Federal Spending Databases from OMBWatch and the government
The Office of Management and Budget continues to work toward putting all federal contract and grant spending in a database and online and this week announced a 10 month timeline.
- OMB sets timeline to launch federal spending database, By Jason Miller, GCN (02/19/07)
With about 10 months until the congressionally mandated deadline to put all federal contract and grant spending in a database and online, the Office of Management and Budget is asking for public comment on how best to implement the law." ...OMB launched a Web site, www.federalspending.gov, to collect these comments and set out an implementation timeline and the first set of frequently asked questions.
The new database will eventually include data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) and the Federal Assistance Awards Data System (FAADS).
Meanwhile, the nonprofit organization OMBWatch has upgraded its own database of government spending, FedSpending.org, based on these same data.
- OMB Watch Launches Upgraded FedSpending.org Website, OMBWatch Press Release (February 22, 2007)
The updated version of OMBWatch's FedSpending.org has updated data and new summary views designed to provide a better overview of contractors, recipients, congressional districts, states, and agencies, as well as other data categories. In addition, it is more searchable and more easily discoverable through Google and Yahoo and MSN. Finally, it now has an Application Programming Interface (API) allowing programmers direct access to the data in XML format. This means more mashups and remixes.
Earlier coverage of this topic on FGI here: OMBWatch releases database of govt spending 2006-10-23 Continue reading
New video explains net-neutrality
Humanity Lobotomy Net Neutrality Open Source Documentary
Excellent video features Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Moyers, Lawrence Lessig, Congressman Ed Markey, and more. It explains why net-neutrality is important for democracy.
Save the Internet | Rock the Vote
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New wiki for Anniversaries and new library page
With a number of Federal Depository Libraries celebrating important anniversaries, I was pleased to stumble across the Library Anniversary Celebrations wiki. I was so happy to see a community generated resource like this, that I've created a page for this and similar projects. It's called the Library Community Projects page and will link to efforts that appear to well up from within the depository community, focus on either government information or depository libraries and are open to editing from outside the group that started the project. Do you have such a project? Let us know in comments or an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska.net. This weekend is the Alaska Library Association conference, so sites suggested before Monday won't be up until next week unless my fellow volunteers take pity on me and post links before then! Continue reading
Library anniversary celebrations wiki
With so many libraries having important anniversaries, someone has created an anniversary Wiki to get and share ideas! While it is not clear who drew up this wiki, information is plainly sourced and looks useful. The wiki can be found at: http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Library_anniversary_celebrations and is currently divided into these areas: 1 PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS 1.1 Press Releases 1.2 Publications 1.3 Materials to Obtain, Adopt, or Create 1.4 Resources 2 AGENDAS, SPEAKERS 2.1 Ideas for an agenda promoting GovDocs 2.2 Speakers 3 DEPOSITORY LIBRARY EXCELLENT EVENTS While some of this material can be dug out of the govdoc-l archives, isn't it better to have it all in one place? Whether or not you're celebrating the big 1-0-0, check out this site. It could give you event ideas for non-anniversary years. My thanks to whomever was responsible for this great start. I say start, because like most wikis, it is freely editable. So anniversary libraries, start your engines and make this site even better for those of us who will be celebrating big anniversaries Continue reading
Voice of America removed from USA.gov
Government's Global News Is Pulled From USA.gov, by Aliya Sternstein, National Journal's Technology Daily [subscription required] February 22, 2007 PM edition
The Internet home for government information has been stripped of Voice of America content and other international news after federal lawyers determined that the material should not be on a domestic news site.... "In light of the administration's other ventures into domestic propaganda," said Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org, "it was a matter of real concern that such information was on USA.gov, which is linked to by the states and by educational institutions around the country." ...Removing VOA stories from USA.gov will not prevent the American public from accessing VOA on the Internet, VOA spokesman Joe O'Connell said. "VOA has had a Web site for many years, now," he said Wednesday. "In fact, all 45 of our broadcast languages have Web sites. The nature of the Web is that it doesn't respect boundaries."Continue reading