Recent Info Security Report, Walking Directions, Intro to Loki
OK, time for my first post of resources. We'll begin with three. 1) Last week OMB released the, "FY 2006 Report to Congress on Implementation of The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002" 144 pages; PDF. "The FISMA report contains the results of information security and privacy performance metrics reported by agency Chief Information Officers, Inspectors General, and Chief Privacy Officers in their annual FISMA reports for Fiscal Year 2006, the first year to include information about privacy performance data. In FY 2006, 88 percent of all systems operated with complete Certification and Authentication (C&A), and 88 percent of all systems operated with tested contingency plans. In addition, 77 percent of all systems operate with security controls tested within the last year. " + News Release + Full Text 2) Ask.com note. Ask.com's map and aerial imagery program provides both dynamic routing/re-routing and also walking directions. I think if you've ever walked and then driven in a large city, you learn quickly how different they might be. Here's an example of a route in NYC. + Example A) Note the "pins" labeled 1-3. You can dynamically change the location (what the routing is based on) by simply dragging them to a new location. You can add new locations (10 total) by finding the location, right clicking and selecting "add location." B) Note the route is outlined in blue/purple color, on the left side toggle between walking and driving. See the route change. 3) Have you tried Loki? It's a free tool for PC's. It falls in the location-based services category. + Loki.com Download the app. It then utilizes wi-fi (assuming you have a wi-fi connection) to identify where you are located. Then, select maps, local info (like movies, dining) etc. I've used it many times with great success and here at my house it's within about 200 feet. Of course, in some locations it does NOT work. You can also enter an address in by typing. If you look at the galley of "channels" you can find all sorts of databases to use Loki with. I haven't seen one (this would be cool) that would tell the person about government at that location. Congress district, representation, polling places, etc. cheers, gary Continue reading
Hello from Washington D.C.
Hello from Washington D.C. or to be more specific, Silver Spring, MD. Just about 2 miles from the NOAA offices. A thank you to James for the invite and Dan for getting me up and posting. This first post will be a bit about what I do each day. Most of my other posts this month will focus on content and resources. That said, I will toss in some views, what we our doing at Ask.com, etc. In some cases, a cool tool or resource might not have a direct government info relationship at this point. My hope is that: 1) You learn about these resources and share then at the right time and place with others. 2) Envision how they might be used for government info sharing. So, what do I do during a typical 12-15 hours day? My "day job" is the Director of Online Resources at Ask.com. I've been at Ask for 53 weeks this week. It's a great job but also a great opportunity (and one I take very seriously) for the library community to have a direct voice at a large and growing search company. The other cool part of the job is that I am free to write about other services, tools, resources, etc. The info pro needs to know about a variety of tools. Do I use each tool I talk/write about seven days a week? No, not at all. But I see my role and our role as info pros as becoming important educators and suggesting the right tool at the right time. I've heard this described as Information Navigator. In many ways, this is nothing new, we just have more tools to work with and info to disseminate. I think of my role at Ask.com in this way. 1) Outreach. Talking to people not only about what we our up to and providing but other cool tools and resources. That said, just getting people (even info pros) to take a look at something they haven't seen or used ever or in a long time can be a challenge. 2) Listening I want to represent the library community as best I can. So, I often receive phone calls, emails, IM's with ideas, suggestions, etc. 3) "In-Reach" and Product Development This means to work with various groups at Ask and talk to them (demo for them) what the library community and info industry is up to. At the same time, I often work with people about specific resources or tools they must know about for their job. So, yes, I get to play "traditional" librarian from time to time. So, that's part of the day. In addition to Ask.com, I'm the founder and an editor of ResourceShelf and DocuTicker. Both sites are independent of my work at Ask.com. ResourceShelf will be 6 years old soon and we've posted something almost every day minus about 10. ResourceShelf It's a combo of news and new resources. I'm happy to report that ResourceShelf is reaching more and more non-librarians. This gives me the opportunity to promote what librarians are doing these days. DocuTicker is the other site. It's about 2.5 years old. It offers and non-stop stream of new reports from government (primarily U.S. but also a good helping of UK and Canada), ngo's, think tanks, etc. It's very popular with journalists as a place to find primary documents and also a place to find story ideas. DocuTicker.com What began as "something to try" 6 years ago has turned into something that needs the help of others. In the past few years the team that runs FreePint.com/Willco.com has taken a much more active role in the day to day management of the site. Thank goodness for that. Also, we have several contributing editors for both sites. Shirl Kennedy, a military librarian in Florida, is the primary poster on DocuTicker and also helps with ResourceShelf. I couldn't do it with Shirl and the others. A personal invite to visit both sites. RSS feeds are avilable. and speaking of RSS feeds, something I've learned. When we began ResourceShelf it was prior to the age of RSS. Now, of course, we have feeds but we also continue to grow our weekly email "reminder." I would have thought that by now the email list would have lost most of its subscribers because of RSS. The opposite is actually the case. I find this equal parts interesting and a reminder. 1) Interesting because we often forget that RSS is far from the mainstream and email is still a primary communications tool. 2) I often hear from even the most passionate RSS geek that they still want/need/desire the email reminder each Thursday. Why? They have so many feeds coming in, if it were not for the email reminder they would likely forget to visit the site. So, that's it for the intro. Resources to begin shortly. cheers, gary
Continue reading
More on House Hearings about Presidential Records
The National Coalition For History (NCH) newsletter has an article about the Hearings held this week on Presidential Records and the impact Executive Order (E.O.) 13233. The public witnesses were united in their opposition to E.O.13233.
- House Archives Subcommittee Holds Presidential Records Hearing NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 13, #7; March 2, 2007) By Lee White (Editor)
Mr. [Steven L.] Hensen, representing the Society of American Archivists said, "On behalf of the nation's archivists, I ask your consideration in overturning this six-year old Executive Order that has seriously compromised the basic principles of government accountability, which are underpinned by the people's right of access to the records of their government. In the case of the records of the office of the President of the United States, it is a right that took a long time for the nation to claim fully, but just a quick stroke of the pen to destroy."
The official page for the hearings is: Subcommittee Holds Hearing on The Presidential Records Act of 1978. There is a copy there of legislation (H.R. 1255) that would nullify the Bush E.O. and NCH reports that copies of all of the testimony should be available there shortly.
Continue readingMalamud Challenges C-SPAN
In an email (27 Feb 2007) to Brian Lamb of C-SPAN, Carl Malamud proposes to purchase from the C-Span store its entire inventory of 6,251 videos of congressional hearings "for the purpose of ripping and posting on the Internet in a nonproprietary format for reuse by anybody." Malamud says:
Holding congressional hearings hostage is not in keeping with your charter, and it is not in keeping with the spirit of that grand bargain you made with the American people. Please re-release this material back into the public domain where it came from so that it will continue to make our public civic life richer.
Malamud was instrumental in getting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to make its data available through the EDGAR database.
More here:
- Internet Watchdog Picks A 'Fair Use' Fight With C-Span by Andrew Noyes, National Journal's Technology Daily, March 2, 2007 PM edition [subscription required]
William Patry, a senior copyright counsel for Google, said on his blog that "the very transparency in government C-Span purports to seek is antithetical to claims of ownership in the events as recorded." Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig said ... that as more takedown notices are ordered for video remixes of political events, an advocate is needed "to take the lead to assure that the Web can be used for politics (without the mess of copyright)." An Internet-led reform effort called The Open House Project also has taken an interest in the C-Span debate.Continue reading