FGI Research: Projects and Ideas
Since its inception in 2005, we at Free Government Information have envisioned this group conducting and promoting research of various types into government information. This page is dedicated to that goal.
This page is divided into two sections: 1) The research that the FGI volunteers themselves are conducting or have completed and 2) Ideas that we do not currently have the resources to carry out but which we hope will inspire others.
Current and past FGI conducted projects
- EPA Document Tagging Project (started 1/18/2008) - Can document users and others improve the findability of government documents and add value via del.icio.us? Join us in finding out! We are planning to compile results on this project in early May 2008.
Ideas for Research
These are for anybody, but especially for LIS students looking to improve knowledge in the field of government information. If you know of a project that already covers an idea below, please let us know!
- Calculate the storage space for a year's worth of FDLP documents
- Analyze agency robot.txt files to see which agencies exclude search engines from all or part of their web sites.
- Estimate the percentage of an agency's PDF files that have keyword and description metadata.
- Estimate amount of agency documents in older formats (wordperfect, etc)
- Survey non-internet users on how (or whether) they access government information.
If you've got other government information research oriented ideas, please send them our way, either in comments or by e-mail admin AT freegovinfo DOT info.
Continue readingWhat to teach to future government information librarians: Escape from the Blackboard Jungle
Aimee, Daniel, Kathy, Jim, Anne, Debbie:
Thank you much for each of your thoughtful remarks (and I hope others contribute their own bricks and mortar to this curricular barn raising!)
It has been a week since I posted -- after about 15 hours with the Govt. Information studnets, and another six with my other class, I can say with some confidence they grasp all of our collective point -- goverrnment information and libraries rapidly change with each successive generation of technology, political and economic upheavals, as well as the dynamics of how our global society defines both traditional and civic literacies.
The take away from the first weekend, I hope the students got anyway, is the following:
-- you must understand how government works before you can understand the information products that these civic processes create. (I suppose this is why completing an extended legislative history on a particular law at the federal level remains a cornerstone of my teaching; even though it feels so "old school" to me.)
-- the formats or forums where these govenment information objects might appear (or distributed) has become less important to me. As I told the students -- I am going to try to teach them how to be the best librarians who can find government information, not the best government information librarians. Seems to me with the consolidations, reorganizations, and reconsiderations many libraries (academic, public, special) now put their traditional documents departments through -- I am convinced the next generation of government information librarians will come to professional maturity in library organizations that do not give government information services or collections any special consideration.
-- that this is essentially hard and difficult work. The traditional bibliographic tools (if not perspectives) no longer work in a variegated world of digital, tangible, and print formats. Government information is where you find it (another way of expressing the ideas of the previous point). I think the relevance of government information for our users will evolve through how we structure our public interactions with them, and how we build a sustainable knowledgebase of this interactions over time and among communities. In other words we are moving from a form of librarianship based on formats (with all its attendant organizational schemes and theoritical controls) to a much more rough and ready form of librarianship focused on singular and collective service to our communities.
One other takeaway I got from this conversation so far is the reminder of how much of our storehouse of government information "best practices" remains scatterred across our professional and digital landscapes. In the eight comments over the past week there was mention of
GODORT Handout Exchange at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Exchange
LISRadio
Webjunction. The Government Information section at http://webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=14562
Individuals in particular areas who contribute to our students' learning by bringing their experience with "best practices" into the classroom
Perhaps through the library associations, the association of Library and Information schools, and other integrating collaborative entities can begin to work bring these strands together into a stronger fabric. I am on the GODORT Education Committee (www.ala.org/ala/godort/godortcommittees/godorteducation/index.htm) and know we are discussing aspects of this issue -- focusing in particular on the compentencies for government information professionals.
That's enough from here for the moment -- got to get some notes prepared for the next class.
