Docs Librarian vs Google: Local Government in Alaska
Recently I helped a gentleman who e-mailed saying he was having trouble finding publications about Alaska local government, specifically our county equivalents. Like Louisiana, Alaska does not have counties. Louisiana has parrishes. We have boroughs in Alaska. My patron had spent more than an hour searching both Google and Yahoo! using "boroughs" in combination with Alaska and other search terms, but found nothing. So he e-mailed me. Within two minutes, I found him several web publications relating to boroughs from our Commerce Department pages. The patron's problem was that he spelled boroughs as "burrows." Don't laugh. If you hear the phrase "I want the population of Alaska's boroughs" for the first time, I think "burrows" is a perfectly acceptable way to spell boroughs as unit of government unless you are from New York or live in Alaska. Since "burrows" was spelled correctly, Google couldn't suggest the alternate term "boroughs." That's one of many advantage we librarians have - we can sort through homonyms! Continue reading
LOCKSS Demystified in RLG DigiNews
The February 15, 2006 issue of RLG DigiNews contains an interview with Vicky Reich of LOCKSS. This interview is an excellent primer on the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system and answers some common concerns expressed by some in the government information community such as:
- What kind of content is captured from publisher websites and how is it stored?
- How does the LOCKSS system ensure, over long periods, that the content in the system is the same as when it was originally collected from the publisher?
- What are the costs to institutions for using a LOCKSS box? What resources are required (e.g., time, programming) for working with publishers, adding a title, maintaining the LOCKSS box, etc.? What are your costs for maintaining and developing the current system?
- How are you dealing with format obsolescence?
- How are you addressing obsolescence of the LOCKSS box itself?
- Secrets are dangerous. Aim for 100% transparency and audit ability in everything.
- Legal frameworks change and paper trails are not reliable. Bundle and preserve legal rights and restrictions with the content to the greatest possible extent.
- Guard against technical arrogance. Build and use open source software and nurture a critical and contributing technical community. The LOCKSS software is fully documented and available on SourceForge.net. New updates are released about every six weeks. It’s easy to install a LOCKSS box.
- Collection development is a local activity.
- Building publisher relationships is a collaborative activity. The LOCKSS Alliance community is documenting practices for working with external content providers, such as electronic journal publishers and government entities (state and federal). Members are documenting practices for working with providers of internal content, for example electronic thesis and dissertations, manuscripts, and special collections.
- Our industries’ business relationships have worked fairly well for 500 years—endeavor to strengthen these, not to break them.
Archivist to intelligence agencies: stop reclassifying information!
Archivist Urges U.S. to Reopen Classified Files" By SCOTT SHANE Published: March 3, 2006 This is an update of a story previously posted on FGI about reclassification of govt documents. Allen Weinstein, the Archivist of the US, called on the intelligence agencies to stop "removing previously declassified historical documents from public access." Matthew Aid, the historian who first blew the whistle on this reclassification program, writes an in-depth account at the National Security Archive, including links to many of the documents and various news stories and editorials surrounding the story.
Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announced what he called a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret. A group of historians recently found that decades-old documents that they had photocopied years ago and that appeared to have little sensitivity had disappeared from the open files. They learned that in a program operated in secrecy since 1999, intelligence and security agencies had removed more than 55,000 pages that agency officials believed had been wrongly declassified.Continue reading
Citizen groups fight back against government secrecy
Web availability of government information continues to be a mixed blessing. With so much information so easily available to so many people, access in many ways can be considered much improved. But with GPO's refusal to deposit digital government information in depository libraries, more information can be withdrawn without public notice. A new article in FCW reports on the issues:
Public interest groups and federal officials agree on one thing: Because of homeland security concerns, information that was once readily available on public Web sites has steadily disappeared in recent years. But the agreement ends there.Includes a sidebar "Disenfranchising GPO" that describes how agencies have taken control of their information and are publishing it online without notifying GPO. Continue reading
Total Information Awareness just changed its name
TIA Lives On, By Shane Harris, National Journal, Feb. 23, 2006.
A controversial counter-terrorism program, which lawmakers halted more than two years ago amid outcries from privacy advocates, was stopped in name only and has quietly continued within the intelligence agency now fending off charges that it has violated the privacy of U.S. citizens.See also:
- Tinker, Tailor, Miner, Spy: Why the NSA's snooping is unprecedented in scale and scope, By Shane Harris and Tim Naftali, Slate, Jan. 3, 2006.
- Democrats and Bush Aides Spar in Senate Over U.S. Spying, By Scott Shane, New York Times, February 2, 2006.