BPE 2007 Introduction
From May 2-4, 2007, it was my privilege to attend and present at Best Practices Exchange 2007. The purpose of this conference was to share information on how states and other organizations are discovering, describing, preserving and providing access to digital, (mostly government) information. There were six broad tracks - Metadata & Discovery, Access, Preservation, Technology, Project Management & Outreach, and Emerging Issues. A more detailed explanation of the tracks is available on the web site. This conference drew 103 registered attendees representing 32 States and Provinces from 61 organizations. A list of presenters and presentations is available at http://bpexchange.org/presentations_chron.htm and should have all the presentation slides, including mine in the next few weeks. But in case you can't wait, I've attached my LOCKSS presentation slides to this blog post. Those who know me well know that I find it hard to resist cliches. So I have to say this isn't your parents' conference. The organizers of this conference followed last year's model of very short presentations (10-20 minutes) with small audiences (20-35) to allow for maximum discussion and sharing between states and organizations. I didn't attend last year, but I found the format very helpful and invigorating. There were also long breaks and lunches to facilitate networking. During one "break", someone from InterPARES took the time to do a one-to-one JHove tutorial for me. JHove extracts technical metadata from a large variety of files and I really wish I had a working knowledge of it when I prepared our latest "gubernatorial snapshot" DVD for the Alaska State Publications Program. I'm so impressed, I might offer a file analysis as an optional download. This conference has something for everyone regardless of their experience with technology. There are a variety of sessions and all speakers were patience and supportive of all questions. As a result, I even think I now have a partial handle on OAIster and OAI-PMH, which I didn't despite having tried to read many articles on the subject. Assuming this conference is offered next year, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you register. As soon as I hear that BPE 2008 is being planned, I'm going to start promoting it to the entire Alaska State/Federal depository community. Over the next few days, I plan to write more about what I learned from the Exchange. It will be more about lessons learned than a blow-by-blow description of sessions. I might make an exception for the keynotes, which were done by Brewster Kahle and former Arizona legislator Jeff Hatch-Miller. If you are reading this and were a fellow BPE2007 attendee, would you include a tag of BPE2007 in anything you blog about? Thanks! Continue reading
Montana State Publications via RSS
At the Best Practices Exchange 2007, I learned that the Montana State Library is providing RSS feeds for their new state publications. See http://msl.mt.gov/PubRSS/RSSNewPubs.asp for details. I (and I think my FGI colleagues) would really like to see GPO implement something like this for new titles in their current catalog and definitely in FDSys. Meanwhile, Montana uses the same ILS system my library does, so next week I hope to get details from MT, pass them onto my systems administrator, and who knows? Perhaps AK will join the growing ranks of state depository RSS feeds! Continue reading
Wanna Be presidents
There's a new site of interest to any political junky. It's called Wanna be presidents. WBP is a dynamic blogroll of all of the blogs of the 2008 presidential hopefuls -- or at least those that are officially running. Read the latest from all the candidates in one place. Nicely done! The site was put together by David Silver, professor of media studies at University of San Francisco, and his colleagues at Sociedad de las Indias Electrónicas, a group of Spanish technology activists in Madrid, using a tool called Feevy. With Feevy, you can repurpose the RSS from all of your favorite blogs and display the collected dynamic content on your site. Try it out, but don't forget to read FGI's aggregator "In other news..."! Continue reading
Librarian of Congress testifies on the 21st century library
James H. Billington, The Librarian of Congress, testified before the House Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch on March 20, 2007. read Billington's full testimony here. Billington pointed out that digital information is particularly fragile, but as the number of "digital transactions" that the LOC handles on a yearly basis, is extremely useful and of interest to students, historians, researchers and the general public. Billington said, "No single institution can collect, save and provide access to digital content in the future. Almost all of the Library's digital initiatives involve learning to work in new ways, in a networked environment, where we are working with others to amass critical content and deliver new and improved services." Check out "LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress" to see the LOC's analysis of the library's digital future. We're not saying that every library has to manage 295 terabytes of digital content, but ALL libraries should be thinking about, planning for and working toward being digital repositories for their communities. That includes digital deposit, harvesting and other avenues for building digital collections.
