40 to 38 Days to Government Information Liberation
2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. Repeating cycles (sometimes called feedback loops)are important to any professional group or institution. Based on standards and protocols, these cycles often sustain efficiency and predictability. As Daniel Cornwell points out in an earlier comment -- loops keep the machinery going at some level. When we have to reinvent the wheel everytime -- that is where it becomes more curse than cure. For the next couple of weeks, among other points I want to raise, I will point out where the Hoduski and McKnelly argument for a full fledge study of the depository system is not a feedback loop. I will document just how many times the depository system in particular, and GPO in general, has been studied, analyzed, investigated, and heaped with recommendations. For instance, many of Carl Malamud's recommendations stand on the shoulders of earlier policy iniatives -- especially something called the Government Information Locator Service -- an early world wide web initiative to establish some kind of standardized descriptions of federal information resources. For another ancient link (1994) to this effort from (how many of us remember this group?) Taxpayer Assests Project -- desribes some of the rich policy history of GILS. In this case, the feedback loop shared by GILS and Malamud's recommendations is one that tries to come up with a form of government information organization, classification and accessibility that is clear and open to any and all systems. See you on Day 37. Continue reading
CRS report on Presidential Libraries
Presidential Libraries: The Federal System and Related Legislation, by Harold C. Relyea, updated November 26, 2008, Order Code RS20825. (PDF, 6 pp). Thanks to FAS. Continue reading
The Future of the Internet III
Pew has the results of a new survey on the Future of the Internet. This is their third. See the story Internet Evolution: The Future of the Internet III (12/14/2008) with summaries, or the complete report: The Future of the Internet III, Janna Quitney Anderson, Elon University and Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project, December 14, 2008. (PDF, 138pp). And then visit the Imagining the Internet site:
The Elon University/Pew Internet Project site Imagining the Internet: A History and Forecast is a multi-section resource containing thousands of pages. It exposes future possibilities while simultaneously providing a peek back at the past. In it, you will find the words of thousands of people from every corner of the world, from today and from yesterday, making thousands of predictive pronouncements about the future of humankind.Experts can be notoriously inaccurate at predicting the future, but it is fascinating to read what people like Howard Rheingold, Susan Crawford, danah boyd, Seth Finkelstein, David Brin, and many more are thinking about. Continue reading
DoE Seeks to Limit Public Interest FOIA Disclosures
Steven Aftergood has the story here: DoE Seeks to Limit Public Interest FOIA Disclosures, Secrecy News, December 15, 2008.
"A proposed new Department of Energy regulation would eliminate the so-called 'public interest' balancing test that encourages DOE officials to release information under the Freedom of Information Act even when it is legally exempt from disclosure if doing so would serve the public interest.... In comments on the proposed regulation submitted by the Federation of American Scientists, we argued that 'there is a widespread and well-founded expectation that the incoming Obama Administration will rescind the Ashcroft FOIA policy and define a more forthcoming disclosure policy. In light of that probable scenario, I would urge DOE to cancel its proposed revision of [the public interest balancing test], or else to suspend action on it for six months while the new Administration prepares new government-wide FOIA guidance.'" Continue reading
Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion
Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion (Update2), By Mark Pittman, Bloomberg, Dec. 12, 2008.
The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.Continue reading