GPO dives into digital future
From an article entitled GPO dives into digital future and Begins testing automated management system by: Joab Jackson, GCN (Government Computer News) Staff Writer (http://www.gcn.com). Quoting the article:
The Government Printing Office is ready to test the ambitious Future Digital System, a content management system designed to handle the many documents GPO publishes and posts for the rest of government. The program’s goal is to digitize nearly every federal document published since the birth of the country. People can then search, view and download documents via a Web portal. Historically, federal agencies would submit publications, and GPO would print for both the public and libraries. Although agencies will continue to submit publications, GPO will now work to disseminate the information electronically and in print.Read the whole article here. Continue reading
BPE 2007 – Building docs collection with Archive-IT
At the recently closed Best Practices Exchange 2007, Kelly Eubank of the North Carolina State Archives presented how NC has made archived agency web pages available throught their use of the Archive-It tool. The NC collection can be found at http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/archives/webarchives/index.html. Looking at all the collections available from the Archive-IT web sites, it seems like a number of state governments are using this tool:
- Alabama - several collections
- Arizona - several collections
- Indiana State and Local Documents by Indiana University
- Virginia - several collections by Library of Virginia
- Michigan
- Montana
- Nebraska - County gov't sites saved by Nebraska Historical Society.
- North Carolina - several collections
- North Dakota - several collections
- Tennesee - several collections
- Utah - several collections
NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS)
The NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) Geographic Names Server is the official repository of standard spellings of all foreign place names, sanctioned by the United States Board on Geographic Names. The database also contains variant spellings (cross references) which are useful for searching purposes. All the geographic features in the database contain information about location, administrative division, and quality. The database can be used for a variety of purposes, including establishing official spellings of foreign place names, cartography, GIS, GEOINT and finding places. The database serves as an online gazetteer and is also helpful for genealogists. Continue reading
Secrecy News defends public domain from Army
According to Secrecy News, Army Documents Posted "Illegally," Army Says - "A U.S. Army official told the Federation of American Scientists that Army documents on the FAS web site had been published by FAS "illegally" and must be removed." Thankfully, Steven Aftergood has stood his ground and pointed out that public Army documents, like other government documents are in the public domain and cannot be copyrighted. Thus, the Army cannot dictate where they can and cannot be hosted. Government officials and others can review our background on copyright page, itself copied from a government document in the public domain. Hopefully this was just a misguided low-level official and not the start of yet another high-level effort to assert centralized control of government information. Thanks to Secrecy News for standing tall. Maybe we should all start posting PUBLIC military documents on our servers and notify the army publications directorate. Continue reading
Open Access to Government Research
Two new reports call for open access to government research. A short story about these reports of The Energy Department and the Centers for Disease Control is available:
- Two U.S. Government reports call for public access to agency-funded research, The Alliance for Taxpayer Access, May 3, 2007