New book on web archiving
Web Archiving, Masanès, Julien (Ed.) 2006, VII, 234 p., 28 illus., Hardcover
Julien Masanès, Director of the European Archive, has assembled contributions from computer scientists and librarians that altogether encompass the complete range of tools, tasks and processes needed to successfully preserve the cultural heritage of the Web. This book serves as a standard introduction for everyone involved in keeping alive the immense amount of online information, and it covers issues related to building, using and preserving Web archives both from the computer scientist and librarian viewpoints. Practitioners will find in this book a state-of-the-art overview of methods, tools and standards they need for their activities. Researchers as well as advanced students in computer science will use it as an introduction to this new field with a hopefully stimulating review of open issues where future work is needed.Some of the chapters:
- Selection for Web Archives
- Copying Websites
- Archiving the Hidden Web
- Access and Finding Aids
- Mining Web Collections
- The Long-Term Preservation of Web Content
- Small Scale Academic Web Archiving
The Global Information Grid’ and ‘Net Centricity’.
What is the ‘Global Information Grid’, what is ‘Net Centricity’ (or ‘Network Centric’), and why is it important to the Department of Defense? A starting point to answer those questions is the DoD CIO’s Strategic Plan, released in October of this year, and The DoD Chief Information Officer’s (John G. Grimes) home page. (I went to the Publications and Articles page to find the things I am sharing, today.) From these two resources you can get at the basics of the DOD’s IT transformation -- perhaps the biggest and most ambitious e-Government transformation ever undertaken. In one sense, the Global Information Grid (or “GIGâ€) can be thought of as an organizing concept, an abstraction, enabling the DOD CIO to frame and communicate the department’s plans, architecture, and policies for the transformation of its information technology of the future. The GIG consists of everything that DOD IT touches: Capabilities (including weapons systems and programs), Portfolio Management, Governance, Funding and Policy. A DoD Directive from September 2002 established the Global Information Grid Overarching Policy (available on the DTIC site). That policy statement implements Section 2223 of title 10, United States Code, (b) Section 1401 et seq. of title 40, United States Code, and applies to all DOD components, IT operations, and DoD Acquisitions and procurements of “GIG†assets. It contains the formal definition of the GIG as “The globally interconnected, end-to-end set of information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating and managing information on demand to warfighters, policy makers, and support personnel.†The GIG is not just the "Global Information Google" for the DOD: it is a Big Deal to the department and it affects how it does its business. “Net Centricity†has taken on a kind of buzz-word status. But what it was intended to be was a transformational way of doing things with information in the DOD. Net Centricity is to the GIG what a frame is to a building: it should enable all the parts of the house to connect together. The DoD CIO vision of net centricity is based on the assumption that information is a force multiplier, a source of power. If shared effectively, “(i)nformation can be leveraged to allow decision makers at all levels to make better decisions faster and act sooner. Ensuring timely and trusted information is available where it is needed, when it is needed, and to those who need it most is at the heart of the capability needed to conduct Network-Centric Operations (NCO).†Net Centricity should move the department from dependency on systems and operations “based on individually engineered and predetermined interfaces†to an enterprise that “ensures that a user at any level can both ‘take what he needs’ and ‘contribute what he knows’â€. (See “The Power of Information – Overviewâ€). Continue reading
Welcome Duane McCollum, BOTM for December, 2006
Welcome Duane McCollum, FGI's blogger of the month for December, 2006. And many thanks to Lori Smith, our BOTM for November, 2006. here's a wrapup of Lori's postings for the month:
Great work Lori. Please feel free to post whenever the mood hits you!! Take it away Duane :-) Continue readingDuane McCollum, Blogger of the month for December, 2006
Duane McCollum has had his own blog, the Information Auditor, for about two years now. He started it just as he was finishing his program in Master of Science of Information Management from the University of Washington's i-School (2004). He recently became a Gov Docs geek after going back to school (part time) and taking a grad course in Gov Docs at the Univ of Wash earlier this year.
It was an important course to me as it really opened up a whole new world of government info --and changed the way I think about myself as a citizen.Duane works full-time at a large, US based defense contracting company as a "Systems Engineer" on a defense program; but, what he actually does is policy analysis of DoD Info Technology policies, directives, and architectures and how they effect the program he's working on. He's very interested in information auditing, knowledge management, and IT governance. Continue reading
Gingrich: free speech needs to be “reexamined”
In a supreme twist of irony, Newt Gingrich, speaking at the annual Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner which honors free speech, said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism. So in order to save the Constitution, Gingrich is proposing that it be "reexamined," a poor euphemism for completely gutting it. Here's the story about the speech, and here's a link Keith Olbermann discussing Gingrich's comments with George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley. George Orwell is truly rolling in his grave! [Thanks Crooks & Liars!] Continue reading