David Rosenthal says “Do it for Preservation!”
David Rosenthal is a member of Stanford's LOCKSS development team who maintains a blog about his professional work. It is well worth reading and deserves a place in everyone's list of RSS feeds. In a June 10, 2007 posting on reasons to preserve e-journals, David explains that multiple, independently hosted government publications are a good thing because they are TAMPER EVIDENT:
The goal of the FDLP was to provide citizens with ready access to their government's information. But, even though this wasn't the FDLP's primary purpose, it provided a remarkably effective preservation system. It created a large number of copies of the material to be preserved, the more important the material, the more copies. These copies were on low-cost, durable, write-once, tamper-evident media. They were stored in a large number of independently administered repositories, some in different jurisdictions. They are indexed in such a way that it is easy to find some of the copies, but hard to be sure that you have found them all. Preserved in this way, the information was protected from most of the threats to which stored information is subject. The FDLP's massive degree of replication protected against media decay, fire, flood, earthquake, and so on. The independent administration of the repositories protected against human error, incompetence and many types of process failures. But, perhaps most important, the system made the record tamper evident. Winston Smith in "1984" was "a clerk for the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents so that they match the current party line". George Orwell wasn't a prophet. Throughout history, governments of all stripes have found the need to employ Winston Smiths and the US government is no exception. Government documents are routinely recalled from the FDLP, and some are re-issued after alteration. An illustration is Volume XXVI of Foreign Relations of the United States, the official history of the US State Department. It covers Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines between 1964 and 1968. It was completed in 1997 and underwent a 4-year review process. Shortly after publication in 2001, the fact that it included official admissions of US complicity in the murder of at least 100,000 Indonesian "communists"by Suharto's forces became an embarrassment, and the CIA attempted to prevent distribution. This effort became public, and was thwarted when the incriminating material was leaked to the National Security Archive and others. The important property of the FDLP is that in order to suppress or edit the record of government documents, the administration of the day has to write letters, or send US Marshals, to a large number of libraries around the country. It is hard to do this without attracting attention, as happened with Volume XXVI. Attracting attention to the fact that you are attempting to suppress or re-write history is self-defeating. This deters most attempts to do it, and raises the bar of desperation needed to try. It also ensures that, without really extraordinary precautions, even if an attempt succeeds it will not do so without trace. That is what tamper-evident means. It is almost impossible to make the record tamper-proof against the government in power, but the paper FDLP was a very good implementation of a tamper-evident record.You'll notice that David refers to the depository program in the past tense. He does so because, like GPO itself, he sees the Future Digital System (FDSys) as an inevitable total replacement:
It should have become evident by now that I am using the past tense when describing the FDLP. The program is ending and being replaced by FDSys. This is in effect a single huge web server run by the GPO on which all government documents will be published. The argument is that through the Web citizens have much better and more immediate access to government information than through an FDLP library. That's true, but FDSys is also Winston Smith's dream machine, providing a point-and-click interface to instant history suppression and re-writing.David thinks this is a bad thing, GPO assures us it is a good thing, but both assume this is where we are going. But it doesn't have to be this way. We in the FDLP are definitely "Not Dead Yet!" We have a vital role to play in continuing to preserve the tangible materials entrusted into our care. Further, hundreds of new tangible titles are being shipped each month by GPO to the 1200 plus federal depository libraries. And while the depository community hasn't exactly leaped up and embraced their responsibility to preserve federal electronic publications, individual libraries like the University of North Texas and the New Mexico State Library have. Together with others who have held views on preservation similar to David's for years these libraries will help build the depository system of the future. Or we can sit back and let Winston Smith control our government information. If you are a government information specialist, it's up to you. Continue reading
Iowa Publications Online – Thanks SDLTF!
As part of the ALA meeting: State & Local Documents Task Force, GODORT Annual Meeting: Washington D.C. Saturday, June 22, 2007; 8:00-10:00am Renaissance Hotel: Congressional A/B There will be an open forum that I hope all ALA-attending FGI readers will visit: "Preservation of born digital Iowa online state publications (technological aspects). Barbara Corson, Program Director for Library Services for the Iowa State Library, will be speaking about the technical nuts and bolts of the Iowa Publications Online Project. If you want to know how to preserve born digital State Publications you will want to come to this session. " Compliments to SLDTF for having a session on preserving born digital publications. We at FGI hope it is one of many to come out of ALA Godort meetings. If you attend, please send a write up to admin AT freegovinfo.info. If you're like me and not able to attend ALA this summer, check out the Iowa Publications Online Project and its associated FAQ. Continue reading
OpenHouse Project Op-Ed on Databases
The latest in a series of op-eds in The Hill from the OpenHouse Project is essential reading for depository librarians. Using the case of legislative databases, it explains clearly and simply, with excellent examples, how the government must make information available directly to the public in formats that are usable and reusable.
