Unclassified articles no longer available on web — print only
A series of reports recently have noted an apparent change in policy that makes articles in the government publication Studies in Intelligence, published by the Central Intelligence Agency's Center for the Study of Intelligence available only in print. Articles freely available in the printed version of the journal have not been posted on the web site of the journal.
In Excessive secrecy hurting CIA studies, Shaun Waterman reports "Web publication of 'Studies in Intelligence' itself appears to have ceased as well, at least for the time being -- no articles from the last three issues of the journal are on the agency's Web site, although hard copies are available from the U.S. Government Printing Office." (Washington Times, Apr. 27, 2006)
Steven Aftergood reports that "the editor of the somewhat respected CIA journal Studies in Intelligence has resigned, and so has the chairman of its Editorial Board." (CIA Expands Operational File Secrecy, Secrecy News, April 19, 2006.)
And Max Holland, in a substantial article on the state of the intelligence community, goes into more detail (Lessons Not Learned, Washington Spectator, April 15, 2006.
The problem erupted in the fall of 2005, when Studies published an excerpt from a post-mortem on the intelligence community's failure to assess accurately Iraq's WMD capabilities. Seven months later, the offending issue still has not been posted on-line, even though unclassified articles in Studies are normally put up within weeks of publication.Continue reading
The passing of public intellectuals: Jane Jacobs and John Kenneth Galbraith
This has been a week of passing of two of the 20th century's greatest public intellectuals. On Tuesday, April 25, Jane Jacobs passed at the age of 89. She wrote the seminal book on urban studies called "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." As the NY Times obituary said:
Her critique of the nation's cities is often grouped with the work of writers who in the 1960's shook the foundations of American society: Paul Goodman's attack on schooling; Michael Harrington's stark portrait of poverty; Ralph Nader's barrage against the auto industry; and Malcolm X's grim tour of America's racial divide, among others. And it continues to influence a third generation of students.Then on Saturday, April 29, John Kenneth Galbraith passed at the age of 97. (log in may be required) Galbraith, a liberal economist and diplomat, was an advisor to presidents from the 1930's through the 1990's and served as JFK's ambassador to India. He wrote 33 books, including, "The Affluent Society" (1958) and updated/bookended it in 1996 with "The Good Society." These two thoughtful intellectuals will be sorely missed. Continue reading
GovTrack.us and OpenSecrets up for a Webby Award
Put this in the "slightly off-topic" category ;-) But seeing as I just posted about remixes, GovTrack.us and Open Secrets are both up for Webby Awards in the politics category. Go to the Webby Awards website to vote for your favorite Web sites in various categories. Deadline is May 5. Other sites of interest to librarians: Library of Congress is nominated in both the education and cultural isntitutions categories; FindLaw in the law category; NASA's Ozone Watch in the science category; and many more! Continue reading
Remixes highlighted by GCN
A kind FGI reader (thanks Peggy!) sent in an email about this interesting article that highlights the same types of remixes (which the article calls "composite applications") that we've been collecting on the FGI Remix page. Remixes are an exciting new area for libraries. As more and more FDLP libraries are focusing on services in the digital world (as opposed to collections), it would be great to learn more about how to facilitate govt information users' building of "composite applications." Librarians will not only need to know how to find govt information online, they'll need to know how to use govt information and how to help users "roll their own" Web applications. Read on... At your service: Forget buying software; build your next application from existing components. By Joab Jackson, Government Computer News, 4/24/06. Continue reading
Canada: Library of Parliament prefers print for preservation
According to their web site, "The mission of the Library of Parliament is to provide Parliament, in a timely fashion, with comprehensive and reliable information, documentation, research and analysis while maintaining extensive and pertinent collections to support the functions of legislation and representation; and to provide information about Canada’s Parliament to the public." With so many parliamentary publications available electronicly, how will the Library of Parliament assure preservation? In an April 26, 2006 response to a recent query on this topic to the Infodep mailing list, Cynthia Hubbertz, Chief, Collection Development of the Library of Parliament said:
At the Library of Parliament , we are actually building a print preservation collection precisely because we believe, as many do, that print has no equal for long term preservation, and that, as publications go WEB only, we have a duty to preserve them in print.You should be able to eventually find the entire e-mail in the Infodep archives. Kudos to the Library of Parliament for thinking long-term. Continue reading