Sunday April 18th – GPO Update
To provide your own take on the GPO Update Session , please either comment below or send your notes and/or multimedia to dnlcornwall@alaska.net. Please let FGI know if we can use your name and affiliation.
The following notes were contributed by Sharon M. Partridge of the Jefferson County Public Library in Lakewood CO. Any hyperlinks were added by FGI staff.
All interpretations of documents and comments made are my own and do not reflect on my institution. These were typed on the day noted and subsequent days may have changed things. All mistakes are mine and feel free to post corrections.
Judy Russell looked forward to a "lively discussion." Electronic is the "default switch" for format; unless it has been deemed an exception, that will be the format. We got a draft copy of two revised documents. One is the ID 71 (formerly SOD 71), Dissemination/Distribution Policy for the Federal Depository Library Program. The changes reflect the new names of departments (Information Dissemination rather than LPS) and allowing the conversion of both present documents and the retrospective collection from tangible format to electronic. The second document is ID 72, Withdrawal of Federal Information Products from Information Dissemination Collection and Distribution Programs (recalls of information already in FDLP). They seem to have removed the requirement to pass on Sales customers' names except in national security cases, noted that there will be a record of removal with the maintenance of the bibliographic record and annotation about the withdrawal, and broadened the concept of an emergency withdrawal by eliminating the language about national security. Continue reading
Tuesday April 19th – Plenary Session
To contribute your own take on the Tuesday Plenary session, please either comment below or e-mail your notes to dnlcornwall@alaska.net. Please let us know whether FGI can use your name and institution.
The following notes were contributed by Sharon M. Partridge of the Jefferson County Public Library in Lakewood CO. Any hyperlinks were added by FGI staff.
All interpretations of documents and comments made are my own and do not reflect on my institution. These were typed on the day noted and subsequent days may have changed things. All mistakes are mine and feel free to post corrections.
Things I forgot from yesterday. The Essential Titles list is viewed as a dynamic document. It doesn't mean that everything missing from the list will never be seen in paper again. It means that something that isn't on the list now can be added in the future. GPO was also asked to negotiate with any agency that decides to quit producing one of the Essential Titles in paper. We asked that GPO tell the agency that the FDLP considers this title to be so important that we would like them to reconsider such a decision. Continue reading
Sen. Santorum tries to make free weather disappear
According to the Palm Beach Post, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference introduced a bill that would prohibit the National Weather Service from providing forecasts and other weather information that COULD be provided by the private sector. Critics say that as written, it is unclear whether the NWS could provide hurricane forecasts, although the bill does exempt forecasts that would save lives. Sen. Santorum's state of Pennsylvania is also home to Accuweather Forecasts. The bill is S 786 and is called National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005. Currently it has no cosponsors and we at FGI really hope it stays that way. We're with Harvard University technical consultant Scott Bradner, whom the Post quoted as saying, "I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have to pay for it again." Continue reading
Bruce James at DLC
Here's some quotes from Bruce James (some not "direct" but paraphrasing from your's truly). Mike Wash, lead technologist, also gave a presentation on ConOps: --Internet is a disruptive technology. It will be seen in th future on par with the printing press. --"Strategic scheme" --Jack Valenti says that internet2 will be standard within 1-2 years. --Printing is still a necessity. Dozens of publications need to be in print for the foreseeable future." --Libraries should make decisions about what's in print, not the government. And here are some questions that I have: Since Law Libraries have the greatest need for information in print, why not get a list of essential titles from them? Mike mentioned "markets" and the fact that the system needs to serve its markets. What are the "markets" that GPO is talking about? Are libraries a primary market? Mike mentioned that the FDS is "policy neutral". How can a system be policy neutral? Mike talked about plumbing. Are libraries included in the primary future plumbing scheme? Continue reading
Check out our new “remixes” page
We recently added a page highlighting the ways that individuals and groups can use existing free, taxpayer-funded government information to build new products with new functions. We call them remixes.
You can get to the remix page anytime you like by clicking on the "library" link at the top of the page, then clicking on "remixes." Continue reading