- Improve databases by Joshua Tauberer, The Hill, June 12, 2007
Tauberer speaks with authority and experience. He is the creator of GovTrack.us and he is the author of the "Legislation Database" chapter of the recent Open House Project report1. He says that "Congress should open up its legislative databases to the public. This does not just entail creating a 'searchable and sortable' website; the raw information should be made available to be downloaded so that others can transform it into new uses."
Here at FGI, we hear some librarians say that there is no need for the government to take the responsibility of depositing usable and re-usable information in Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) libraries. Those who say this rely on one of two arguments. First, they say, "Everyone can get everything they need from government web sites. Why should I go to the expense and work to duplicate that information in my library?" This is the "one size fits all" attitude toward government information. Second, they say, "By refusing to deposit digital materials in depository libraries, GPO has effectively made the FDLP obsolete. Therefore, libraries will have to create computer programs to spider government web sites and harvest information since the government refuses to deliver the information to us."
Tauberer addresses both these false arguments eloquently from his practical experiences of dealing with what the government does today and from his perspective of addressing the needs of citizens who want government information.
He says of us relying only on government web sites, "no one view of Congress is useful for everyone."
Take a hypothetical citizen who is interested in following legislation about immigration. He or she would need to visit a host of websites to get the facts: one site for the legislation itself, another for voting records, a third, fourth and fifth for committee documents, hearings information and campaign contributions.
The "one size fits all" approach will reduce service, access, and functionality.2 The solution to this is for the government to create and distribute information that can be re-used and re-purposed, not lock it into databases with limited access.
As for relying on computer programs to try to gather everything instead of insisting that the government take responsibility for actively distributing and depositing information, Tauberer speaks from hard-earned experience building GovTrack.us. He says that web sites like OpenSecrets.org and GovTrack.us that try to re-use existing government information have to create their own databases...
...by 'spidering' and 'screen-scraping' the bits and pieces of information that can be found on official websites. But, as the names suggest, these methods are of the last resort because they leave gaps and sometimes errors, unbeknownst to the users of the site. For instance, on GovTrack.us, a member of Congress will on occasion be left off of a record of a vote, or bill status information will be out of date.
One easy way to facilitate the process that Tauberer advocates is to insist that the government create digital information in reusable formats and actually provide it for deposit in FDLP libraries.3
The Tauberer piece is one of a series of Op-Eds written by contributors to the OpenHouse Project's recent report on congressional information. The earlier Op-Eds are:
- Give bloggers Capitol access, by Robert B. Bluey, April 30, 2007.
- No light in basement, [campaign finance documents] by Tim La Pira, May 08, 2007.
- Inexplicable anomaly [CRS Reports], by Leslie Harris and Matt Stoller, May 15, 2007.
- More access to committees, by John Wonderlich, May 22, 2007.
- Preserving information, by James A. Jacobs, June 05, 2007
Footnotes
Google vs. Microsoft and the the role of the DOJ
Here are fascinating stories about the battle between giants Google and Microsoft and the role the government plays in mediating that battle.
Gregg Keizer reports that Google complains to DOJ about Vista search Accuses Microsoft of discouraging users from running its software (Computerworld, June 10, 2007). Meanwhile, Stephen Labaton reports that "Nearly a decade after the government began its landmark effort to break up Microsoft, the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct, including the recent rejection of a complaint by Google." (Microsoft Finds Legal Defender in Justice Dept., New York Times, June 10, 2007).
Continue readingBig Brother in New Jersey
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority is using copyright laws to make the case that it can sue video sites for use of turnpike videos.
- Pulling a Big Brother, By Joab Jackson, GCN Tech Blog, 05/29/07.
When must a government agency put its foot down--use any power under its command--to stop someone from doing something that is just plain wrong? Should it do so even when the very act of lowering the boom is, in itself, ethically questionable?Continue reading