History of U.S. Gov’t Bailouts
Here is a nice visualization and explanation of U.S. government bailouts of U.S. corporations (and one city) from 1970 to now. History of U.S. Gov't Bailouts, ProPublica, December 22, 2008. ProPublica also has a page of What Happens After a U.S. Gov't Bailout? that covers 1970 through 2001. Continue reading
LCSH.info RIP
LCSH.info, RIP, December 22, 2008, Tim, LibraryThing.
I am not as up on or enthusiastic about Ed's Semantic-Web intentions, but the open-data implications are clear: the Library of Congress just took down public data. I didn't think things could get much worse after the recent OCLC moves, but this is worse. The time has come to get serious. The library world is headed in the wrong direction. It's wrong for patrons—and taxpayers. And it's wrong for libraries.See also (if it is still there): uncool uris, Posted on December 19, 2008, 10:32 pm, by Ed Summers.
On December 18th I was asked to shut off lcsh.info by the Library of Congress. As an LC employee I really did not have much choice other than to comply. The lcsh.info domain was registered by me in order to demonstrate how the Library of Congress Subject Headings could be represented as a Semantic Web application using SKOS.... LC is still considering running a service like lcsh.info at loc.gov, but it’s not there for me to link to yet.Continue reading
SEC mandates open standard for financial records
SEC mandates open standard for financial records, By Gautham Nagesh, NextGov.com, (12/19/2008).
The Securities and Exchange Commission passed a rule on Thursday requiring public companies and mutual funds to use a standard electronic format to publish financial information, bringing more transparency, and presumably oversight, to corporate balance sheets and earnings. SEC commissioners voted 4-1 to require companies to use extensible business reporting language, or XBRL, when filing financial disclosures. The commission also required them to publish information on the SEC's Web site as well as their own. XBRL is based on software programming called extensible mark-up language, or XML, which uses tags attached to documents so users can easily find and share electronic data....Continue reading
Hacking Congress
Hacking The Hill, By Shane Harris, National Journal, 12/19/2008. Also available at: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20081220_6787.php. It seems that it is "exceptionally difficult to protect congressional computers in a uniform fashion" and one panel has determined that Congress cannot manage cyber-security. Continue reading
The Commons on Flickr
The American Historical Association blog has a nice, short writeup on Flickr: The Commons, where national and state government libraries (including the Library of Congress) are displaying photographs of historical interest.
- Snapshots of the Past: The Commons on Flickr, By Jessica Pritchard, December 22, 2008.