CRS Updates
On ResourceShelf, our co-senior editor, Shirl Kennedy, has posted some thoughts and recent memos about general public access to CRS content.
Said CRS Director Daniel P. Mulholland, in a memo (PDF; 132 KB) dated 20 March 2007, “(T)o avoid inconsistencies and to increase accountability, CRS policy requires prior approval at the division level before products can be disseminated to non-congressionals.â€We also link to a blog post by Steven Aftergood at FAS. Continue reading
Roundtable on Section 108
Mary Minow of Library Law fame announced today that the transcripts from January's Section 108 Study Group roundtables have been published. Minow particapted in the session on ILL, and she shares her thoughts on her blog. Continue reading
Lunchtime Listens: “Who’s Watching YOUR Space?â€
Ok, this one might be several lunchtimes, but I wanted to make sure it's out there. I attended the OCLC Symposium: “Who’s Watching YOUR Space?†at Midwinter ALA in Seattle. The symposium was an extended discussion about social networking practices and trends. It was truly fascinating The panelists included Michael Stephens, Howard Rheingold, Danah Boyd, and Marc Smith. While they were all intriguing, if you're only going to listen to 1 of them, make it Howard's talk. Howard starts out, "I'd probably be in the penitentiary today if it weren't for librarians!" and it gets better and better! The Webcast is 2.5 hours, but here's the 3 minute sneak peak: Continue reading
Public Dissatisfied with E-Gov
New data from the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index shows that e-government websites rate 73.4 points out of 100 in customer satisfaction. Stephen Barr noted in today's "Federal Diary" column in the Washington Post, "Comparable private-sector scores were higher, ranging from 76.5 to 80." Barr discussed the survey with Larry Freed, CEO of the website consulting company ForeSee Results. Freed said while government sites are under budgetary and legislative constraints, they should strive to make the information on their sites easier for the public to locate. Among the agencies that received high marks in the survey were the IRS, the CDC, and two Social Security Administration websites. Continue reading
Lunchtime Listens: Creating Remixes, er mashups
What we at FGI like to call remixes, others call mashups. How does one take a little of this, a little of that and create something new, interesting, and hopefully compelling or at least useful? For a gentle introduction to the process, check out Darlene Fichter's SirsiDynix Institute's presentation Mashups : A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That. At roughly 50 minutes, this would fit into a lunchtime. You'll definitely want her slides as you listen. Or maybe you could watch her presentation. Either way, check out the ProgrammableWeb and our remixes page for examples of things that can be done once you mix/mash things together! Continue reading