How many government websites are there?
Still No Directory of Federal Websites, E-Gov Act Ignored. By Coby Logen, .gov Watch. November 05. 2007
How many government websites are there? How many HHS or DOJ sites are there? You and I have no way to know. American taxpayers cannot even know how many public websites their government is funding. By law, we should—but the system is broken.
The E-Government Act of 2002 set a deadline of two years to develop a "public domain directory of public Federal Government websites" (Section 207(f)(3)). But this directory still does not exist 5 years later.
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Most fed data is un-Googleable
As we've noted here before (Is your search engine finding the government information you need?), the problem of relying on commercial search engines to find government information is that a lot of government information on the web goes un-indexed by those search engines.
- Most fed data is un-Googleable By Jason Miller FCW (December 17, 2007). "After five years, a major E-Gov Act provision goes unmet because of search problems."
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says "There are more than 2,000 federal government Web sites not included in commercial search engine results. Is it accidental, or is there a policy, or it is just laziness? I would like to know why" and "Agencies do not let commercial search engines index their sites."
I wonder if that is true? I wonder if there is any document librarian who can answer that question or point to which sites are not indexed?
It is probably closer to the truth to say, along with John Needham, Google's manager for public-sector content partnerships, that government "databases" are being missed by web crawlers and that "Agencies are concerned more about how information is presented than if users are finding it." In other words, agencies would probably like to have their information indexed, but haven't figured out how to do so, or don't have the budgets to do what is necessary. It probably isn't "laziness" but lack of funds and other resources; it probably is sometimes "accidental" in that some may not know what to do. It is probably sometimes even "policy" -- but probably less often.
But, one big problem is that we don't really know the scope of the problem or the cause. FDLP librarians should be pushing GPO, researchers, and library schools to research these issues so we have answers.
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Boston Public Library Digitization Project
Carl Malamud says his motivation is to make the workings of the government more accessible at no cost and that "This is society's operating system."
- Documents of Library in Boston to Go on Web. By John Markoff, New York Times (December 27, 2007).
Continue readingA digital library partnership, including two nonprofit organizations and the Boston Public Library, is preparing to begin making digital copies of the library's paper-based government documents collection, which will then be made available on the Internet.
The project, which will take two years and require the hand scanning of millions of pages of government hearings and related publications, will cost an estimated $6 million, according to the project's sponsors.
Boston Public Library librarians said they planned to begin by digitizing the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings from the 1950s, which is regularly sought after by its patrons.
The project is being undertaken by Public.Resource.Org, a nonprofit group seeking to open public access to government records, and the Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based digital library.
The project is the brainchild of founders of the two organizations, Carl Malamud and Brewster Kahle...
Be aware: semi-annual regulatory agenda is 1,700-pages online, 483 pages in print
Where are those rules? Be careful where you search to be sure you have found the correct and complete source. While there are some kinds of information (e.g., phone books) that are just easier to use online than in print (and the semi-annual regulatory agenda may be one of them), just putting them online may create new access problems (for those who don't have online access) and preservation problems (will these be saved and unaltered and by whom at what cost?). They may also present new problems of discovery when it is not easy to determine which of many versions is the complete one or the current one or which search produces the correct result.
And don't forget that one of the main motivations behind this switch is that the government wants to save money -- not expend more on preservation. GovExec.com says the shift to online publication of the Unified Agenda will "save" the government $800,000 (Agencies put regulatory plans online by Elizabeth Newell, December 11, 2007).
- 1,700 Pages of Rules, Fewer Dead Trees. By Cindy Skrzycki, Washington Post (December 18, 2007).
Until now, the Federal Register, the government's daily accounting of rules, printed the entire agenda in several bound volumes. It has been available online since 1995. Its search system, connected to the U.S. Government Printing Office, was challenging for some users....
The migration to http://www.reginfo.gov saves money and makes rulemaking more available to the public, administration officials said....
The agenda is available on two other government sites. The Federal Register is still required to print two categories of rules, offering the partial agenda and plan in print and at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ua/index.html.
The other site is http://www.regulations.gov, the electronic docket for commenting on rules.
OMBWatch notes that "Since the Unified Agenda has gone paperless, you will also be unable to find entries in the PDF version of the Federal Register on the Government Printing Office website" (Agencies' Regulatory Plans Available Online, December 12, 2007)
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Vice President vs. National Archives
Challenging Cheney. Newsweek Web Exclusive (Updated: 12:57 PM ET Dec 24, 2007) By Michael Isikoff.
J. William Leonard learned the hard way the perils of questioning Vice President Dick Cheney. The veteran National Archives official challenged claims by the Office of Vice President (OVP) to be exempt from federal rules governing classified information. His efforts touched off a firestorm--and a counter-strike by Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, who tried to wipe out Leonard's job....
Now, Leonard is quitting as director of the Archives' Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO)--the unit that monitors the handling of government secrets. He tells NEWSWEEK that his fight with Cheney's office was a "contributing" factor in his decision to retire after 34 years of government service.
..."The global struggle that we're engaged in today is more than anything else is an ideological struggle. And in my mind....that calls for greater transparency, not less transparency."
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