United Nations opens Official Document System
United Nations opens Official Document System to General Public The United Nations (UN) announced that Official Document System (ODS), the premier full-text web resource for official United Nations documentation, opens to the general public via ODS as of 31 December 2004. Comprehensive coverage starts in 1993. Continue reading
GSA to charge for information
This article relates an interesting example of a government agency wanting to make information available for free to the public using older technology (FTP), but charging for better access (Web Services, continuous feeds). GSA to charge $2,500 for Web services access to procurement data By Jason Miller, Government Computer News 12/29/04
The General Services Administration made it official yesterday, setting a one-time fee of $2,500 for vendors and the public to receive a direct, continuous feed from the new Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation via Web services. The data will remain free for those who choose to receive the information via File Transfer Protocol or to perform ad hoc or prewritten queries of the database, GSA said in the interim rule with a request for comments published in Tuesday's Federal Register. Comments are due Feb. 28.("Web Services" is a term than encompasses a broad range of technologies that have the potential for transforming the web as we know it to something much more exciting and functional -- in the same way that HTML transformed The Internet from file transfer and email to what we use today. See, for example, http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ and http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2001/04/04/webservices/index.html.) Continue reading
Lawsuit seeks to free Johnson’s President’s Daily Briefs
Professor Sues CIA for President's Daily Briefs The National Security Archive, George Washington University. December 23, 2004.
Davis, CA, 23 December 2004 - University of California, Davis professor Larry Berman today filed suit against the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, seeking release of historic President's Daily Briefs given to President Johnson during the Vietnam War.Continue reading
UNESCO Promotes Governmental Public Domain Information
UNESCO's final guidelines to Member States on policies for the development and promotion of public domain information increases the emphasis on the responsibilities of governments to make public sector information available to citizens. Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Governmental Public Domain Information by Paul F. Uhlir. Paris, 2004. [Available as a Microsoft Word document in English, French, and Spanish] Series/Report ID CI-2004/WS/05 Continue reading
Open Government: A Journal On Freedom of Information
This is great news: A new peer-reviewed government information journal in an open access format! Just in time for the Govt Information Quarterly / Journal of Govt Information merger. I'm looking forward to the inaugeral issue in February, 2005. There's still time to submit a paper (*note* I'm NOT one of the editors ;-) ).
Editor: Steve Wood, Senior Lecturer, Liverpool John Moores University. Steve also runs the UK FOIA blog
Journal Aim: To publish research and communications related to Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation from the perspective of academics, practioners and FOI users.
Scope:
- Freedom of Information legislation and information provision for citizens
- Comparative views of international freedom of information legislation
- Freedom of information legislation and the open government debate
- The impact of Freedom of Information on public administration
- Case studies from public authorities by FOI practioners
- Information Systems for managing records and FOI requests
- The relationship of Freedom of Information legislation and other access to information legislation