Paul Schaffer asked if we would post this comment by him to the list.

I hope FDLP has pondered the staffing implications of FDsys accomplishing its stated aims. If the FDSYS intake arrangements are effective, the number of digital documents crossing GPO's radar screen will have to be at least double what GPO was dealing with in the heyday of tangible publications. A decision will be needed, on each one, as to whether it is "within the scope of GPO's Federal Depository Library Program." Eventually some alogrithm will keep track of FDLP's thumbs-up and thumbs-down decisions, to spare human staffers from sifting through the obviously-yes and obviously-no digital documents logged by FDsys. But for two or three years, a huge number of eligibility decisions will have to be made by human staffers or contractors. If that phase of the effort is fumbled, the value of all that nifty software will be seriously compromised. The potential downsides are huge gaps in what gets catalogued, or letting the GPO Catalog become a random sample of what's in FDsys. Paul Schaffer pschaffr@rcn.com 646 274 6246

Thanks Paul! Coincidentally, I got a message from the head of a social science library recently and she made this comment about the recent announcment: GPO Takes Major Step Toward Creating Digital Information Management System: "who is paying for all this now and in the future???" - jim Continue reading →

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How Many and Where Were the Nukes? (18 Aug 2006) "What the U.S. Government No Longer Wants You to Know about Nuclear Weapons During the Cold War." National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 197 Edited by William Burr. The National Security Archive says:

The Pentagon and the Energy Department have now stamped as national security secrets the long-public numbers of U.S. nuclear missiles during the Cold War, including data from the public reports of the Secretaries of Defense in 1967 and 1971, according to government documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive .

Among the documents censored: U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1964 (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1966). Continue reading →

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We at FGI find ourselves updating our Best Titles Ever! fairly frequently these days and we've just finished another cover art update and once again owe Christine Gray a debt of gratitude for photos and the entire govdoc-l community for ideas. But we are still in need of the covers for the following "Best Titles Ever!"

ALONE: Facts about Mental Health and Mental Illness was revised to: http://worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/12948351 YOU ARE NOT ALONE: Facts about Mental Health and Mental Illness http://worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/8746058 -SuDoc Number - [HE 20.8102:Al7/985] ----------- An Annotated list of Literature references on carpets and rugs 1940 to 1963 ----------- Citizenship and the Strawberry Jam: FDA's Life Protection Series ----------- Design of Clean Rooms - A Classified List of Selected References 1955-1964 ----------- Employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in government (1950) ----------- Fakability of the airforce preference inventory ----------- Familiarity and recognition of nonsense shapes ----------- Health effects of pesticide use on children [Y 4.L 11/4:S.hrg.101-569] ----------- Lawn Mowers: Noise and Cost of Abatement (EPA 1974) ----------- Let potatoes fight. [Y3.F73/2: WGC/ w49] ---------- Meat is ammunition, play fair with it! [PR 32.5002:M 46/2] Monthly catalog, 1945, p. 648. --------- Methods of reduction of psychological stress due to radiation --------- National community fallout shelter design competition (1965) --------- Preservative treatment of poles (USDA 1911) --------- Relation of Barium to the Loco-weed disease --------- Some effects of modification of information about a previous response upon the acquisition of two lever positioning habits. USAF -------- The use of a sentence completion test in measuring attitudes toward superiors and subordinates --------- Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory Consortium, Annual Report. [C 13.58/4:]. --------- Wake up America: a national sleep alert. [Y3.2: SL2/SL2] --------- Young scientists look at drugs (1968 for FDA/HEW)

If you can help us out, please either contribute your photo to the Best. Titles. Ever. group on Flickr or e-mail me the cover photo at dnlcornwall AT alaska.net. As strange as it seems, this page is starting to raise people's awareness of government documents, even at places like Wonkette. If you happen to catch other sightings of either our page or the Flickr group, please drop a note to admin AT freegovinfo.info and let us know where you saw it. Continue reading →

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Welcome to another exciting episode of FGI's Not Just Blogs! When last we left our daring document do-gooders, they were examining clues pointing to the problem of Authenticity. Collective "Jenkies" let loose when they came to the realization that their online copies of Distinguishing Bolts from Screws were only as authentic as the trust they could invest in the Web sites hosting them, and no amount of pure technology could replace the security that comes from trust. Luckily, libraries - with a primary mission to deliver authentic information and a long history of success doing it - are well-positioned to continue the work we trust them to do in delivering government information.

Today we find our gutsy govdockers cracking into the Vault of Preservation.

To join along in the adventure, click on the "Issues" link at the top of FGI's pages.

Then click on "Preservation" in the Issues box.

Once inside the Vault of Preservation, stand in awe of the treasures therein. Catch a glimpse of the problems preserving digital data in the issue brief -- and shriek in terror!

Digital decay -- Yikes!

Obsolete file formats -- Zoinks!

Intentional, malicious removal of information from centralized repositories -- Oh, no!

Thank goodness libraries are working with projects like LOCKSS to secure permanent public access to electronic government information. Whew!

(Oh, and, by the way, if you happen to have the answer to these troubling preservation questions, could you please drop us a line in the comments? Thanks!)

Join us next week when Shinjoung leads us through government information issues of privacy, and you'll hear Daniel say:

And besides all that, what we need is a decentralized, distributed system of depositing electronic files to local libraries willing to host them.

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