Changes at USASearch.gov
This article describes changes coming next month as well as some long term thinking about the future of searching across federal, state, and local government web sites. The new changes are aimed at giving the managers of agency web sites a bit more control over how their results appear to users of USASearch.gov. A user searching for "passport" will be more assured of finding a link to State Department's latest information and instructions, for instance. The article also notes long term changes are possible. The five-year contract that USASearch.gov has with Vivisimo will be expiring in a couple of years and in the last two years "the industry's best search companies have opened their development platforms and made it much easier to access their indexes through common application programming interfaces." Currently, USASearch.gov uses Microsoft Live Search and Vivisimo.
- Widgets to the rescue, By Wyatt Kash, GCN, May 26, 2008. "USASearch.gov aims to make agency info easier to find with new spotlight tool."
Digitizing History: NARA’s plans for the future
(cross posted on legalresearchplus.com) Earlier this month the National Archives and Records Administration released their Strategy for Digitizing Archival Materials for Public Access, 2007-2016. This is a follow-up to a draft policy released in September of last year. A fair amount of the report discusses the use of partner organizations in the digitization effort. The draft relased in September was open to public comment, and NARA has posted their responses to those comments here. (Thanks to the American Association of Law Libraries Washington Office and their monthly E-Bulletin) Continue reading
A Strategy for Openness
[Cross posted on Legalresearchplus.com] The New York State Office for Technology and the New York State Archives, has just issued a report that "examines how the state can provide choice, interoperability and vendor neutrality in electronic document creation while ensuring electronic records are preserved and remain accessible." "The report [“A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State”] recommends establishing a statewide, cross-government Electronics Records Committee to address, in a formal, long-term and collaborative manner, all aspects of electronic record creation, management and preservation. The committee would facilitate state agency adoption, place the vendor community on notice of the state’s strategic direction and long-term commitment for technology openness, and ensure this commitment is institutionalized throughout the state enterprise and survives government leadership transitions. Another recommendation suggests the committee develops and publishes a final open records policy, and begins issuing a series of standards and guidelines for implementing the policy."
Hat tip to BeSpacific Continue readingOde to Govdoc-L
I was cleaning my condo today and ran across a "government documents jounral" that I turned in as an assignment in grad school back in 1995. Part of what I did for this assignment was to subscribe to Govdoc-l, the documents librarians' electronic mailing list. I had to report my impressions. The three things I cited 13 years ago were:
- Govdoc-L is practical.
- Govdoc'rs are helpful
- Govdoc-l is informative
Machine converts light from microfiche reader to music on a Casio keyboard
Don't go throwing out your microfiche machines just yet. At last month's Maker Faire, Andrew (aka Pillowsopher) showed off his microfiche-to-MIDI machine. The microfiche machine takes light (in this case, from the screen of the microfiche reader) and converts it into MIDI signals that can then be sent to devices that take MIDI input, like synthesizers or computers. Andrew made the machine for a San Francisco band called Microfiche. Anyone want to go to their next show on June 6?