Lunch with a Lobbyist
Last week I had lunch with a lobbyist. No martinis, just iced tea. (It was 100 degrees outside and I did not want to go up in flames.) I am an independent information professional, and my niche is working to meet the information needs of Washington public policy professionals. If I only talk with other librarians (which I love to do), I have no clue about what is going on with my market. I heartily endorse the FGI mission to “initiate dialogue…among the various players (libraries, government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, journalists, etc.) who have a stake in the preservation of and perpetual free access to government information.†Say what you will about lobbyists, they need and use government information. And this lobbyist knows a lot about government information, but not so much about what government documents librarians are up to these days (digitization, electronic preservation, web services, etc.). So much is changing in the government documents/information world that we, librarians, have a hard enough time keeping up with it ourselves. We shouldn’t be surprised when those in other knowledge professions have not kept up with our changes. I have no doubt that many librarians reading FGI are engaged in getting the word out with projects far more ambitious than having lunch with a lobbyist on a hot August day. Any successes or ideas to share? Does anyone speak at conferences outside of the library sphere? Write for, or blog for, or otherwise engage those non-library stakeholders? Continue reading
UK’s Domesday Book now online
I know, we usually focus on US documents, but I thought this was pretty cool. The Domesday Book, the UK's oldest surviving public record, has been made available online by the UK National Archives. The public can now search the 920-year old Book by name of town, city or village. In 2005 it was voted the nation's finest treasure, yet a recent survey conducted in conjunction with today´s launch revealed that less than 1 per cent of the population have actually been to see the original in The National Archives' museum.
At Christmas 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey to discover the resources and taxable values of all the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to discover who owned what, how much it was worth, and how much was owed to him as King. It was a massive enterprise, and the record of that survey, Domesday Book, was a remarkable achievement.Continue reading
50-State Blue Book updated – now includes South Carolina info
Marylaine Block was kind enough to mention my 50-state Blue Book guide on her August 4th issue of Neat New Stuff on the Net. Not surprisingly, around the same time I got e-mailed a few corrections which I'm very thankful for and have now been posted to the web. In addition, Paul Lewis stopped by FGI and left the address of the South Carolina Legislative Manual, which is a full government directory plus state symbols and emblems. Thanks Paul! I'd also like to point out that over half the links on the "Blue Book" page were contributed by Jennifer Manning of the Congressional Research Service. She's been credited at the bottom of the page, but maybe I need to make that thanks more visible. It may be on my web site, but this guide really is a community effort. Thank all of you for the corrections/additions you have sent, and if you have more, drop them in comments or in e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska.net. Lastly, I'd like to point out that I've got more state information links besides the Blue Books/Directories page. Feel free to offer amendments to those as well. Continue reading
Millions of people looking at records through FOIA, backlogs continue to rise
More and more people are using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to learn about what their government is doing, according to this July 26, 2006 report from the Government Accountability Office: Freedom of Information Act: Preliminary Analysis of Processing Trends Shows Importance of Improvement Plans, GAO-06-1022T. According to the report summary (emphasis mine):
According to data reported by agencies in their annual reports, the public continues to request and receive increasing amounts of information from the federal government through FOIA; however, excepting one case--the Social Security Administration (SSA)--the rate of increase has flattened in recent years. (SSA reported an additional 16 million requests in 2005, dwarfing those for all other agencies combined, which together total about 2.6 million; SSA attributed this rise to an improvement in its method of counting requests. However, Justice officials have suggested that SSA consider treating the bulk of these requests as non-FOIA requests and thus not include them in future reports.) When SSA's numbers are excluded, data reported by the other 24 major agencies show that the number of requests received increased by 27 percent from fiscal year 2002 to 2005, but by only about 2.5 percent from fiscal year 2004. As more requests come in, agencies also report that they have been processing more of them--25 percent more from 2002 to 2005 (but only about 2.0 percent more than from 2004). Despite processing more requests, agencies have not kept up with the increase in requests being made: the number of pending requests carried over from year to year has been steadily increasing, rising to about 200,000 in fiscal year 2005--43 percent more than in 2002. The rate of increase in requests pending is also growing: the increase from fiscal year 2004 to 2005 is 24 percent, compared to 11 percent from 2003 to 2004.The report also detailed flaws in agencies' measurement and resolution of backlogged FOIA requests. If you would like to add to the gov't backlog while learning how your tax dollars are being used, see the National Security Archive's guide to FOIA. It's also possible your interest area has already been made public in a federal FOIA reading room. Continue reading
Run for your lives! The forests are blogging!
One of the promises of e-government is that of greater interactivity and less formality. Perhaps in hopes of promoting both, the Tongass National Forest has begun an official blog at http://tongass-fpadjust.net/FPA_Blogs.htm. Its identity as a blog is not obvious until you start clicking on topic links like:
The "forest blogs" accept comments, but you must complete a one-time registration first. Given the heated comments on both sides of forest management, I personally see nothing wrong with registration. It will be interesting to see if this device will help produce dialog in forest management issues. One thing is pretty clear and that is without a good amount of planning, it is unlikely we'll be able to look back on these blogs and see what people were saying about the Tongass in 2006. For background on why that is likely so, please check out our issue paper on preservation. Continue reading