Recess appointment for GPO Public Printer?
According to today's Roll Call, the confirmation process for GPO's Nominee for Public Printer, Robert Tapella, seems to be progressing *very* slowly if at all. No confirmation proceedings have yet been scheduled. Might we have a recess appointment ala John Bolton? Senate Takes Its Time With GPO Nominee - By Elizabeth Brotherton, Roll Call - June 6, 2007 (NOTE: Excerpts below since the Web site is subscription access only)
Nearly two weeks after President Bush revealed his choice for the next public printer, Government Printing Office Chief of Staff Bob Tapella is still waiting for Congress to schedule confirmation proceedings on his promotion. But in the meantime, there remain a number of issues facing the GPO, from how its digital and technological transformation will continue to whether the agency will move into a new building - a primary goal of former Public Printer Bruce James. ..."A date for the hearing has not been set."? The GPO has been without a permanent head since James stepped down in January. Acting Public Printer William Turri has been leading the agency since that time - with Tapella as a close partner. The agency is in the midst of a number of technology initiatives, from making more government documents available online to implementing its Future Digital System, which would allow users to preserve, authenticate, manage and deliver federal documents digitally. ..."The Congress is dependent upon the ability of the GPO to provide printed and electronic versions of our legislative documents and the Congressional Record in a timely matter," he said. "With the increasing workload of Congress, the public printer needs to continue to assure the Congress that his agency will have the available resources to meet our legislative demands so that we can carry out our duties." ..."Turri ... is doing a competent job, and I hope the Senators will not feel rushed," Brady said. "GPO is the U.S. government's premier printing organization, among the largest in the world. I urge the Senate to give the nomination the careful scrutiny it deserves." Joint Printing ranking member Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) said he is "extremely pleased" with Tapella's nomination.Continue reading
McNeese State University docs dept gets del.icio.us
Over at the new Library 2.0 Government Documents Group, Rebecca Troy-Horton reports that her library's documents department has opened up a del.icio.us account at http://del.icio.us/MSUGovDoc. Her links are annotated and look like a good way to provide context to documents link. We at FGI look forward to seeing her growing list and seeing how Rebecca's tag cloud works out. If your local depository library has a del.icio.us account, would you let us know in comments below? Perhaps docs del.icio.us users could build a network like James R. has suggested from time to time. Knowing who we are is an important first step. Continue reading
Good explanation of the semantic web
If you wonder what "the semantic web" is, this is a good, short article to read.
- Semantic Search: An Antidote for Poor Relevancy, By Dr. Riza C. Berkan, Read/Write Web, May 29, 2007
Will GPO charge for a Bill Summary Database?
Rob Pierson met yesterday with the folks in charge of Thomas at the Library of Congress. Rob is Vice-President of Technology at the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and reported on his meeting to the Open House Project Group.
- Re: Thomas Feature Requests?, by Rob Pierson, Open House Project (Google Groups) Jun 5, 2007. 7:15 am.
Rob's message has several things of interest to government information professionals including:
- The relationship betweeen the CRS Legislative Information System (LIS) and Thomas.
- The rationale for having a less featured search system for Thomas (they are trying to appeal to a different audience).
- Thomas and LIS are both working on upgrading their systems and the Thomas folks are working extensively with the LIS folks and are incorporating elements of LIS into Thomas.
- Their expectation that the new XML bill summary database would probably be available through GPO and might not be freely available to the public. "The XML version of bills and roll call votes is currently available to the public for free, and it would be a very problematic break with that precedent if GPO began selling legislative XML data. This isn't yet set in stone, however."
Rob also attached a document, which provides a background into what LIS is planning for the future, as well as some history of the group. You can download it from the URL above and i've also put a copy for your convenience here. (THE LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM: OBJECTIVES AND PLANS FOR THE RETRIEVAL SYSTEM IN THE YEAR 2007, Prepared by the Congressional Research Service and the Office of Information Technology Services Library of Congress, January 2007.)
I would be very interested to hear if anyone knows if GPO plans to sell the XML data or make it available without charge or if they have not decided and are considering charging.
Continue readingLunchtime listen: Cory Doctorow @ google
Technically, this is a lunchtime view :-) Cory Doctorow spoke @ Google on Monday, May 21, 2007. Cory spoke eloquently about copyright, intellectual "property," sci-fi etc. An hour with Cory is always a treat! Continue reading