FDLP Success Stories
Below are Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) success stories submitted to FGI. These stories are indicative of the importance of government information to library users and the continuing need for the FDLP in providing access to and preservation of government information. If you'd like to submit a government information success story, please go to the Success story form. Continue reading
Excellent XML! Rhode Island shows how to share government information!
The Secretary of State's office of the state of Rhode Island has set up a service called GovTracker which is the most advanced use of government-to-public technology I've seen. The government group responsible for this says that they have a goal of sharing information with the public:
It is the goal of the RI Data Share Committee to make Rhode Island a national showcase for the utilization of data sharing technologies in government that will offer citizens, businesses and state and local governments a more efficient and cost-effective way to share and exchange information via the InternetThe service provides numerous RSS feeds, including "Recently filed minutes," "upcoming open meetings," "Traffic Conditions - Providence," and so forth. There is a long list of those that are available and, of course, a "Feed of all Providence Feeds"! Continue reading
New paper on reclaiming scrubbed information
Let the People Know the Facts: Can Government Information Removed from the Internet be Reclaimed? by Susan Nevelow Mart, University of California, Hastings College of the Law: June 13, 2005.
This article will discuss the bases of the public’s right to government information, the types of government information that have been removed from the Internet, whether the rationale, if any, given for the removal was appropriate, and the possibilities for returning the information to the Internet.Includes a section on using FOIA for "Recovering Electronic Content Once It Has Been Removed From Agency Websites." Continue reading
CRS reports for the people
The Center for Democracy and Technology has started a new Web site, OpenCRS, that aims to make Congressional Research Service Reports more available.
American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. Yet, these reports are not made available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. A project of the Center for Democracy & Technology through the cooperation of several organizations and collectors of CRS Reports, Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to provide public access to all CRS Reports.The site further notes that, "Unfortunately, there is no systematic way to obtain all CRS reports. Because of this, not all reports appear on the Open CRS web site. CDT beleives that it would be far preferable for Congress to make available to the public all CRS Reports." Continue reading
Access to digital government information in the UK
As part of a the British Economic and Social Research Council's "Social Science Week," the UK Social Science Information Gateway is sponsoring a forum of invited papers called Social Sciences Online: Past, Present and Future to look at how the Internet is changing the face of social science research. One paper that will be of interest to government information specialists in this country is e-Government Information: the same old problem ... newly digitized! by Alastair J. Allan, University of Sheffield. While focusing on the UK, many of his observations are relevant here in the U.S. as well. He looks at barriers to access in the digital age. Among his findings:
The need to maintain full and accessible archives is becoming even more of a problem than it was twenty years ago. Once the archiving function was taken care of by the large national and university libraries but now the individual sites have to ensure that the archives are maintained and, frankly, many sites lack both the ability and ambition to do so.Continue reading