Mr. James underestimates Congress’ willingness to spend
During his speech for the Plenary session of the Spring 2005 DLC Meeting, Mr. James acknowledged that GPO needed more funding to carry out its responsibilities, but expressed his belief that Congress was uninterested in expanding appropriations. As a new Cato Institute report explains, the reality is that the President and Congress are expanding appropriations like there is no tomorrow. According to the report, "Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years." Surely the President and Congress could be persuaded to provide a penny a month for all Americans in order for us to have full access to the information we've already paid for with our tax dollars. If you look at the Citizen's Against Government Waste's Pig book for 2005, you'll find these projects that exceed $36 Million that meet one or more of these criteria: Continue reading
Who should disseminate gov’t PR?
It bears reminding that government information comes to us in many forms. In addition to journals, reports, studies, etc; many government agencies have "public information officers" and/or contract for education campaigns. Recently the Forest Service announced a plan to outsource about a 100 FS jobs to private PR firms. The PR, tech-oriented podcast For Immediate Release has a discussion of this initiative on FIR #30 - fast forward to 36min 43sec for the Forest Service discussion. Continue reading
Public Printer Bruce James speech now available on audio
The plenary session for the spring DLC is now available in audio. The audio includes speeches by Public Printer Bruce James, co-director of the Office of Innovation and New Technology Mike Wash and a question-and-answer period with the Depository Library Council, Superintendent of Documents Judy Russell and DLC attendees. The audio is not of the best quality, so please use headphones for best results. As always, we'd like to hear your comments. Continue reading
State govt archiving model
The Center for Technology in Government has received an NDIIPP grant from the Library of Congress to create and distribute a toolkit to help states expand their capacity to preserve digital information. Here's the news item from the Federal Computer Week:
A New York-based technology research center has developed an approach and methodology designed to help state and territorial archivists and librarians preserve digital information. Through an $800,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the University at Albany’s Center for Technology in Government has developed a national capability assessment and planning model -- containing information about the governance structure, business model, architecture, and data standards -- to assist governments in identifying, capturing and archiving digital content critical to government operations. Continue reading
Is Government Information worth $0.12 to you? Write Congress
In preparing my letter for National Library Legislative Day, I came across this factoid: At a $36 Million level of funding for the Federal Depository Library Program, the program would have a per capita cost of TWELVE CENTS for each of the United States' 296,034,744 inhabitants. According to such experts as former Congressional staffer Bernadine Abbott-Hoduski, $36 Million would allow GPO to continue the current level of tangible distribution while putting their National Collection and Future Digital System in place. Isn't that worth TWELVE CENTS per person? If you agree, take some time today to write your Congressional Delegation. Information and talking points are available at the link above. Continue reading