facebook
The National Digital Information Infrastructure & Preservation Program now has its own Facebook page: facebook.com/digitalpreservation. Continue reading
Real time alert tool for the U.S. judicial system
courtlistener.com is a new service that has daily information regarding all precedential opinions issued by the 13 federal circuit courts and the Supreme Court of the United States and the non-precedential opinions from all of the Circuit courts except the D.C. Circuit. The site was created by Michael Lissner as part of a masters thesis at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. The site supports highly advanced boolean queries. Continue reading
Lunchtime Listen: How the network can transform government
Anil Dash leads a nonprofit, non-partisan project called Expert Labs, which has a goal of being an incubator to fund technologies that bring citizens and the government closer together. Watch his twelve minute, stirring presentation at Fast Company's sold-out Innovation Uncensored conference from April 21. He talks about how networks allow governments to listen as well as talk. He gives an example of how, using Twitter and Facebook, the White House got 2000 responses in three days to a question about the big challenges of science. Compare that to the usual 200 responses in four months.
- Government in the Digital Age: How Anil Dash's Expert Labs Is Speeding Democracy, Noah Robischon, Fast Company (May 5, 2010)