I appreciate the discussion so far -- and am anxious to hear more people join!
jashuler
From the 1-18-08 post:
I am about to spend my first weekend teaching Government Information Resources for the Spring semester at Dominican University. I have been teaching such a course here in Illinois and other places for the last 17 years. What I wonder is – for those of you who use government information resources out there – what would be your take-away for library students interested in the future of the government information resources and our bibliographic institutions. In other words, given the number of weeks and hours we will spend together over the next three months, what words of wisdom would you like to see them walk away with?
Is it the shifting fortunes of civil liberties that threaten aspects of a open and transparent government?
Is it the changing nature of our library institutions, and by the same token, their shifting responsibility of libraries to keep and preserve government information?
Obviously I am not looking for yes or no answers here. Just trying to get a sense of how my colleagues are dealing with these problems in the communities of practice.
EPA Pilot Project Tagging Project
Note: The project period was January 18, 2008 through April 18, 2008. The participation period for this project has closed Please see below for unique tags assigned to documents. To view the tagging directly on del.icio.us, please see http://del.icio.us/tag/epapilotproject Update 4/23/2008 - Data has been compiled into a spreadsheet available at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pybymZBlZ80PVat2ggty2GA Interpretation to follow. Update 5/7/2008 - The results report is finished and may be read and commented on at http://freegovinfo.info/node/1825. Below is the original project announcement: ============================
Free Government Information needs your help to investigate whether social tagging of government documents is a viable idea.
We have stashed 32 documents from the Government Printing Office's EPA Web Harvesting Pilot Project in the Internet Archive. We would like as many people as possible to bookmark, tag and provide brief descriptions of all 32 of these test documents using the del.icio.us bookmarking service.
If you would like to join this effort and have a del.icio.us account, please follow this proceedure:
1) Visit http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=epapilotproject and go to a document on the list. Open the pdf file in a separate browser window.
2) In del.icio.us, tag the page for the Internet Archive record (i.e. not the PDF file) after examining the PDF file.
3) In the del.icio.us "notes" field, write a one or two sentence description of what the document is about.
4) In the tags field, please use epapilotproject, for:freegovinfo and then any tags that you feel describe this document.
Please do steps 2-4 for as many documents as you can, ideally all 32.
We are going to run this project for three months, then the FGI volunteers will compile data on the following:
A) How many people participated in the project.
B) How many documents were tagged.
C) How many documents were described.
D) The average number of tags per document.
We will also examine how much agreement on tags exist for a given document.
We have a belief, based on projects like NASA Clickworkers, GalaxyZoo and the Library of Congress' Flickr project, that the community of government documents users can improve the findability of government information and provide a valuable adjunct to traditional cataloging. We also believe that a successful tagging environment will provide better access than GPO's newly declared brief bibliographic records process. Time will tell. Help us find out!
=====================================================
List of harvested EPA test titles for this project:
Aerosol Test Facility at Research Triangle Park - Aerosol-propellants, Environmental-health-Research, Research-Triangle-North-Carolina, Terrorism-Prevention
Air Quality Data Analysis Technical Support Document for the Proposed Interstate Air Quality Rule - air, pollution, quality, data, ambient, monitoring
Air Sealing: Building Envelope Improvements - Air, air-sealing, airsealing, building-insulation, efficient, energy, energy-efficiency, Energy-Star-Branding, energyconservation, energystar, epa, EPA-advertising, globalwarming, greenhousegases, home-building, home-building-techniques, home-construction, home-improvement, homes, hvac, indoor, leakage, money-saving, quality, sealing, ventilation
