One Librarian’s LostDocs Experience: 10% Cataloging Rate
Vicki Tate is an active contributor to the Lost Docs Blog. She also independently tracks her own fugitive documents submissions to GPO. She recently sent me her summary and supporting spreadsheet for her 2009 reports. Vicki gave FGI permission to publish her disappointing results:
I finished my summary of Lost Docs for 2009 and checked their status. There are two sheets--monographs and serials. The summary information for monographs is: 78 Monograph/individual titles submitted 8 Titles with records in CGP 5 Titles with PURLs 32 Titles with NO cataloging in OCLC Serial titles fared even worse.
I have attached her spreadsheet to this blog post. Feel free to look it over and come to your own decisions. Although 8/78 titles is only a 10.2% cataloging rate for reported items, it is important to remember that this is one librarian's experience. Other librarians may have had better luck. Without full data from GPO, it's hard to say. We are trying to fill in the gaps with the lost docs blog, but our data is only as complete as you make it. Plus we're never sure of what proportion of documents reported to GPO we're made aware of. If you are treating your reports to GPO with the same level of tracking and supporting documentation, we'd like to hear from you. Please leave a comment or e-mail lostdocs@freegovinfo.info. We at FGI salute Vicki Tate and other librarians like her trying their best to ensure a complete record of government publications. Continue reading
White House announces Boarman as nomination for 26th Public Printer
President Obama just announced William J. Boarman as his nomination to be the 26th Public Printer of the United States. Boarman’s nomination will be referred to the Senate Rules Committee and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Boarman is a vice president of the Communications Workers of America and president of the union’s Printing, Publishing & Media Workers Sector. His career in the printing industry spans 40 years. A Practical Printer trained under the apprenticeship program of the International Typographical Union (ITU), Mr. Boarman served his apprenticeship at McArdle Printing Company in Washington, D.C. In 1974, he accepted an appointment as a Journeyman Printer at the Government Printing Office. Active in the union from the start of his career, Mr. Boarman moved up in the union’s ranks as a local officer—he was elected President of his home Local 101-12, Columbia Typographical at age 30— and ultimately as a national officer with the ITU where he was a key architect of the merger between the ITU and the CWA in 1987. He was elected ITU president shortly before the merger and has been re-elected to seven successive terms since. Mr. Boarman has served as an unpaid consultant to several Public Printers and has testified before various congressional committees regarding GPO programs and policies as well as in confirmation hearings before the Senate Rules Committee. CWA President Larry Cohen praised Mr. Boarman’s experience and his service to printing sector members and workers in the industry. “Bill brings an outstanding reservoir of knowledge to this work. He will be an outstanding Public Printer.” Mr. Boarman’s nomination was endorsed by House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md) who said: “As a practiced and knowledgeable advocate for the GPO and its employees, Bill Boarman is an excellent choice to lead the GPO. I am pleased that the administration recognizes Bill’s talents and am confident he will attract bipartisan support in the Senate.”CWA: White House Announces Intent to Nominate William J. Boarman as 26th Public Printer Continue reading
Library of Congress to acquire and archive every public tweet ever
Your Tweets, Archived for Eternity, By Emily Long, TechInsider (04/14/10).
In true Twitter fashion, the news came out via the @librarycongress feed: "Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive -- ALL public tweets, ever, since March 2006! Details to follow.."Library of Congress to archive public Tweets, By Emily Long, NextGov (04/14/2010).
According to Twitter, the Tweets will be available for internal library use, noncommercial research, public display and preservation after a six-months.Continue reading
Library of Congress Unveils Redesigned Prints and Photographs Online Catalog
Library of Congress Unveils Redesigned Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, News from the Library of Congress, April 7, 2010.
PPOC offers access to 1.25 million digital images and to more than 600,000 records describing the collections in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division (P&P). The improved catalog can be found at www.loc.gov/pictures/. "The new features are wonderful," said Helena Zinkham, acting chief of P&P. "People seeking specific subjects, or just wanting to explore what’s available, can interact more easily with the picture collections. They now have the tools they’ve come to expect from other websites, like a variety of viewing options and simple sharing of what’s found, plus improved keyword access and more indexes to browse."Continue reading
GAO concludes piracy cost estimates are bogus ARRR
ArsTechnica reports today that a new GAO report debunks the many private industry- and govt agency reports on the economic impact estimates of information and industrial "piracy." GAO states that the "lack of data hinders efforts to quantify impacting of counterfeiting and piracy." They go on to highlight in particular 3 reports often linked to the government and commonly cited by industry groups that are bogus.
Three commonly cited estimates of U.S. industry losses due to counterfeiting have been sourced to U.S. agencies, but cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology. First, a number of industry, media, and government publications have cited an FBI estimate that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion to counterfeiting on an annual basis. This estimate was contained in a 2002 FBI press release, but FBI officials told us that it has no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate and that it cannot be corroborated. Second, a 2002 CBP press release contained an estimate that U.S. businesses and industries lose $200 billion a year in revenue and 750,000 jobs due to counterfeits of merchandise. However, a CBP official stated that these figures are of uncertain origin, have been discredited, and are no longer used by CBP. A March 2009 CBP internal memo was circulated to inform staff not to use the figures. However, another entity within DHS continues to use them. Third, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association reported an estimate that the U.S. automotive parts industry has lost $3 billion in sales due to counterfeit goods and attributed the figure to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The OECD has also referenced this estimate in its report on counterfeiting and piracy, citing the association report that is sourced to the FTC. However, when we contacted FTC officials to substantiate the estimate, they were unable to locate any record or source of this estimate within its reports or archives, and officials could not recall the agency ever developing or using this estimate. These estimates attributed to FBI, CBP, and FTC continue to be referenced by various industry and government sources as evidence of the significance of the counterfeiting and piracy problem to the U.S. economy.Read on at: Intellectual Property: Observations on Efforts to Quantify the Economic Effects of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods GAO-10-423 April 12, 2010 [Thanks @ArsTechnica!] Continue reading