New NORAD Podcast
It's been awhile since we've updated our page of government podcasts, but today we welcome NORAD into the podcasting fold. Those looking for a quick and plain-english explanation of podcasting would be well served by reading the NORAD podcasting page. So what can you expect to hear from the North American Aerospace Defense Command? Here is a listing of their first three podcasts:
- Sept. 25, 2006 - The Jeopardy "Clue Crew" visits NORAD and USNORTHCOM to tape video clues for upcoming shows.
- Sept. 11, 2006 - Adm. Timothy J. Keating discusses the importance of having a disaster preparedness kit.
- Sept. 7, 2006 - Mr. Michael B. Perini introduces the new NORAD and USNORTHCOM podcasting service.
More bad news for EPA scientists
As many of you know, FGI has been tracking this issue of library closings at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I wish I had good news to report (Like EPA budget reinstatement!), but unfortunately not. Today, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) had a news release stating that, due to EPA budget shortfalls, the EPA is, "sharply reducing the number of technical journals and environmental publications to which its employees will have online access." This after an all EPA employee email memo from CIO Linda A. Travers (PDF) touted:
Linda A. Travers Acting Assistant Administrator and Chief Information Officer TO: All Headquarters Employees EPA is in the process of implementing a new library plan to make environmental information more accessible to employees, researchers and the general public. As part of our efforts, the Agency is posting physical library collections on-line and enhancing electronic library services. At present, more than 15,000 journals and publications are available on-line and Agency documents can be obtained via interlibrary loans.How does closing EPA libraries and sharply reducing access to scientific journals make information *more* accessible?! Perhaps if the EPA became a faith-based organization, they'd get their funding back. *sigh* Continue reading
Not just blogs: Blogger of the month bios
Although this is actually about blogs (!), I'd like to continue our "not just blogs" series by highlighting Blogger of the month biographies. This page is linked from our FGI library. Go to the BOTM biographies page to check out bios of Cindi Wolff, Jessamyn West, Kris Kasianovitz, Peggy Garvin, Shane Mackey, Tim Skeers, our current BOTM. Bloggers of the month (AKA BOTM) are our attempt to expand the discussion going on on FGI. Each month since April, 2006, we invite a guest to post whatever s/he wants -- loosely having to do with govt information of course! We hope that by giving others a chance to post to FGI, we'll start conversations and share ideas that perhaps wouldn't be posted or were missed by regular FGI volunteers (Jim Jacobs, Daniel Cornwall, Shinjoung Yeo and James Jacobs). We hope you enjoy the variety. If anyone would like to be BOTM in the future, please contact us at admin AT freegovinfo DOT info. BOTM's get showered with fame (but no fortune ;-) ) and our eternal gratitude. We hope some of our readers will consider being a BOTM. We know you're dying to become a blogger! Continue reading
New on FDSys – Capability Statements
Although we at FGI missed it when it first came out in early September, the main FDSys site now has a page for vendors wishing to work with Harris Corp, the FDSys Master Integrator. On this page you can currently find requests for vendor capabilities on Search and Enterprise Application Platform (EAP). The next request for capabilities will be for content management systems. I highly recommend looking at the Excel formatted "matrix documents" as I find them easier to understand than the FDSys System Requirements documents. I'm happy to report that the following features are explictly requested in the search matrix:
- The system shall allow users with an established user account and profile to enter or store queries, preferences, and results sets or portions of results sets.
- The system shall provide the capability to automatically execute saved searches on a schedule defined by the user.
- The system shall provide the capability to notify users when automatically executed searches return results.