Analysis of Atmospheric Deposition of Mercury to the Savannah River Watershed - water-quality, mercury-levels, water-pollutants, Clean-Water-Act, water-testing-results
Approval of Urban Bus Retrofit/ Rebuild Equipment - Air, Air-quality, Air-toxins, buses, emissions, engine, engines, engines-retrofit-and-rebuild-equipment, matter, particulate, pollution, retrofit, transit-buses-emissions, Urban-transportation
Approval of Urban Bus Retrofit/ Rebuild Equipment (Oct 1997) - Air, buses, Clean-Air-Act, emissions, engine, engine-retrofit-rebuild-kits, engines, matter, Particulate, particulate-matter, pollution, retrofit, transportation, Urban-transit
Are You One of the Top 20? - 2005, benefits, Best-Workplaces-For-Commuters, business, commuters, commuting, companies, emission, employers, epa, flexible-scheduling, fortune500, govdocs, incentives, misspellings, private-transportation, public-transportation, reduction, telecommuting
Are You Ready to Take Advantage of the New Commercial Tax Incentives - Energy-Star, Energy-saving-tax-decuction, Commercial-buildings, Commercial-building-improvements
Arsenic Rule Benefits Analysis: an SAB Review - Arsenic, Arsenic-levels, Cancer-causing-agents, costbenefitanalysis, drinking, environment, Environmental-health-Research, exposure, exposurelevels, Freegovinfo, health, public, standards, water, Water-quality, Water-treatment-costs
Best Workplaces for Commuters Application Form - Applicationforms, applications, audience:hr, benefits, bestworkplaces, carpool, carpools, communting, commuter, commuter.benefits, commuters, commutersepa, commuting, employerincentives, employers, environment, environmental, environmentalimpactofcommuting, epa, etc., forms, impact, incentives, program, publictransportation, telecommuting, telework, transportation, vanpool, vanpools
Best Workplaces for Commuters Graphic Standards and Usage Guide - EPA-branding, Best-Workplaces-For-Commuters, Government-agencies-public-relations
Boxed In? - 2004, airpollution, cleanair, emissions, environmentally-friendly-shipping, epa, fleet, gases, global, globalwarming, govdocs, greenhouse, greenhousegases, management, money-saving, posters, shipping, smartway, transportation, vehicle, warming
Business Case for Information Services: EPA's Regional Libraries and Centers - Environmental-libraries-United-States, Environmental-libraries-United-States-Costs-and-benefits
Calculation and Use of First-Order Rate Constants for Monitored Natural Attenuation Studies - attenuation, attenuation-rates, biodegration-rates, contaminants, contamination, epa, govdocs, ground, groundwater, mna, monitored, natural, plume-concentrations, remediation, research, water
Carpool Incentive Programs: Implementing Commuter Benefits as One of the Nation's Best Workplaces - air, carpools, commuters, commuting, employers, Employers-and-employees, EPA-advertising, EPA-branding, incentives, pollution, transportation, Workplace-conditions
Chloroneb - Chloroneb, pesticides, pesticides-safety, Cotton-crop-management-and-control, ornamental-plants-and-grasses-pesticide-treatment
Community Involvement Plan for the Copper Basin Mining District Site, Polk County, Tennessee - Freegovinfo, Copper, Basin, mining, community, involvement, cleanup, environmental-cleanup, community-involvement-in-environmental-programs-details
Conformity SIP guidance - transportation-regulations-states, Conformity-state-improvement-plans-SIPs, transportation-federal-regulation, transportation, conformity, SIP, air, quality, standards
Development of a Performance-based Industrial Energy Efficiency Indicator for Automobile Assembly Plants - vehicle-assembly-plants-energy-use, assembly-plants-energy-efficiency, automobile-assembly-energy-use-studies, manufacturing-process-energy-used
Diclofop-Methyl - 2000, bioaccumulation, cancer, carcinogens, Commercial-use-of-pesticides, golf-courses, diclofop-methyl, epa, Freegovinfo, golf, govdocs, herbicides, pesticides, reregistration, toxicity, toxicology,
wild-oats-control
Diesel Retrofits: Quantifying and Using Their Benefits in SIPs and Conformity - emissions, Diesel-engines, engines, engine-rebuild-retrofit-kits, environmental-state-implementation-plans-SIPs, environmental-regulation-states environmental-regulation-federal
Difenzoquat - Difenzoquat, pesticides, wild-oats-control, barley-crop-yields, wheat-crop-yields, agriculture-crops-and-yields, difenzoquat, herbicides, pesticides
