Why we need open documents, a real-life example
Here is an excellent example of why we need government information distributed in truly-open, re-usable formats. The very important and much discussed $700 billion economic "bail-out" bill, the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" (H.R. 3997), has gone through at least four versions between September 25th and today. Josh Tauberer, the tireless open-government advocate and programmer who developed GovTrack.us, has adapted a bill comparison tool that he developed for GovTrack and posted the resulting analysis of changes between the different versions here:
- Special Feature: Economic Stimulus Bill Text Tracker, GovTrack. Sept 29, 2008.
It's not very pretty because while House bill writers have been posting the PDFs, PDFs don't make it easy to make comparisons. They *are* composing the bills in XML, and if they made those available we the public would have an easier time. Maybe we wouldn't complain to our reps so much either because we could actually understand what is going on better! [source] ...Why is this so ugly? This is based on converting the PDF drafts into text, which doesn't always work right. If you think the public should be able to do this better, tell your representative to support The Open House Project report recommendations. [source]What we need is not just easy-to-read human-consumable documents (e.g., PDF, HTML, word-processing documents), but also machine-processable documents that can be analyzed, parsed, re-formatted, and re-used (e.g., XML). Continue reading
Just Released: DOJ Report of Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys
An Investigation into the Removal of Nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006, U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility, Sept. 2008. (PDF, 392 pp., 3.6 Megs). Site http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/new.htm says "HTML coming soon." From the conclusion:
The most serious allegations that arose were that the U.S. Attorneys were removed based on improper political factors, including to affect the way they handled certain voter fraud or public corruption investigations and prosecutions. Our investigation found significant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor in the removal of several of the U.S. Attorneys. The most troubling example was David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico. We concluded that complaints from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists about Iglesias’s handling of voter fraud and public corruption cases caused his removal, and that the Department removed Iglesias without any inquiry into his handling of the cases. However, we were unable to fully develop the facts regarding the removal of Iglesias and several other U.S. Attorneys because of the refusal by certain key witnesses to be interviewed by us, as well as by the White House’s decision not to provide internal White House documents to us. Therefore, we recommend that counsel specially appointed by the Attorney General work with us to conduct further investigation and ultimately to determine whether the totality of the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed.Continue reading
CA Sec of State wants open source e-voting systems
Last week, at the Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference held at MIT, there was a panel on electronic voting systems in which CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen participated -- along with Moderator Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief, Technology Review; Doug Chapin, Director, electionline.org; Ronald L. Rivest, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT; and Pamela Smith, President, Verified Voting Foundation. You may remember that in 2007, Bowen ordered a complete top-to-bottom review of voting systems in CA. I'm really glad to see a top-level politician sitting on a panel of cutting edge technologists and really, really glad to hear that top-level politician advocate for [w:Open-source software]. Now, I'm not saying the open source is the end all and be all solution to the myriad issues facing e-voting (see Bev harris' Black Box Voting for more on those issues); but it's great to see that Bowen at least gets that open source software is at least part of the solution. We've been saying that for quite some time. For a complete wrapup of the panel see Lucas Mearian's ComputerWorld blog
One method of addressing software issues associated with the vast majority of proprietary e-voting applications out there is to move to using open source, especially for applications residing on optical scanners, which have been particularly troublesom. The concern is that IT administrators can't look at the software to correct errors or tweak it for a particular county's needs. Open source would go a long ways to disclosing problems associated with today's propretary e-voting applications, Bowen said.[Thanks /.] Continue reading
Guide of the Week: History
I had a pretty humble beginning in government documents. In June 1993, I began work as a documents clerk at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). UTSA was enlightened enough to send a paraprofessional to the local government documents users group. It was there that I first met Kathy Amen, the author of today's ALA GODORT Handout Exchange guide and someone I consider to be both a mentor and friend even though we don't keep in great touch. Kathy's Guide: Government Information in the Study of History (Kathy Amen, St. Mary's University, 2003) makes it's purpose clear with this intro statement:
This set of guides has 2 purposes: * to identify historically significant materials in the Blume Library documents collection, housed on the main floor of the Library * to provide convenient access to government (and related) web sites of interest to the historian and history students Therefore, each of the guide's sections is subdivided into * annotated listings of the Library's print holdings (with online versions noted if they are available) * major web-based resources * references to relevant links in our Government Information on the Web Subject Index, as an aid to finding more detailed online information.Those guide sections would be: General, Archaeology, Archives, Area Studies, Biography, Institutions, Military, Places, Science/Technology, Social/Labor, and Sources. In addition to browsing these pages, a search is available. Some of the many resources that Kathy identifies in the area of history are:
- Honor Bound: The History of American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973 (D 1.2:H 75/3). This volume draws upon research in official records, published literature and interviews with former POW's to chart the history of those taken prisoner during the Vietnam conflict.
- Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record. This collection, part of the Library of Congress' American Memory project, "document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies." The website includes drawings, photographs, narrative descriptions, etc. You may search by keyword or browse by subject or location.
- Bibliography of the History of Medicine. (HE 20.3615:). Annual. 1964-1993. Covers articles, monographs, and conference proceedings world-wide. One section contains references to biographical information on the medical histories of famous persons, medical aspects of artistic works, and biographies of those in health related professions. A second section indexes references by subject, subdivided, where appropriate, by geographical or chronological headings. There is a detailed contents list of subject headings which includes cross references.
- Famous American Trials. Many, though not all, of the trials covered on this site developed by a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City were held in the U.S. Information given includes links to official documents, background and analytical studies, contemporary and later reactions, maps, photographs and other illustrations as relevant.
- Guide to the Research Collections of Former Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1789-1987. ( Y 1.1/2:13872). Identifies repositories of papers, oral history tapes and tape transcripts.
Core Reference Tools Survey
Kovacs Consulting, which holds online training for librarians, also surveys librarians' core reference tools in a variety of subject areas. And yes, there is a Government Documents section! You can contribute to the current survey or take a look at the 2005 and 2006 results. What a great way to find some new resources, and see what everyone else is using! I also plan on using the list as I train a graduate student on our reference desk. Continue reading