Government Information Online: Ask a Librarian — National Digital Reference Service Launched
Government Information Online: Ask A Librarian
I am pleased to announce the improved and evolved national digital reference project that began almost three and half years ago as a volunteer effort and collaboration with the Illinois State Library, OCLC, and my institution, University of Illinois at Chicago. For the next two and half years, as the project evolved through three phases, over thirty libraries from around the country contributed their time and expertise to learn what it takes for state libraries, public libraries, private and public university libraries, and special libraries to cooperate answering the public's government information questions using OCLC's QuestionPoint software and working across geographic and institutional boundaries.
By Spring 2007, following further discussions with the government information librarians of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (essentially the Big 10 universities and the University of Chicago) and the Government Printing Office, all agreed to make the project's next phase a more formal organization. The library participants would underwrite the purchase of the OCLC software subscriptions and the CIC would form a management structure to assure a consistent set off policies and procedures among the participating libraries. To coordinate the with the Government Printing Office (which has been involved in the project since its beginning), a formal partnership was formed between GPO and UIC (who is acting as on behalf of CIC interests in the partnership) to explore the implications of national digital reference services and the fully digital depository library system now planned over the last 12 years. Furthermore, 9 other non-CIC libraries agreed to join the effort, bringing the total number of libraries that actively support the effort with both personnel and fiscal resources to 19. Here is the complete list -- which is a pretty good cross section of libraries that participate in FDLP.
Indiana University
Library of Virginia
Michigan State University
Newark Public Library
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Penn State University
Purdue University
San Francisco Public Library
State Library of Pennsylvania
Southern Illinois University
Tennessee State Library
University of Hawaii at Manoa
University of Illinois Chicago
University of Illinois Urbana
University of Iowa
University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Minnesota
University of Missouri --Columbia
The project seeks other government information library folks (and their institutions) who want to discuss the project and its goals -- and who might want to join the project. If you have questions about this, drop me a line at alfred@uic.edu. I want publicly acknowledge the resources and time and support the 19 libraries listed above for their support and cooperation -- without which this project would not happen. And to the folks at GPO, when they saw another partnership idea coming out of the Midwest might have rolled their eyes just a bit, I want to thank them for agreeing to join this effprt in a formal way to figure what all the opportunities might mean in our shared digital depository future.
I also want to publicly thank the good folks here at freegovinfo who long kept a link to the project on their pages over the past three years, and happily borrow Mr. Cornwall's hat for a tip and public high five to James Staub at the Tennessee State Library for gently reminding me every week to get off my professional butt, think outside of the box, and make this happen. It is good to have colleagues that share a vision and have the reserves to talk through the more difficult moments. To further this public moment of thanks, I want to particularly acknowledge the support of the library administration at UIC, and especially Mary Case, the director, for keeping the resource lines open during the long months of transition last year -- proving once again that collaboration is the one true article of faith in our profession.
Here is a formal announcement of the project.
Government Information Online (GIO): Ask a Librarian – national digital reference service that focuses on government information
What is GIO: Ask a Librarian?
Through Government Information Online (GIO) any one can ask government information librarians who are experts at finding information from government agencies of all levels (local, state, regional, national international) on almost any subject from aardvarks to zygomycosis. GIO is a free online information service supported by nearly twenty public, state and academic libraries throughout the United States. All participants are designated Federal depository libraries in the U.S. Government Printing Office's Federal Depository Library Program. Many are also official depository libraries for their other types of governments and public agencies.
Who is answering the questions?
Government information librarians with a specialized knowledge of agency information dissemination practices -- as well as expertise in how to use government information products, resources and or publications -- answer all the questions submitted to GIO. These librarians are dedicated to helping users meet their government information needs. While the librarians will assist you in any way they can, you may be communicating with a librarian who does not work at your local library and therefore does not have access to your personal library card records.
Who provides support for the GIO?
Each of the participants provides resources and personnel to answer the questions. The project's current phase and overall management is handled through the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The project also benefits from a formal partnership between UIC and the U.S. Government Printing Office to explore how federal depository library reference services could be extended through the World Wide Web.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blocks publication of report
Great Lakes: Danger Zones?, By Sheila Kaplan, The Center for Public Integrity, February 7, 2008.
For more than seven months, the nation’s top public health agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly because it contains such potentially “alarming information” as evidence of elevated infant mortality and cancer rates.
The 400-plus-page study, Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern, was undertaken by a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the request of the International Joint Commission, an independent bilateral organization that advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on the use and quality of boundary waters between the two countries. The study was originally scheduled for release in July 2007 by the IJC and the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.
Excerpts are available on the Center for Public Integrity web site.
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Sen. Leahy urges online publication of Founding Fathers’ papers
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling for the papers of the Founding Fathers Project to be made available to all Americans through the Internet according to a story in a Vermont newspaper. The Project has been collecting and annotating the papers for 50 years. The project has been criticized for moving too slowly and for costing more than an estimated $60 million in federal and private funding. Leahy's Committee heard testimony from Pulitzer Prize winning author David McCullough whose access to the papers of John Adams contributed to research for his award-winning biography.
Leahy is quoted in a press release as saying "I support the prompt digitization of all of the Founding Fathers’ Papers, so that this information can be made available to all Americans via the Internet. If Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton and Franklin could pipe into this discussion today, we all know that they would ask, “What are you waiting for?” Harnessing the exquisite power of the Internet to preserve and proliferate the Founders’ papers is a marriage made in Heaven. "
“I see a collaborative project!”
I'm going to reprint James' comment from Wednesday on the Michigan digitization project here because I think it merits some serious discussion. There were a series of comments on the way the government documents have been cataloged in the Michigan catalog because the variance in cataloging has caused a lot of the documents to be barred from public viewing "due to copyright":
I see a collaborative project! it'd be great to be proactive on UMich's govt pubs. Rather than having to submit a form when an item is found that should be accessible/in the public domain, wouldn't it be cool if UMich put up a list of all their documents (in a wiki?) and let the community/public have at it to verify "public domainness" of documents. Documents classes could assign reviewing as well. There is precedent for this kind of collaborative project. In 2006, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war (which was later shut down because detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research were available publicly! oops!!). A site called LibriVox has volunteers who read chapters of public domain books, many of which have been digitized by Project Gutenberg.The point is, let's leverage the power of the internet to help get govt information out to the public!As it happens, right after I read James' comment I was in a meeting where I found out about another project occurring at the law school library at Rutgers University. The project, Congressional Documents Online, is a full-text archive of Congressional Hearings and Committee Prints from the Rutgers law library collection. The Law Library is in the process of digitizing its print collection of Congressional documents and the website says that there are "7064 documents available, totalling: 1581950 pages, 238814558897 total bytes, as of: Wed Dec 19 14:47:37 EST 2007". All are freely available online. There's a simple search box and a browseable list of the documents. Continue reading
The Real ID Act threatens religious minorities
CNET news has an interesting article about how the Real ID Act, a federal law that takes effect on May 11, will cause problems for Americans who object to facial photograph requirements on religious grounds. The lengthy new regulations released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a result of Real ID set minimum standards for state-issued driver's licenses and IDs, among which is a "full facial digital photograph" that adheres to specific federal requirements. Religious groups including some Amish, Old Order Mennonites, Muslims, members of Native American faiths, and fundamentalist Christians object to identification cards bearing their photographs. The article includes an interactive map of the US that lets you check how your state's ID complies with the federal law.
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