Six pages and serendipity
Today I was searching the shelves of my depository for a report related to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and instead my eyes fell on this publication from the CIA: Donovan and the CIA : a history of the establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency by Thomas F Troy Publisher: [Langley, Va.?] : Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1981. SuDoc: PREX 3.10:D71 This is the official story of how the CIA came to be. According to the preface, it was written in 1975 as an account of the agency's origin for new employees. It was promptly stamped SECRET. In 1981, the agency released a declassified edition which the preface hails as being "released for leisurely reading outside the office, and printed in one volume, this history should better serve it's original purpose." What made the CIA decide it could let its secret origin story out of the shadows? According to the preface, it was the excision of no more than six typewritten pages. Obviously, I haven't seen the missing six pages, but doesn't this case make it seem like the classification process is a little whimsical? The book is divided into three sections: "The COI (Coordinator of Information) Story" which covers from about 1929 to World War II, Wartime--The OSS Story and Postwar--The CIA Story, which ends with the establishment of the CIA. If anyone's read this volume, let us know what you think. As far as I can tell, the book has no electronic version. Google Books has a commercial version with no preview. Perhaps one day the government document version, which is in the public domain, will be posted. Might be interesting to run a tag cloud on the text. The electronic world has given us many gifts, but I'm not sure it could deliver an experience of serendipity like the printed shelf did for me today. From welfare to spies.
On a personal note, thanks to everyone who has sent words of appreciation to me regarding my being named as a Library Journal 2008 Mover and Shaker. I really think this is an award that in a real sense belongs to the entire documents community and especially to my co-volunteers here at FGI and the dozens of folks working on State Agency Databases Across the Fifty States. Thanks to each and every one of you who contributes to finding, describing, and making government information available to people in a way that respects their privacy. Without you I'd just be a mouth on legs. Continue reading
Why some web pages don’t work
Did you ever wonder why it is that, when you try to load some web pages, the text overlaps the pictures or the pull down boxes will not pull down or the page just appears blank and empty or any of a thousand other problems that made the page un-viewable or un-usable? Did you ever wonder why, when you ask your friends, they say they have no problem at all with those same pages?
Have you ever wondered what this means for users of all those government web sites you have carefully listed in your OPAC? Have you ever wondered if this means that these web sites won't work in 10 years -- or 1 year?
If so, this article is for you. It explains -- in very easy to understand, non-technical terms -- things like "Web Standards" and the differences between web browsers.
- Martian Headsets by Joel Spolsky, Joel on Software, March 17, 2008.
Joel is a software developer and his columns at Joel on Software are models of clear, comprehensive technical writing at its best. You can read and enjoy his columns if you are an advanced technologist/programmer or if you can't tell Java from JavaScript. If you care about the future of government information, or if you develop web pages, or sites, or web-based information, or if you are just curious about what will happen when IE 8 comes out, read this and enjoy.
There is no practical way to check if the web page you just coded conforms to the spec. There are validators, but they won't tell you what the page is supposed to look like, and having a "valid" page where all the text is overlapping and nothing lines up and you can't see anything is not very useful.
and...
Some of those pages can't be changed. They might be burned onto CD-ROMs. Some of them were created by people who are now dead. Most of them created by people who have no frigging idea what's going on and why their web page, which they paid a designer to create 4 years ago, is now not working properly.Continue reading
National Freedom of Information Coalition Conference
The National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) will hold a national conference, entitled, "2008 FOI Summit", May 9-10, 2008 in Philadelphia, PA. Here are some of the panels: FOI Reform Efforts: Rewriting your state's laws? FOI 2.0: Wikis and podcasts and blogs, oh my! Sunshine Week Roundtable Coalition Care and Feeding Continue reading
“Congresearch” Congressional Research Tutorial
I finally found some good news to cheer me up after writing the last two posts. ;-) UC Berkeley Library used wiki software to create a congressional research tutorial called Congresearch. It includes Flash tutorial videos on finding a bill, a hearing, a congressional debate, etc. This one is my favorite. Over time, more tutorials will be added. You can offer them feedback too. The tutorial homepage also contains links to current congressional news, recent votes and a link to their customized Congressional Search Engine created with Google CSE to create a focused Google search on current official U.S. Congressional websites and news organizations focusing on Congress. I am in Gov Doc 2.0 Nerd Utopia. Continue reading
Another Library Closes…
Ok, this is just getting depressing. I need to find some happy news in the land of government information and libraries. Another government library bites the dust: The F.E. Warren Air Force Base Closes Library. Air Force budget cuts have forced the Base to close its library facility. Library resources, including the Internet, professional military education materials, self-help literature, and test study resources, will be available at "other locations" on base. The reallocation of resources formerly housed at the library will now be situated in "more relevant" facilities, including a new base-wide wireless Internet expansion (what does that mean?) "We've taken what potentially looks like a negative to a hugely positive," Hirschel said. "Everything about the library still exists, there just won't be a physical building." What about the librarians? Where did they go? Where are these "other locations" that the resources supposedly went to? This all sounds eerily familiar to the EPA library closures, but on a smaller scale... Continue reading