National Archives now on YouTube
www.youtube.com/USNationalArchives Thanks and a tip of the hat to Kate. Continue reading
Idaho Digital Publications Archive
As an Idahoan, I was excited to learn that the Idaho Commission for Libraries and the Idaho state legislature have made preserving and providing digital access to government publications and other information a priority. First a little background: the Idaho Commission for Libraries is the State Library of Idaho, and assists libraries throughout the state to build the capacity to better serve their clientele. The Commission has been charged with the responsibility of establishing and maintaining a digital repository of state publications in a publicly accessible database in revised Idaho Code 33-2505. Many state publications are preserved and made available online here. To further achieve this end, the Idaho Commission for Libraries has used Archive-it to preserve Idaho state government websites in their Idaho Digital Publications collection. This collection includes websites for state departments, universities, local and statewide initiatives, and even the first lady’s website. Check it out! -Lori Continue reading
LOC to Capture #sotomayor Tweets
The Library of Congress announced via their Twitter account, that:
LOC will capture tweets on #sotomayor for its web archives on the Sotomayor nomination. http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/Here is a list of some of the latest web capture projects they are working on:
Supreme Court Nominations 2009 The Supreme Court Nominations 2009 Web Archive will be a selective collection of Web sites archived between June 2009 through the completion of the hearings process. Web sites collected will include materials produced by watchdog, public policy, and political advocacy groups, blogs and tweets, community and religious organizations, foreign and domestic news sources, educational and research institutions, and independent websites. Collection dates: June 2009 through confirmation hearings. Indian General Elections The Library's Delhi Overseas Operations Office is documenting the ongoing process of India general election in 2009. Presidential Transition During a Time of Crises Web Archive Presidential Transition During a Time of Crises Web Archive will be a selective collection of Web sites archived between January 2009 and June 2009. Web sites collected will include materials produced by domestic and foreign political groups, community and religious organizations, advocacy groups, foreign and domestic news sources, and independent websites. Collection dates: January 2009 - June 2009. The collection will be evaluated prior to completion and may be extended.I would suggest they start archiving the tweets about the #iranelection (see earlier blog post) by James R. Jacobs. Continue reading
Improve PACER – Sign the Petition
Folks, We crafted a very short petition directed at the Administrative Office of the US Courts to improve PACER. The petition is online here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/improve-PACER. It reads:
We ask the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to improve PACER by enhancing the authenticity, usability and availability of the system. We the undersigned, urge the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO) to make the following changes to the PACER system: For verification and reliability, the AO should digitally sign every document put into PACER using readily available technology. PACER needs to be much more readily accessible if it is to be usable for research, education, and the practice of law. Improved accessibility includes both lowering the costs for using PACER and enhancing the web interfaces. Depository libraries should also have free access to PACER.Please sign the petition, comment on the ideas and share the petition with your friends and colleagues! I encourage you to sign the petition. And if you have any questions about it, please don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you, Erika Wayne e-mail: evwayne AT stanford DOT edu Continue reading
State dept asks Twitter to be eyes and ears of Iranian elections
Twitter, the 140 character social media micro-blog, was scheduled to go down for maintenance on monday night. But, according to the CNN blog, a little thing called the Iranian elections and a request from the US State Department caused them to change their scheduled downtime to yesterday afternoon from 2-3 PST (middle of the night Tehran time) in order to ensure that the flow of information from Iran remains open and that Iranians can continue to communicate internally and with the rest of the world. This is a pretty amazing development in that, despite the Iranian restrictions on journalists and news organizations, the world is still able to get up to the minute accounts - complete with video on youtube, hashtags on twitter and facebook. Now libraries just have to figure out how to collect, preserve and organize this massive flow of information ;-) Mashable has more on why this matters as well as a HOWTO guide on following the elections. Continue reading