Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 9
One of the future problems for a proactive system of depository libraries is to wrestle with the shift from a model based passive receipt of material sent from a central public authority (regardless of the format)to one where the art of collections and service are more directed and determined by a deliberative plan by the local institution. It always struck me that the model the depository library program should consider is one that uses a coordinated approach and use of the Freedom of Information Act to pry information from the federal government (or the various state governments, for that matter.) In one of my thought experiments I try to imagine a depository library program based on this mechanism of information release -- how would it be different from the century old traditions of our current depository program? The National Security Archives release of its basic FOIA handbook just might move this speculation to reality...if a few libraries are will to pull together. See you on Day 10 Continue reading
Sunshine Week Nationwide Snapshot of Government Records Online
Nationwide Snapshot of Government Records Online Is Focus for Sunshine Week Transparency Project, January 27, 2009, Debra Gersh Hernandez, Coordinator, Sunshine Week.
Sunshine Week's government transparency project for 2009 is enlisting journalists, educators and students, openness advocates and others to develop a snapshot of public records that states make available on their Web sites. The information collected will be distilled into a nationwide report released for Sunshine Week, which runs March 15-21. ..."This year's Sunshine Week project is among our most ambitious and most interesting, as we are highlighting what is becoming an essential part of an informed democracy: easy access to information," commented Charles Davis, NFOIC executive director. "The Internet can be a great force for democratic participation, but only if governments embrace transparency and move to put more information online." Categories for the survey include death certificates, nursing home and child care inspection reports, financial audits, bridge inspection and safety reports, school test data and inspection records, consumer complaints against businesses, and environmental citations. The worksheet is on the Sunshine Week Web site, and anyone is welcome to utilize it for their localized reports.Continue reading
Breaking Government News
"The General Services Administration announced that it has delivered on a promise to use Web 2.0 technology to give citizens electronic access to government information. The USA.gov Web site now is offering a governmentwide news feed service and a gallery of gadget applications.... "Additions to the USA.gov Web site include the Government News Aggregator, which is designed to use RSS feeds to deliver news and information from across the federal government." -- Feds' Web site gets Web 2.0 makeover, By Sharon Gaudin, Computer World, January 27, 2009.
- Breaking Government News, USA.gov. "Breaking news from the U.S. government."
- Government Gadget Gallery. USA.gov. "You can embed these gadgets in personalized home pages, blogs, and other sites."
New FOIA Requesting Guide from the National Security Archive
The National Security Archive has released a new guide, Effective FOIA Requesting for Everyone. Its aim is to provide “comprehensive overview of how to obtain documents from federal executive branch agencies.” It is divided into six chapters and all of them are available online in PDF format. Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 8
With the House voting on the Obama's economic recovery today, and the Senate taking up its consideration in the coming two week, I go back to my earlier themes about Talking Back to Democracy. Somehow, someway -- if libraries want to maintain any kind of relevance in this whitewater churn of rapid economic and political change -- we are going to have to embrace some kind of proactive stance to put the importance of government information in front of our communities every day, week, month. Not enough institutions are "connecting the dots" for people out there....libraries (and especially government information librarians) do this. See you on Day 9. Continue reading