FDLP: Services and Collections
Against the Grain has kindly permitted me to post this preprint of my new article.
- FDLP: Services and Collections [preprint] by James A. Jacobs, Against the Grain, 21(2) April/May 2009.
In the age of digital information, libraries and librarians are struggling to define their proper roles. In a time of financial uncertainty and economic crisis, many libraries are facing decisions that will have long-term implications and consequences. At a time like this it is particularly important that we have a clear vision of a sustainable role for libraries.And, don't forget Distributed Globally, Collected Locally: LOCKSS for Digital Government Information by Daniel Cornwall and James R. Jacobs. Against the Grain, 21(1) February, 2009. Continue reading
Wont’ Get Fooled Again: Day 31
An interesting editorial item from the New York Review of Books by Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard He has actually been tilling these intellectual fields for awhile for NYRB -- here is a list of submissions. Goes without saying that I disagree with some of his observations. But with more than 100 days left on the current time clock, I will address those concerns another time.... See you on Day 32. Continue reading
Guide of the Week: Afghanistan
With President Obama's recent decision to send as many as 17,000 additional US soldiers to Afghanistan, it is a good time to highlight one of the excellent country guides posted by the UC Boulder Government Publications Library to the ALA GODORT Handout Exchange Wiki: Afghanistan: Country Guide (University of Colorado at Boulder Government Publications Library, 2008) This guide starts off with official Afghanistan Government websites, which includes English language links to a number of ministries, including the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and the Prime Minister's office. The guide moves on to a number of third party overviews of Afghanistan. These include profiles written by members of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, as well as those from non-combatant countries such as India. Looks at Afghanistan from international organizations are also provided. After the general country profile section, the guide links to a number of databases that contain reports and other documents on Afghanistan, including declassified documents from the CIA. Then the guide links to specific resources in diplomacy, health, and military operations. It concludes with tips on searching for Afghanistan related materials in the UCB catalog. This would be an excellent resource for the team the President has appointed to review conditions and policy in Afghanistan. And good for the rest of us to review as well. Please have a look. If you find it interesting or helpful, tell at least two friends. And if you're a docs librarian with a guide to Afghanistan or other other topic, please link it to the Handout Exchange. Continue reading
Tracking the mutable government web
ProPublica's ChangeTracker service has the potential for being very useful indeed. (See the FGI post about ChangeTracker by Rebecca Blakeley for more information about the service and ChangeTracker itself at ProPublica.)
The service tracks changes at the government web sites whitehouse.gov, recovery.gov and financialstability.gov. The service is similar to other change-tracking services that have been around for years (e.g., ChangeDetection) which automatically monitor changes on a web page and notify you anytime the page changes. In fact, it is built using Versionista (See Steal Our Code: How to Build Your Own Change-Tracking Feeds, by Brian Boyer, ProPublica, February 19, 2009.) See also, Steven Bell's A Librarian's Resource Center for Keeping Up for similar services. ProPublica goes one step further by setting up all the monitoring for you and doing side-by-side comparisons that highlight the changes.
Most changes are additions -- new blog postings, new announcements, and so forth. This is nothing that a good RSS feed from the monitored site couldn't provide just as well.
The potential for ChangeTracker, though, is its ability to automatically discover policy changes. For example, it discovered changes in wording about Hurricane Katrina on the "the "Additional Issues" portion of the White House web site's "Agenda" section. On this page, text that described the Bush Administration's response to Katrina as "unconscionable ineptitude" was deleted. See:
- an article about this: White House Site Un-Slams Bush on Katrina, by Paul Kiel, ProPublica, February 20, 2009.
- the side-by-side comparison.
This particular example may not be earth-shaking, but it highlights the mutable nature of government information on the web. Posting information on a web page is not the same as publishing (instantiating) information and depositing it in FDLP libraries. The current situation endangers the accuracy and completeness of the historical record.
Continue readingFederal Open Government Guide
The 10th edition of the “Federal Open Government Guide” has been published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP). The guide helps citizens to better understand and use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This new edition covers laws such as the Government in the Sunshine Act (GSA), the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), and the Privacy Act. You can buy a copy from the RCFP for $10 or you can use the free online version. It includes an automated FOIA letter generator that creates requests and appeals. Tip o' the hat to the OMB Watch Blog for the heads up. Continue reading