Thursday, August 31, 2006 Capability Submissions Over the next several months, GPO will be requesting capability submission statements for components of FDsys. This information will be conveyed via GPO's FDsys Web page and this blog. Vendors interested in receiving notifications of submission statement requests are encouraged to subscribe to the FDsys blog's Atom feed, as the blog and Web page will be updated simultaneously.A quick glance at the FDSys Blog shows only one posting between 8/31 and 10/8, and that is a September 15, 2006 FDSys Update. The update does mention capability assessment requests, but offered no links to the request page. Also, this language made it sound like FDSys hadn't posted them yet, despite appearing on the FDSys web site September 3, 2006:
The FDsys team has updated the technology capability statement process, and meetings with key suppliers are being scheduled. Initial focus areas will include Search, Infrastructure, and Content Management Systems.While I'm not saying that FDSys was hiding anything, more complete information on the blog would be very welcome since they promised to update the blog and the main web page simultaneously. Maybe they could put an RSS feed on the main FDSYS page like they do for FDLP Desktop and then close down the blog, which hasn't gotten many comments anyway. Then there would just be one source to check for new FDSys news. Even if the FDSys blog closes, it was still a noble effort on the part of GPO staff. It wasn't their fault that neither documents librarians nor vendors seem to be much inclined to comment. Continue reading
Part 18: Nonlawyer’s journey through Title 44: Catalog of Government publications
This post, all earlier postings in this series, and my “not a lawyer†disclaimer can be found at http://freegovinfo.info/title44 or through our library under Nonlawyer's Journey through Title 44. Sec. 1711
TITLE 44--PUBLIC PRINTING AND DOCUMENTS CHAPTER 17--DISTRIBUTION AND SALE OF PUBLIC DOCUMENTS Sec. 1711. Catalog of Government publications On the first day of each month the Superintendent of Documents shall prepare a catalog of Government publications which shall show the documents printed during the preceding month, where obtainable, and the price. Two thousand copies of the catalog shall be printed in pamphlet form for distribution. (Pub. L. 90-620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1280.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964 ed., Sec. 77 (Jan. 12 1895, ch. 23, Sec. 69, 28 Stat. 612).A short section of Title 44 with a major purpose. This section, along with Sec. 1710' which we discussed last time;.designates the Government Printing Office (GPO) as the primary cataloger/describer of government publications, whether or not they fall within the Federal Depository Library catalog. Historically this was done through the Monthly Catalog, which is the direct subject of section 1711. In 1976, GPO began cataloging government publications into OCLC, making them easily machine searchable. Still more recently, the statutory authorities used to justify the Monthly Catalog are being used to plan for a comprehensive National Bibliography. Here is a description of the National Bibliography from GPO's 2005/2006 Information Dissemination Plan:
GPO's National Bibliography of U.S. Government Publications (NB) is a collaborative, comprehensive catalog containing descriptions and locations of U.S. Government unclassified publications in all formats. It is not a traditional national bibliography in the sense of Canadiana , the national bibliography of Canada. Functionally, the NB will be a principal output of the Integrated Library System (ILS), Ex Libris' Aleph 500. GPO will develop one or more relational databases of library cataloging and other metadata records that describe and link to U.S. Government publications in a variety of formats and locations. The NB will utilize metadata resources created by GPO, by other agencies, and by partner institutions. The ILS' metasearch function will provide the capability to search across a distributed set of metadata resources from other institutions and display a combined result set. The public face of the ILS will be GPO's Online Public Access Catalog. Initially the NB database will consist of GPO-produced bibliographic records representing titles cataloged from 1976 to the present. Once the ILS initial implementation is completed in spring 2005, GPO plans to expand the NB database by adding pre-1976 records, records created by cooperative cataloging partners and other institutions, as well as records converted from other bibliographic or metadata formats. Enhancing the NB database with records for historical publications is a project that will span multiple fiscal years, while adding records for new publications is an ongoing effort.The Online Public Access Catalog mentioned in the plan is now available at http://catalog.gpo.gov. A search of the catalog reveals some pre-1976 records, and more are probably being added all the time. I wish them well in their work. Be sure to thank Congress for giving the job of describing government documents to somebody, or we'd be more lost than we are today. Continue reading