Two Op-Eds about the Open House Project Report
Two more op-eds about the Open House Project and report are now available:
- No light in basement, by Tim La Pira, The Hill, May 08, 2007.
- New report describes practical steps to open the House, by Gabriela Schneider and John Wonderlich. Commentary, The Examiner, May 8, 2007.
To its credit, the House already requires lobbyists to file disclosure reports electronically. But, remarkably, the House has not authorized the clerk to make those electronic reports available to the public electronically. Even the Senate, which has never been known for being on the cutting edge of technology, makes lobbying disclosure reports available on the Internet -- but only as digital images, not for easy downloading. Both chambers' travel and financial disclosure reports can still be found only in paper or digital-image format.For more about the report, see Open House Project Report Released and for a link to the first Op-Ed, see The OpenHouse Project Op-Eds at The Hill Continue reading
Open House Project Report Released
The Open House Project released its report today for a series of technological reforms that would increase transparency and public access to the work and members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
- Congressional Information & the Internet The OpenHouse Project May 8, 2007
Congress can expand the impact and functioning of the full range of its work by recognizing the transformative power of simple technological reforms that can create an open, public and fully transparent institution. This in turn can create a civically empowered and meaningfully aware public and enable a connection between constituents and legislators that can deepen the national discourse. To address the coming opportunities and challenges of an increasingly connected political environment, Congress should engage in an ongoing discourse with the public and commit to creating a truly transparent legislature. The Open House Project—a collaborative online project of the Sunlight Foundation—has identified the following as providing opportunities for reform:FGI participated in this project and contributed to the report. Continue reading
- Legislation Database—publish legislative data in structured formats
- Preserving Congressional Information—protect congressional information through archiving and distribution
- Congressional Committees—recognize committees as a public resource by making committee information available online
- Congressional Research Service—share non-partisan research beyond Congress
- Member Web-Use Restrictions—permit members to take full advantage of internet resources
- Citizen Journalism Access—grant House access to non-traditional journalists
- The Office of the Clerk of the House—serve as a source for digital disclosure information
- The Congressional Record—maintain the veracity of a historical document
- Congressional Video—create open video access to House proceedings
- Coordinating Web Standards—commit to technology reform as an administrative priority
The Wrath of the Library of Congress
When WashingtonWatch.com issued a press release that said "WashingtonWatch.com provides a more user-friendly and interactive way for the public to learn about legislation than the Library of Congress' THOMAS site. It's all about government transparency" he got an email from the Library of Congress asking him to stop using the Library's name in his marketing materials.
- Washington Watch goes wiki, incurs wrath of Library of Congress, by Nate Anderson, ars technica, May 07, 2007.
NASA Global Map Projections online
G.Projector - Global Map Projector Projecting the oblique spheroid known as Earth onto a 2 dimensional surface is one of the major issues addressed by Geographers and Cartographers. Robert B. Schmunk (rschmunk@giss.nasa.gov) at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies at 2880 Broadway New York, NY 10025 USA has created an excellent free resource called G.Projector. G.Projector is a Java application which allows you to explore a large collection of global map projections. These may then be projected as an GIF, JPG or PNG equirectangular map image. Longitude-lattitude gridlines and continental outlines may be drawn, and the resulting map images may be saved to disk in GIF, PDF, PNG or PS form. G.Projector requires that your computer have a Java 1.4 virtual machine, or better, installed. It is available to download at the NASA GISS site Click here. Included at the site is a nice list of projections describing their characteristics. This is a great site for professionals as well as educators. The graphic representation creates a visual that will aid in our understanding of a some what complicated concept. Continue reading
Spring 2007 DLC page update
We have updated our Spring 2007 Depository Library Council Conference page by adding notes from Washington Regional Herrick Heitman and adding GPO's iTunes conference proceedings podcast. The audio quality is excellent and I strongly suggest subscribing. Kudos to GPO for bringing these excellent recordings to the wider community. Continue reading