Selling the Law: The Business of Public Access to Court Records
Selling the Law: The Business of Public Access to Court Records, by Stephen Schultze and Shubham Mukherjee, presentation [video and slides] Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University, February 5, 2009.
As government documents are increasingly digitized and put online, two orthogonal approaches to distributing these documents have developed. Under one approach, the documents are made easily and freely accessible. In others, the government retains or introduces barriers to access that are inspired by traditional physical access. When these barriers are fee-based, the government can inadvertently create downstream monopolies or architectures of control over public information. This problem is especially severe in the case of federal district court documents, which are available only via an outdated, fee-based, court-run system or from expensive aggregators like Lexis or Westlaw. Indeed, evidence indicates that the courts are using public access fees to subsidize other activities. If we are to be a nation of laws, citizens must have access to the law. The upfront cost of making court documents freely available is far outweighed by the long-term benefits to society. Widespread digitization combined with Internet connectivity has placed these benefits within reach. The courts must now address the task of revamping outmoded policies and funding structures in order to align their practice with this reality.Continue reading
Library Of Congress On YouTube, iTunes
Library Of Congress On YouTube, iTunes, National Journal, TechDailyDose, March 30, 2009.
New channels on video-sharing Web site YouTube and the Apple iTunes service will allow the Library of Congress to begin sharing content from its vast video and audio collections. The channels ... will be rolled out in the coming weeks....Continue reading
Technemag.com Interview with Public Printer Candidate Carl Malamud
Technemag.com just published "Techné Interviews Public Printer Candidate Carl Malamud". The interview focuses on online access to government information, of course, but I found this portion of the interview enlightening:
Techné: It seems that many of your proposals for the GPO can be put together under the headings of ‘increasing transparency’ and ‘updating the system for the 21st century.’ A great deal of both of these will involve the use of the internet and other new media platforms. How much printing do you envision as part of the GPO in the middle to long term? Is the title of ‘Public Printer’ any longer an accurate one—or would Chief Information Officer be more fitting? Malamud: Publisher would be better than CIO. I’m a strong believe that there is a role, and will continue to be a role, for print. You’ll note in some of my proposals I’ve suggested that moving towards the “high end” is a way to continue to maintain jobs at GPO, which has some of the best printers and craftsmen in the world. Some things, such as “commodity printing” may go online or may get distributed, but remember that of the $1 billion in print business GPO does, about $800 million of that is already farmed out to private industry.Continue reading
Guide of the Week: International Documents Collection
If you want a quick way to find International Government Organizations or their publications, start with today's Guide of the Week from the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki:
International Documents Collection (Northwestern University Library, for the GODORT International Documents Task Force, 2008)Northwestern is attempting to keep a comprehensive list of International Government Organizations (IGO) that maintain a web presence. They currently list many IGOs from the African Development Bank to the World Tourism Organization (WTO). To facilitate access to the publications and other IGO information, the guide maintains a Google Custom Search Engine. Northwestern staff use the following criteria to add IGOs to their list: Criteria used to maintain the Northwestern University Library IGO list:
- The primary audience for the site is the Northwestern University community.
- The international organizations included in the list are intergovernmental organizations (IGOs).
- International Documents staff intend the list to be comprehensive. They include all the IGOs of which they are aware. However, an IGO must have a web page to be included in the list. If any person recommends an IGO to add to the list, staff add it to the list.
- The list links to sites in English, when available.
- In general, the list links only to the main page (i.e. welcome or home page) of the IGO's web site. The list links to web pages that are located within an IGOs web site if:
- it is the web page of the IGO's statistical division or statistical publications.
- it is the web page of the IGO's publications, if there are a substantial number of full-text publications available there.
- it is a web page that is often used.
- it is a web page which had been used by staff or a patron as a source of information, but which is extremely difficult to locate using the site's navigation functions.
- If you have any questions or suggestions please email them to mailto:govinfo@northwestern.edu.
Keeping up with data rot
Here's an interesting segment from CBS Sunday Morning from March 1, 2009 in which NY Times Technology writer David Pogue talks about data preservation. There are some great pictures from the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley -- and don't miss Pogue's interview with the museum's curator Dag Spicer. One of the most memorable quotes is from Don Menerick (sp?), Archivist @ NY Public Library:
"...there's a consensus that as the ability to store more and more data, the data itself has become less and less reliable."