GPO’s Essential Titles List feedback needed by Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Recently, the Government Printing Office (GPO) sent out to various library listservs a proposed revision of the Essential Titles List. We at FGI urge you to read through the documents and spreadsheets and comment to the GPO by Tuesday, August 1, 2006. Unfortunately, at this time, comments are only being accepted from depository libraries, but I'm sure Judy Russell, the Superintendent of Documents, would also appreciate hearing comments from the general public as well -- AND of course you're welcome to leave comments here and we will forward them on! For those unfamiliar with this, digital/online is the primary means of "dissemination" of govt publications to depository libraries these days. However, the Essential Titles for Public Use in Paper Format "remain available for selection in paper format, so long as they are published in paper by the originating agency. These titles contain critical information about the activities of the U.S. Government or are important reference publications for libraries and the public." Essential titles include such items as the "Budget of the United States Government," "Code of Federal Regulations," "County City Data Book," and "Supreme Court Decisions." Before giving your comments, please look over the following documents::
Captured documents made available
ODNI News Release No. 7-06, March 16, 2006, Office of Director of National Intelligence.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announces the initial public release of documents and media captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The materials have been posted to the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office websiteAudio, video and text files are available and searchable by keyword. The press release points to Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm which redirects to http://70.168.46.200/. New documents are being added every week.
The documents contained on this site were captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom and represent a dramatic departure from previous document release efforts which have historically taken place decades after the cessation of hostilities. ...The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available.There is a story about this here: Army puts files seized in Iraq on Web, by Alan Bjerga, (Jun. 12, 2006) SiliconValley.com.
The U.S. Army is the process of posting online 48,000 boxes of Arabic-language documents captured by U.S. troops during the war with Iraq.Continue reading
Do you have some ID?
Do you need government-sponsored identification to fly in a plane in the U.S.? John Gilmore wanted to fly in the U.S. without showing government sponsored identification and without submitting to an extensive search. His appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was rejected. At issue were the Transportation Security Administration directives, which are unpublished, change frequently and are often not available in writing. They are also not available to air travel passengers who often face confusing and conflicting situations. However, as part of the Court's decision, they did state that the current law "requires that airline passengers either present identification or be subjected to a more extensive search." While Gilmore lost his appeal and hasn't flown in the U.S. since, he did issue a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security's privacy advisory committee in San Francisco: mail your driver's license home and "attempt to fly home without identification." One person took him up on the challenge. He made it. Continue reading
The CIA now has its own bloggers
The CIA now has its own bloggers
"FBIS is now The Open Source Center"I've been doing a little investigating and hope that FGI's loyal readers can perhaps fill in some questions that I have. I first ran into the "Open Source Center" in November of 2005 when the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) announced on November 8, 2005 the creation of the DNI Open Source Center (OSC) under the directorship of Douglas J. Naquin, a senior CIA manager. At first glance, I thought it was some sort of new federal initiative at supporting open source software (or as some say, "Free/Libre/Open-Source Software" or FLOSS). My excitement soon came back to earth as I learned that "open source" in this context actually refers to an intelligence-gathering discipline "based on analyzing information collected from open sources, i.e. information available to the general public." (quoted from Wikipedia). There was a small flurry of news items at that time (citations below), but since then there's been very little mentioned about OSC. Those news stories (some of which were reprints of the Nov 25, 2005 Washington Post article or quotes from the Nov 8 press release) hinted that much of the work of the OSC was "posted on an unclassified, government-wide Web site." The WaPo article also quoted Naquin as saying that the OSC would be repositioned to expand on the translation work of the old Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). He said, "Our definition of open source is anything that can be legally obtained" to which Glasser added the aside, "whether how-to-build-a-bomb manuals or inflammatory T-shirts." In other words, FBIS + mining the Web = Open Source Center. I have not been able to find the "unclassified govt-wide Web site." The Open Source Center's Web site is password protected and only US, state and local Govt employees, their contractors, BBC monitoring employee (UK's counterpart to FBIS) or foreign liaisons to the US govt can obtain a password. An email to the OSC confirmed this to be true although the Customer Center responder stated that "a good bit, not all, of our information" was available via World News Connection (to which many academic libraries subscribe). She also said, "What is left out is the FOUO (for official use only) material." In tracking down the Open Source Center, I've been left with more questions than answers. I'd especially like to know:
--From the FBIS.gov Website before it automatically forwards to opensource.gov
- Do depositories get access to OSC materials? Could a depository librarian be considered a "govt contractor"?
