FOIA drop-box
A tweet from John Wonderlich (from the fabulously cool Open House Project!) yesterday got me thinking. He posted about submitting his first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. I'm not sure what the request entails, but my thought was that it'd be cool if there was somewhere on the net that folks who got documents via a FOIA request could submit copies of both the request and the documents. Now maybe there already is, although I don't think the Memory Hole does this (hey Russ Kick, is MH defunct? I don't see any new content since Oct 2006!). My library is already gobbling up and preserving the FOIA reading rooms, but I don't have any sense about how many FOIA request documents make it into those agency sites. Does anyone have an answer to that? So, if you've got any FOIA documents laying around your hard drive, send them over to FGI at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info. We'll post them on this site and on the Internet Archive's US Government Documents collection. We'll make sure they get on the 'net and get preserved for long-term access! Continue reading
GODORT preconferences still open to registration
ALA annual conference is coming up and there are a couple of GODORT preconferences that may be of interest to FGI readers. Since they're on different days, you could attend both! Want to learn more about Web2.0 technologies and documents librarianship? There's still time to register for the GODORT pre-conference "Docs2.0: emerging web technologies for the government documents community" at ALA Annual conference in Anaheim, Friday, June 27, 2008, 9:00am – 12:30. The 1/2 day preconference will be chock full of both hands-on work and discussion about Web2.0 tools and how they can be used to help documents librarians with their collections and services. FGI volunteers Jim Jacobs and James Jacobs will be presenting about RSS and del.icio.us; Additional speakers on the slate are Amy West, David Oldenkamp, and the keynote will be John Wonderlich, Program Director of the Sunlight Foundation. The other preconference of interest is entitled, "Got Elections? Informing the Public" on Thursday, June 26, 8:30am - 4:30pm. This is cosponsored by GODORT, ACRL, and LPSS. At this lively full-day workshop with nationally recognized speakers, attendees will learn Who Decides? (Information on Voters), Who Runs? (Information on Candidates), Who Cares? (Information on Issues), and Who Wins? (Information on Election Results). Help library and online users make sense of the information they find. Transportation will be provided from the Convention Center. Location: California State University Fullerton, Pollak Library, 800 N State College Blvd. Speakers: Rhodes Cook, Political Analyst, RhodesCook. com; Stephen Woods, Social Sciences Librarianm Pennsylvania State University; Chris Palazzolo, Librarian for Political Science & International Documents, Emory University; John Hernandez, Politics and U.S. Documents Librarian, Princeton University; Erik Estep, North Carolina Reference Librarian, East Carolina University; Jerry Wong, Information Services Specialist, U.S. Census Bureau Tickets: Advance: GODORT Member: $125; ALA Member: $150; Non-Member: $200; Student/ Retired Member: $100. Onsite: GODORT Member: $140; ALA Member: $165; Non-Member: $215; Student/Retired Member: $115 Event Code: GO1 Continue reading
Happy RSS day!
Wow, today is a convergence day of holidays! Not only do we have May Day, [w:International Workers' Day], and [w:Loyalty Day], but now there's also RSS Day! [w:RSS] (aka "rich site summary") is the little XML file that could; that is, RSS can help librarians and readers in general collect and read the stuff in which they're interested. See the video below for a really good, straighforward description of RSS. And don't forget to register for the GODORT preconference at ALA Annual '08 entitled, Docs2.0: emerging web technologies for the government documents community. FGI will be there with Jim Jacobs presenting about RSS and James Jacobs moderating and presenting about del.icio.us.
May ’08 botms: Stanford Law librarians
Happy [w:May Day] (whether you observe [w:International Workers' Day] or the lesser known [w:Loyalty Day])!! This month we have a special treat for you: a group of law librarians from Stanford have agreed to be group bloggers-of-the-month for May, 2008. The group includes Paul Lomio, Brian Provenzale, Erika Wayne, Kate Wilko, and George Wilson -- see the Stanford Law Librarians' bios for more on what they do and where their interests lie. We're really looking forward to reading what's on the minds of these good folks. Thanks also to Frank Lester, our BOTM for April, 2008! Below is the recap of the threads that Frank got started.
- Court Invalidates Part of Copyright Remedy Clarification Act
- HHS Appeals Ruling That Would Give Consumers More Access to Physician Medicare Claims Database
- Consumer Satisfaction with E-Government on the Downturn
Stanford Law Librarians group bloggers for May, 2008
J. Paul Lomio is library director and lecturer at law at Stanford Law School. Paul hates paying for government information twice -- once as a taxpayer, and then again as a library director forced to purchase government produced information. Paul has graduate degrees in law from Gonzaga Law School and the University of Washington and a masters of library and information science from the Catholic University of America. Paul was admitted to the Washington State Bar. He is the author (with Henrik Spang-Hanssen) of Legal Research Methods in the U.S. and Europe (DJOF 2008). Brian Provenzale has been a librarian for a few years (at UCLA and currently at Stanford) and a Web nerd for over ten. He thinks every U.S. citizen should, with minimal effort, be able to find out what the government is doing at all times. Sergio Stone. Sergio is Stanford's first Foreign, Comparative and International Law Librarian. Erika V. Wayne is deputy library director and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School. Along with George Wilson, Kate Wilko and Paul Lomio, Erika Wayne has co-taught Advanced Legal Research for 3 years. Erika's interest in Open Access dates back to the 1996 when she helped in the development of the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse -- the first court designated internet site for public posting of securities litigation filings. And, she hates to pay for *anything* that should be free. She has a JD from Penn, an AB from Duke and a MS from Illinois in Library and Information Science. Kate Wilko is a Reference Librarian and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School. This Spring marks the sixth time she has team-taught Advanced Legal Research. Within the legal research world and its limited publisher options, open access is quickly becoming a topic of more urgent importance. Kate is very pleased to be able to share thoughts and ideas with other open access community members on freegovinfo.info George Wilson is a reference librarian at Stanford's law library. He started working there in late 2005, after having spent seven years in corporate law practice in Washington, DC and San Francisco, as well as around a decade as a researcher and administrator in various Stanford departments. He has a JD from Georgetown, a BA from UC Berkeley, and will receive his MLIS degree from San Jose State in May 2008. Continue reading