When one copy is not enough…
When the University of Illinois Library joined others in the Google Book Search Library Project, one thing the librarians there knew was that relying on a single digital repository would not fit their preservation or access needs.
The libraries are taking a long-term view on the preservation and availability of the newly digitized materials, too. Rather than leaving the storage to Google alone, as some partners have done, they're creating at least one, and probably two, shared digital repositories of their own to archive and manage the information and content to be added in the future. The idea is that if Google disappears, or changes its business, the information will remain accessible with no hassles. "We know we'll be here," Sandler [Mark Sandler, the director of the committee's Center for Library Initiatives] said.See: Google partnership will help preserve UI collection, by Greg Kline, The [Champaign-Urbana and East Central Illinois] News-Gazette, Sunday, June 17, 2007. Continue reading
Who controls content on government web sites?
Who posts to government web sites? Is the content of government websites driven by service to the customers, citizens, and industry groups or do they reflect a a political message shaped by the agency political appointees? This paper, from the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, September 2004, addresses some of those questions. It has been online for subscribers for a while, but is in print now.
- Crafting the message: Controlling content on agency Web sites [subscription required], by Julianne Mahler and Priscilla M. Regana, Government Information Quarterly, Volume 24, Issue 3, July 2007, Pages 505-521
Abstract While much research has focused on the new opportunities that government Web sites offer for greater citizen involvement and improved agency efficiency, less attention has been given to agency decisions about what to post on these Web sites. Here we use interviews with content managers in seven federal agencies to investigate the political and institutional influences behind decisions about Web content. We analyze the approval processes for new content and the emerging governance structures for evidence of greater centralization and political control or greater decentralization and autonomy for Web posters. In the end, it appears that institutional factors persist to influence content governance.See Also: Who decides what is available and what is withdrawn? Continue reading
FGI Podcast #2 – FGI Roundtable, LOCKSS, Profile America, Scary Guy
Show notes for FGI podcast #2 Note: We still have things to learn about podcasting. This time it is audio leveling. The sound does go up and down a bit but hopefully won't be too distracting. If you have tips about equalizing volume levels in Audacity, please send them our way in one of the comment options listed below: Today's 40 minute show had the following segments:
- FGI Roundtable - Jim A Jacobs, James R. Jacobs, Shinjoung Yeo and Daniel Cornwall discuss what led them to work with Free Government Information and what we see as the big issues facing the government information community.
- Elizabeth Cowell discusses the GPO LOCKSS pilot project at the Spring 2007 Depository Library Conference.
- Podcast Sampler - we take a quick listen to Profile America, a podcast from the US Census bureau intended to be played by broadcasters. Check out other government podcasts.
- Outro music - Scary Guy by Maria Daines used by permission. According to the story behind the song, this song was inspired by the global Scary Guy project. Continue reading
Lunchtime Listen: Meredith Farkas on Open Source and other trends
Well, this is another Lunchtime Watch rather than listen. But you do listen while you watch, don't you? Meredith Farkas was asked to give her top tech trends at LITA's famous trends forum at the American Library Association annual conference. Unfortunately for attendees but fortunately for the rest of us, Meredith couldn't be there in person and is giving her presentation via screencast:
LOUIS Shines Light on Congress, Executive
Today our friends at the Sunlight Foundation made the following announcement:
Sunlight would like to invite you to test out our new search engine of federal documents called LOUIS -- the Library Of Unified Information Sources -- at http://www.louisdb.org. There's a screencast available on its homepage to help familiarize you with the site. LOUIS makes it easy to search from a collection of over 300,000 documents from seven sets of federal documents dating back to 2001:After briefly exploring this tool, I think it will be highly useful. And it's a great example of the type of creative uses of government information that is endangered if the government decides to go to a tiered model of information access where fully usable data is only available to those who can pay and agree not to release non-drm'd version of info to the public and free access is restricted to some sort of page at a time display. Since the Future Digital System was designed to be "policy neutral, the reuse friendly policies of today could be converted into the crippled drm'd policy of tomorrow with a few buttons. Don't let that happen. Work for the locally built, Internet accessible depository system of the future. Study our digital library technologies page, check out LOCKSS or just start tagging documents of value. Continue readingLOUIS, which updates its document depository daily, even allows you to set up a "standing query" as an RSS feed, to get alerts every time Congress or the executive branch takes action that references the subject of the initial query. In addition, LOUIS delivers these federal documents in an electronic, printable, text format for easier use. LOUIS also lets you access all the pages of a debate in the Congressional Record printer-friendly Web page. We've also made available the LOUIS API -- Web access methods that any computer programmer can use to build their own application using the database and the computer code that powers LOUIS. Test it out - we encourage your feedback. Thanks, Gabriela -- Gabriela Schneider Communications Director The Sunlight Foundation 1818 N Street NW, Suite 410 Washington, DC 20036 P: 202/742-1520 ext 236 F: 202/742-1524 gschneider@sunlightfoundation.com www.sunlightfoundation.com
- the Congressional Record,
- congressional bills and resolutions,
- congressional reports,
- congressional hearings,
- GAO reports,
- presidential documents
- Federal Register.