The IMF Starts Blogging
The International Monetary Fund launched its very first blog yesterday; the Public Financial Management blog. Some blurbage on this new blog:
The PFM blog aims at sharing the IMF staff's vast experience with PFM practitioners in Ministries of Finance and other fiscal agencies, academia, students, non-governmental organizations, as well as with the general public. It will also feature current news, resources and ideas about public financial management systems, their operation and improvement, and their contribution to economic growth and achieving national objectives, including economic and financial stability.
There will probably be more to come. The new managing director of the IMF (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) has been blogging since last year. He even set up a blog for his campaign to become MD.
Continue reading
Did White House Lie About Loss of Five Million Emails?
Did White House Lie About Loss of Five Million Emails?, by Damon Poeter CMP Channel (03 October 2007).
When Congress asked about 5 million executive branch e-mails that went missing, a White House lawyer pointed the finger at an outside IT contractor. The only problem? No such IT contractor exists, according to sources close to the investigation of a possible violation of the Federal Records and Presidential Records acts.
The article includes a "Timeline of Events in White House E-mail Scandal."
Continue readingWelcome Barrett Jones, Blogger of the Month for October, 2007
Hi all. I'd like to introduce our October blogger-of-the-month, Barrett Jones. Barrett comes to us by way of the IMF Library in Washington DC. Take it away Barrett! And thanks also to Cass Hartnett, our BOTM for September. Cass definitely put a human and public interest spin on her posts and showed how government information affects our everyday lives. Thanks so much Cass!!
- Air fresheners are bad, but regulations are fun
- How Washington DC shapes us all: in honor of Art Emerson
- Yellow tap water: thoughts on local government, part II
- Dead crows: thoughts on local government information access, part I
- Yes, EIS's matter! Hawaii Superferry
Barrett Jones, BOTM for October, 2007
Barrett Jones is a librarian at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. He holds an MLIS from UCLA and has worked in both government and special libraries, including the U.S. Courts and the Rand Corporation. He has presented at library technology conferences and written articles about technology for library journals. In his free time he tills the earth in his community garden plot with his wife Gabriela and plays in a noise-rock group with an unpronounceable name. [update 10/2010: Barrett is now working at the Library of Congress Office of Strategic Initiatives!] Continue reading
Lunchtime listen: “Good Copy Bad Copy”
Happy Friday! Please check out GOOD COPY BAD COPY - a documentary out of Denmark about the current state of copyright and culture. Our good friend Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party makes some extremely valid points about the need to balance individual privacy rights with copyright; right now, content owners like the RIAA and MPAA are stomping on individual privacy rights which is unacceptable to him and to many others. Many others on both sides of the argument make appearances on the film -- like Laurence Lessig, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Dan Glickman (CEO of MPAA). We'd love to hear your ideas and perspective about file sharing and copyright.