Hoduski and McKnelly on Regional Depositories and Title 44
A new paper by Bernadine E. Abbott Hoduski and Michele McKnelly addresses the proposal to revise Chapter 19 of Title 44 "to allow a more flexible structure" for Regional Depository Libraries.
- Does the Federal Depository Library Program Require Title 44 Revision to Improve Public Access to Government Information?, by Bernadine E. Abbott Hoduski and Michele McKnelly, December 2, 2008
Popularity brings site down
File this under "lessons learned." The European Union's new Europeana digital library, which was launched on November 20, had to be taken offine because the heavy demand by users -- 10 million hits an hour -- overwhelmed the servers. The home page of "Europeana" today says, "Popularity brings the site down....We are doing our best to reopen Europeana.eu in a more robust version." A story in the Christian Science Monitor (Everybody loves the digital library – maybe too much, by Marjorie Kehe, 12.09.08) says the site "had to be shut down within hours when powerful user demand swamped its system" and describes the digital library this way:
The online collection of Europe’s cultural heritage was launched on November 21. Europeana will allow users anywhere to access books kept in European libraries as well as films, paintings, photographs, sound recordings, maps, manuscripts, newspapers, and documents.The event reminds me of the problem the House had recently (Scaling house.gov). Continue reading
Lunchtime Listen: The Science of Emergence
You will just have to trust me on this one. Listen and enjoy. It is okay to think about the implications of ants, and bees on Depository Libraries and long-term preservation.... Let me know what you think.
- Emergence, RadioLab, WNYC, July 15, 2008. (Streaming audio and downloadable MP3 available.)
OSTI: collecting AND connecting scientific govt information
Did you know that the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) has a blog? The OSTI blog turned 1 year old last month but has only been in our In other news... section for a short time. I'm really impressed with the work that OSTI is doing to build digital collections of scientific and technical information as well as to push the boundaries of access by building databases, federated search tools, being an OAI node, distributing bibliographic records and generally finding unique and innovative ways to make scientific and technical information available on the Web (I just love the idea of an adopt-a-doc program!!). In particular, a blog post entitled Beyond Collecting: Connecting from a few weeks back (yes my feedreader is bursting at the seams :-) ) caught my eye. They've basically gone out and built a digital infrastructure along the lines of what we at FGI have been advocating for lo these many years. That is, they've realized that they can't possibly collect it all. Instead of building one big central repository, they're relying on many agencies and actors to host content and standards-based metadata of interest to them. OSTI can then use increasingly robust digital tools to aggregate and provide search mechanisms for vast amounts of information -- to "connect users with the highest quality science information without collecting or hosting it." THAT'S what I envision for the Federal Depository Library Program: a collaborative network of libraries (a technical and social P2P network!) hosting content of interest to their local communities, creating and maintaining standardized metadata, connecting up with each other to create powerful search tools across the network. This is the many-hands-make-light-work digital model to which we in the documents community should be espousing. --that is all.
OSTI has embraced a new paradigm for sharing scientific and technical information (STI). Historically, OSTI has fulfilled its mission of providing STI to scientists, researchers, and the public by hosting, or collecting, documents and/or metadata. OSTI's new paradigm is to make content searchable that is often hosted by others; today, OSTI connects those seeking the content with the organizations that host it. Beginning in the late 1940's, with OSTI's production of the Nuclear Science Abstracts - which was to go on for nearly 30 years, OSTI entered into the business of collecting information. Beginning in the 1990’s, OSTI began creating web application to make the collected content openly accessible and conveniently searchable. ETDE Web, DOE Information Bridge, the Energy Citations Database, and DOE R&D Accomplishments are some of the successful applications. In the last several years, OSTI’s approach to disseminating STI has evolved. Recent applications such as the Eprint Network, Science.gov, DOE Science Accelerator, and WorldWideScience.org connect users with the highest quality science information without collecting or hosting it. How does OSTI move beyond collecting to connecting and what does connecting mean? OSTI's new applications search content that is housed in document repositories owned by a number of government agencies and government-sanctioned organizations. OSTI applications search a number of these repositories on the fly and they aggregate the content from the sources they search and present the most relevant of the search results to the user. This simultaneous and real-time search of multiple repositories is called federated search. OSTI's federated search applications serve as portals to specific subjects. In being subject-specific, they connect users to the highest quality STI in their fields of interest. Why is OSTI embracing the connection model? Quite simply, OSTI can far better achieve its mission by making great quantities of content openly accessible and conveniently searchable, but it is impossible to collect and keep current such quantities of content from multiple content sources. “Connecting” to content is doable, while “collecting” is not. (My emphasis added!) We believe that by connecting users to content, we provide a more comprehensive and authoritative search. In doing so, we accelerate the advancement of science.Continue reading
44 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. Recent posts talk about how to render America's federal civic machinery transparent, accessible, and permanent (here, here and here). Each of these posts indicate some kind of "positive" authority either inherent or assumed by the national government in order to keep the civic machinery as open and accessible as possible. This is good -- and something I want to add to the mix is the critical role various organizations, especially library organizations, might play in shaping the future of one critical player in the mix -- the Government Printing Office. Let me be more specific. I think there is going to be more than a few opportunities to discuss and debate the future of the Government Printing Office in general -- (after all, Obama gets to nominate a Public Printer and Superintendent of Documents for Senate consideration and approval -- these two appointments alone will kick up the dust and debate in the near future) -- and the depository library program in particular. In regards to the program, the last two years have been dominated by discussions of * a strategic plan; * a draft report on the future of regional libraries in the program; * several demonstrations and rollouts of a proposed new system to replace GPOaccess ; * a growing number of innovative and positive partnerships with depositories that show how these libraries and GPO work together redefine the traditional boundaries of "depository library" obligations. Each of these partnerships represent a mutual amount of self-interest and collaboration. Included on this list, in particular, are several partnerships that capture many of the qualities sought in earlier FGI blog posts -- permanence, transparency, and distribution -- @Cybercemetery @DOSFAN @Historic Government Publications from World War Two @Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights * what's more, GPO is working with depository libraries on test beds and applications that seek to establish protocols for authenticity, digital distributive storage and preservation, and web harvesting So, while we sharpen our rhetorical arguments for an open government that is both well preserved and accessible and seek to influence the incoming powers that be with position papers and agendas, let's not forget how much progress has already been made in the last two years. We should continue to build on this efforts, with the clear recognition that same may not meet our far-reaching expectations. See you on Day 43. Continue reading