It took two centuries for the Library of Congress to acquire today's analog collection—32 million printed volumes, 12.5 million photographs, 59.5 million manuscripts and other materials – a total of more than 134 million physical items. By contrast, with the explosion of digital information, it now takes only about 15 minutes for the world to produce an equivalent amount of information. Researchers at Cal-Berkeley produced estimates of the amount of information produced and circulated on the Internet in 2003 – it was equivalent to 37,000 times the content of one Library of Congress. Most of this information exists only in digital form: so-called born-digital items, many of which are already irretrievably lost. There is a widely-held but false assumption that digital materials accessible today on one's PC or Blackberry will necessarily be available in the future. That is not the case. The average life of a Web site has been estimated to be 44 to 75 days (bold added), and information not actively preserved today could literally be gone tomorrow. Other essential digital information—most notably e-journals and data bases—are merely licensed for use in the short term– the information does not belong to the licensee. By contrast, traditional print books and journals collected by the Library for more than two centuries are, and will remain, in the possession of the Library and accessible to researchers. But it is current information that is often most needed by Congress, and current, up-to-date information is increasingly available only in digital form.Continue reading
Microsoft vs. Open Formats
Open file formats are essential for government information because they provide a better opportunity for open exchange, reuse, and preservation of public information. As was reported a couple of weeks ago (see Open Formats Legislation Killed in Florida), Microsoft opposed a piece of Florida legislation that would have required the state to develop "a plan and a business case" for using open file formats in documents the state creates. This story has not been widely covered (I still have not found anything in LexisNexis), but the Wall Street Journal now confirms the story.
- State Open-Source Bills Get Microsoft's Attention, by John Letzing, Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2007; Page B2F
...within an hour of the proposed bill's reading in late March, Dr. Homan said, he was greeted in his office by three lobbyists representing Microsoft Corp. "They were here lickety-split," he said. "I had no idea it was going to get that kind of reaction."
The WSJ reports that the Florida instance was not unique, saying that Microsoft has mounted a lobbying effort against ODF, the OpenDocument Format, which was ratified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Texas faced a similar lobbying effort from Microsoft:
Soon after introducing an open-document format bill in the Texas state legislature in February, Rep. Marc Veasey said it was clear Microsoft was going to commit considerable time and effort to influencing the outcome. "Immediately we heard from Microsoft and their lobbyist here in Austin, and we knew we'd be up against a tough battle."
ODF is important to government information because, as the WSJ says, "Document formats serve as an underlying digital container, controlling access to files like spreadsheets and the ability to share them." [emphasis added] And:
The impetus for the Texas bill was similar to that in other states -- a desire to ensure access to archived and current documents regardless of which company's application is used to open them, and lower costs. [emphasis added]
It is not just about saving money or lowering costs or short-term financial savings. It is about long-term preservation of knowledge and access to public information.
InfoWord also covers the story:
- Microsoft's state-by-state fight to maintain its Office monopoly (WSJ), by Matt Asay, InfoWorld, May 02, 2007.
It would be one thing if Microsoft were fighting efforts to put open source/open standards on a superior footing. But it's trying to keep ODF from even receiving equal treatment. Dr. Horman (the Florida legislator) is right when he suggests:Microsoft sees what's coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.With 97% market share in the office productivity suite market, it's understandable that Microsoft would feel threatened. Understandable, but not laudable.
That drug analogy is particularly appropriate, not hyperbole, when one sees this tactic that Microsoft is using as reported in the WSJ article:
Earlier this month, the company said it will offer a $3 software suite to students in developing countries, which will help position Microsoft against cheaper open-source products available there. [emphasis added]
Three Dollars! The analogy doesn't go far enough. This is less like prescription pharmaceuticals under patent and more like street drugs with the pusher giving the first dose for free.
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