Happy Public Domain Day!
This is my first post of 2008 and I wanted to wish everyone a happy public domain day! Yes that's right, besides being a day of football, resolutions, hangovers, Korean Duk-Gook (tastes just as good with veggie broth!), it's the day when the works of authors who died in 1957 (for life +50 copyright countries) or those that died in 1937 (in the life+70 countries) -- see this article for a list of countries and their copyright lengths -- go into the public domain for our collective ownership and use.
To ring in the day, John Mark Ockerbloom, Everybody's Librarian, has donated the copyrights of his 1993 Web sites to the public domain in honor of the 14 year initial term of copyright specified in the Statute of Anne and the US's first copyright law. And Wallace McLean over at CopyrightWatch.ca has a nice list of authors whose works are rolling into the public domain.
[Thanks BoingBoing!]
Continue readingWhen government information is not government information
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced a new service that allows you to "instantly compare what 500 of of the largest American companies are paying their top executives."
- Chairman Cox Unveils New Internet Tool With Instant Comparisons of Executive Pay (press release) Washington, D.C., Dec. 21, 2007
The announcement says that The Executive Compensation Reader is "available today on the SEC's Web site at http://www.sec.gov/xbrl."
When you go to that web site, you'll find "Interactive Financial Reports", "Executive Compensation", and (coming soon) "Financial Explorer" and "Investment Management Risk Return Summary".
But...A big, boldface disclaimer is on the bottom of the page:
These applications are on servers not controlled by the SEC. The SEC does not endorse these sites, their sponsors, or any policy, activity, product, data, or service they offer. These sites may be removed from the Internet with little or no warning. The purpose of the data reported is to test XBRL technology. The data is largely unaudited and unreviewed. It is not an official SEC filing. Use these applications at your own risk. Do not rely on the reported data, or documents rendered from the data, to make investment decisions.
The Interactive Financial Reports is a link to "http://216.241.101.197/viewer" which is run by viawest.net which describes itself as a "provider of colocation, managed hosting and business continuity solutions ViaWest has become a production partner to thousands of companies. We can design, implement and support your critical data and infrastructure – allowing you to focus on your core business."
The Executive Compensation link points to "http://216.12.130.224/" which is run by servervault.com which is also a hosting company. It's home page says it provides "secure, robust IT infrastructure management and hosting services, specifically engineered to help federal agencies and commercial entities achieve the most stringent security posture as well as comply with a wide range of IT security regulations, including FISMA, DITSCAP, Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA."
Both sites sport an SEC logo and a numeric url that obscures the fact that you are looking at a .net or .com site, not a .gov site.
Is this a temporary situation and will these sites become .gov? is the SEC simply outsourcing the hosting? Or will these sites become commercial after a trial period with the companies or the SEC charging for services?
At minimum, this kind of outsourcing obscures the authenticity of and provenance of the information and makes the job of GPO, libraries, web-archivists, and citizens more difficult.
Continue readingUnclassified defense information withheld from public database
Recently the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced the launching USASpending.gov, which is a relaunch of www.FederalSpending.gov, to provide citizens with easy access to government contract, grant, and other award data (See New OMB Federal Spending Database). But now, Secrecy News says that several defense intelligence agencies will withhold unclassified information about their contracts from USASpending.gov.
- Intel Agencies to Withhold Contract Info from Public Database by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News, December 18, 2007.
Several defense intelligence agencies will withhold unclassified information about their contracts from a new public database of government spending.
The new database at USAspending.gov is intended to provide increased transparency regarding most government contracts.
But when it comes to intelligence spending, there will actually be a net loss of public information because categories of intelligence contracting data that were previously disclosed will now be withheld.
Continue reading
Secret Army Field Manual on Map Reading
Secrecy News has made available a PDF of a A U.S. Army Field Manual that explains the rudiments of map reading. Distribution of the manual is restricted, and it has not been approved for public release. Maps and Legends Secrecy News, December 28, 2007.
- MAP READING AND LAND NAVIGATION. FM 3-25.26 January 2005 HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY Washington, DC, 30 August 2006
Gen Y are the leading users of libraries
A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that "members of Gen Y are the leading users of libraries for help solving problems and in more general patronage.... Furthermore, it is young adults who are the most likely to say they will use libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y said they would do that, compared with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library."
- Information searches that solve problems: How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help (December 30, 2007) Leigh Estabrook, Evans Witt, and Lee Rainie. (full report. PDF)
- Information Searches That Solve Problems (Press Release)
- Young Adults Heavy Library Users by Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press December 30, 2007.