- Our library gets World News Connection but I wonder what is left out? What are there differences between WNC and OSC? What kind of information is included in FOUO material?
- Are we paying for access to govinfo? Is this like CRS reports?
- Open Source Center
- Intelligence Center Is Created for Unclassified Information. By Scott Shane. New York Times, November 9, 2005. (Subscription may be required)
- A T-Shirt-and-Dagger Operation. By Scott Shane. New York Times, November 13, 2005. (Subscription may be required)
- Intelligence-gathering moves out into open. By Scott Shane. New York Times, Sunday, November 13, 2005 (reprinted and freely accessible from International Herald Tribune)
- Probing Galaxies of Data for Nuggets. FBIS Is Overhauled and Rolled Out to Mine the Web's Open-Source Information Lode. By Susan B. Glasser. Washington Post, Friday, November 25, 2005; A35.
- Sell Knight Ridder to the CIA. Or, how spooks are like (and unlike) reporters. By Jack Shafer. Slate.com, posted Friday, Dec. 9, 2005.
- Open-source intel takes on new importance. By Alice Lipowicz, Government Computer News April 20, 2006
- In Support of FBIS. June, 2000. FAS Project on Government Secrecy.
- December 8, 2005 post from Secrecy News entitled, OPEN SOURCE INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR NAMED
- Open source intelligence (wikipedia)
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service (wikipedia)
iPRES 2006 October 8-10, 2006 at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
I'm sure many of you have seen this on one list or another, but I just caught the announcement for the International Conference on the Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES 2006) and thought that FGI readers would find this conference extremely interesting. The deadline for early registration is September 1, 2006.
iPRES will be held October 8-10, 2006 at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY U.S.A. The theme of this year's iPRES is Words to Deeds: Collaboration in the Realm of Digital Preservation. Following on the successful iPRES 2005 held September 14-16 in Goettingen, Germany, iPRES 2006 will kickoff with a keynote presentation by Ian Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of Canada. Plenary Sessions will explore topics in Preserving Multimedia Objects, E-Journal Preservation, Certification, and National Efforts in Digital Preservation. Concurrent sessions on Tools of the Trade, eScience, Repositories, and New Initiatives will also be held. Featured speakers for iPRES 2006 include:Continue reading
- Svein Arne Brygfjeld, National Library of Norway
- Robin Dale, Program Officer, RLG
- Marc Dantzker, Curator, Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
- Susanne Dobratz, Head of University Library, Humboldt-University Berlin
- Eileen Fenton, Executive Director, Portico
- Carl Fleishhauer, Project Coordinator, Office of Strategic Initiatives, Library of Congress
- Andrew McHugh, Advisory Services Manager, Digital Curation Centre
- Erik Oltmans, Head e-Depot, National Library of the Netherlands
- Vicky Reich, Director of LOCKSS Program, Stanford University Libraries and Academic Resources
- Seamus Ross, Director HATII University of Glasgow and Associate Director Digital Curation Centre (UK)
- Barbara Signori, Swiss National Library
- Ken Thibodeau, Head of the Electronic Records Division, US National Archives and Records Administration
- David Thomas, Director of Government and Technology, The National Archives, UK
- Ian Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of Canada
- Zhang Xiaolin, Director, Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences (LCAS)