Energy Star Wins the Bid - 2006, bottled_water, efficiency, electricity, energy, energy_star, energy-efficiency, energy-efficient-water-coolers, energy.conservation, energy.efficiency, energy.star, energyconservation, energystar, environmental-benefits, epa, EPA-branding, Energy-Star, freegovinfo, govdocs, money-saving, pressreleases, purchasing, umaine, water
ENERGYSTAR Building Upgrade Manual - Energy-Star, Buildings-energy-saving-improvements, Energy-savings-plans, Energy-costs
Environmental Economics Research Strategy - Environmental-economics-influences, Behavioral-science-economic-impacts, Behavioral-science-effect-on-policy-development, Business-and-human-behavior
Environmental Results Under EPA Assistance Agreements - Tagged with (gmp), 2005, assistance.agreements, assistance, agreements, compliance, environment, environmental, environmental.protection, epa, epa.policy, epa.strategic.plan, evidence-based, funding, goals, objectives, governmentagreements, grant, grantee, grants, management, outcome-based, plan, policies, programs, regulations, research, results, results-oriented, strategic
EPA's Diesel Retrofit SIP and Conformity Guidance - emissions, Diesel-engines, engines, engine-rebuild-retrofit-kits, environmental-state-implementation-plans-SIPs, environmental-regulation-states, environmental-regulation-federal
Final Emission Standards for 2004 and Later Model Year Highway Heavy-Duty Vehicles and Engines
Guidance for Quality Assurance Project Plans - Quality, assurance, environmental, data, EPA-quality-assurance-project-plans, EPA-QA-project-plans, Organizational-quality product-quality
Guide to Technology Commercialization Assistance for EPA Small Business Innovation Research - Small-Business-Innovation-Research, Small-business-finances, small, business, innovation, technology, commercialization
Heavy-Duty Engine Emission Standards for Highway Trucks and Buses - trucks, transportation, Air-quality-history, trucking-industry, emissions, NOx-standard, Nitrogen-oxides, Global-warming greenhouse-effect
Preliminary Risk-Based Screening Approach for Air Toxics Monitoring Data Sets - Air, Air-quality, air-toxics, Air-toxins, assessments, Clean-Air-Act, data, Data-analysis, data-screening, dqo, freegovinfo, methodology, monitoring, pollution, r4-slt, risk-based, Screening, sets, toxics, Biomarkers
Long Video of Straight of Hormuz Incident
The pentagon has posted a link to a long version of the Straight of Hormuz incident on page with the transcript of the Cosgriff press conference of January 7, 2008.
- Video - Long version (Three U.S. Navy Ships Approached by Iranian Boats)
[Hosted by a commercial service, feedroom.com, not a .mil or .gov site]
Unfortunately, the Defense Department has chosen to provide this video a Flash video format embedded in a javascript and SWF files so that there is no direct link to the video. In other words, you can watch, but you cannot download. The tools I have tried to cirmument this have not worked. If anyone does successfully download the video, please let me know.
See also: Documenting the Government -- Strait of Hormuz edition.
Thanks, and a Tip of the Hat to Steven Aftergood!!
Continue reading
Ric Davis Shares about FDLP at ALA Midwinter 2008
UPDATE 1/16/2008 - An alert reader who attended Ric Davis' speech wrote me to say that the speech was his prepared text and that there was more information about shared regionals than his speech text indicated.
If anyone else has observations, please make a comment. We welcome feedback and discussion.
------------------------
In a refreshing change from the mid 2000s, the Government Printing Office has already posted a speech given by Acting Superintendent of Documents Ric Davis at the 2008 Midwinter meeting of the American Library Association.
The speech can be found at http://www.fdlp.gov/file-repository/gpo-attended-events/lscm-director-speech-ala-midwinter/view.html and covers a variety of topics including GPO's Budget, the new FDLP desktop, web harvesting plans, current FDSys status and new marketing plans that sound like they will be developed in conjunction with depository libraries, at least in part. The whole 13 page, double-spaced speech is worth reading and I hope that at least some of you will have comments on it.
FGI tips its hat to Ric Davis for posting his ALA MW speech only a few days after it was given. It beats the months we've sometimes had to wait in the past.
Continue reading