New national center to assist governments with open source applications
New national center to assist governments with open source applications, by Stephen Feller, NewsForge, October 14, 2005.
The National Center for Open Source Policy and Research (NCOSPR) was launched today at the first Government Open Source Conference (GOSCON) in Portland, a meeting of more than 200 representatives of government entities and software developers hosted by at Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSL). The mission of the NCOSPR will be to guide government agencies through the array of open source software available, as well as to develop specific solutions for individual agencies with its resource center. The center is also behind Government Forge, a portal to host and maintain open source software relevant to government agencies and other public entities.Continue reading
New on FDSys: October 16, 2005
This weekend, Free Government Information starts a new feature: notes on new activities on GPO's web site for the Future Digital System (FDSys). Although FDSys has its own blog, I recently found out the hard way that not everything new at FDSys shows up on their blog. So, as a service to those monitoring the progress of the development of the Future Digital System, FGI will begin tracking new items added to the FDSys web site and mentioning any items of interest each Sunday or so. Since we just began tracking the main FDSys web site, we're not sure these are really new files, but offer them for your consideration without further comment:
Open WorldCat – A way to add value to government documents
WorldCat is a like a giant library catalog to the holdings of 9000 member libraries worldwide. For years librarians and savvy library patrons have depended on this resource to find out-of-town materials. Recently as part of a strategy to bring the power of librarianship to the Web, OCLC introduced Open WorldCat, which has opened the catalogs of the world's libraries to major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. This allows book results to pop up along side web search results. By entering their zip code, a patron can quickly and easily find the nearest library that holds the book. This month Open WorldCat went a step farther. They invited users (not just librarians) to add Amazon-style reviews and other details like table of contents. OCLC doesn't say whether this content will become searchable, but hopefully it will. I believe that this opens up some great opportunities for depository libraries. Especially ones with volunteers or many student assistants! We can immediately start adding value to the so-called legacy collection AND have those items appear in search results. Continue reading
Majority of Depositories want digital deposit according to GPO survey
Update 10/25/2005 - GPO has posted their definitions of "push" and "pull" at the FDSys Blog. Results from a GPO survey of depository libraries show a majority of those responding expressed a high interest in digital deposit. Hundreds of depository libraries said that they were interested in delivery of digital information to depositories.
| question | interest: very high/high (number) | interest: very high/high (percent) |
| Ability to "pull" content from GPO | 299 | 85% |
| Automatic "push" of content from GPO | 228 | 65% |
In August 2005, GPO submitted a survey to all Federal Depository Libraries to obtain valuable input from our library partners regarding proposed features and functions of GPO's Future Digital System (FDsys). More than 400 of the approximately 1,250 depository libraries responded to GPO's request for feedback.Partial results from the survey are contained in this one page pdf file: Library VOC Responses Sorted on Library Interest, High Interest (Top 2 Boxes). A copy of the survey is available here: Library Voice of User Survey. Those who filled out the form were asked to rate their "level of interest" on a 7 point scale (1=Very high 2=High 3=Neutral 4=Low 5=Very low 6= Don't Know 7= Not Applicable). Two questions in the lengthy list of "GPO services" dealt with digital deposit. Continue reading
National Security Archive urges Supreme Court to Scrutinize Government Secrecy Claims
The National Security Archive and Openness Advocates Urge Supreme Court: Tell Lower Courts to Scrutinize Government Secrecy Claims. press release, The National Security Archive, October 10, 2005.
Amici argue that secrecy does not always serve the goal of protecting national security, as the numerous investigations into the September 11 attacks on the United States all concluded. Noting that there has been an upsurge in secrecy over the last four years--and that military and intelligence officials ranging from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to now-Director of the CIA Porter Goss all admit that a significant amount of the secrecy is unnecessary--the brief argues that the judiciary must provide a meaningful review of government claims for secrecy.Continue reading