SLA Government Information Division

New Site Tracks Major Gov Tech Projects

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra launched the beta version of IT.usaspending.gov as part of his recent talk at the Personal Democracy Forum meeting. The new site rates agency performance in keeping big information technology projects on budget and on schedule. From the Public FAQ:

The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including general information on over 7,000 Federal IT investments and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments that agencies classify as "major". The performance data used to track the 800 major IT investments is based on milestone information displayed in agency reports to OMB called "Exhibit 300s" Agency CIOs are responsible for evaluating and updating select data on a monthly basis, which is accomplished through interfaces provided on the website.

Techpresident.com describes the site in their 30 June 2009 post PdF '09: Kundra Unveils IT Spending Dashboard.

The Washington Post reports on the site in the article Government Launches Web Site to Track IT Spending, 30 June 2009.

ContentBlogger Blogs SLA 2009

ContentBlogger John Blossom, president of Shore Communications, takes a look at search products on display at the SLA 2009 annual meeting. His blog post, SLA Conference 2009: Tuning In to Enterprise Content Productivity, includes a video tour of selected offerings on the exhibit floor. Blossom has good things to say about the conference and SLA members, and he opines:

While the ranks of traditional corporate infopros have thinned in recent years, the need for people with their skills is still strong, even as those skills get repurposed often for more specific functions in the enterprise. As infopros become more adept at interpreting the needs for specific applications that address people's information demands and technologies become more easily configured to respond to those insights I expect that we're at the beginning of a new era for information professionals that will see them becoming new types of "gurus" for on-demand information services.

NASCIO & US CIO Promote Online State Data Catalogs

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has announced that it will be working with the federal government to promote the development of public online catalogs for state government data sets. From the NASCIO press release:

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) will collaborate with the Office of Management and Budget, Office of the Federal CIO and the General Services Administration to promote broader transparency of state data. NASCIO will be working with Vivek Kundra, Federal CIO, OMB and GSA officials to promote the development of public data catalogs in the states, adopt a standard naming convention, meta data standards and to share best practices on making state data sets available to the public. This collaborative effort will be modeled after data.gov, the federal initiative for access to government data.

Related article from GovTech.com: NASCIO Announces Data Transparency Partnership with Feds, 26 June 2009

While that's cooking, check out the GODORT State Agency Databases listings.

White House Call for Comments: Declassification Policy

The Obama Administration is seeking public comment on declassification policy. The forum for comments opens today, 29 June 2009.  The forum is being hosted by the OSTP Blog and will close 10 July. Comments on the first topic within the forum are due by 1 July.  The OSTP Blog posts:

• Introduction to the Declassification Policy Forum by Martin Faga, Acting Chair of the Public Interest Declassification Board
• Declassification Policy, the first discussion topic, with comments due 1 July 2009

Relevant documents:

• Current declassification policy in Section 3 of Executive Order 12958, as amended.
• Presidential Memorandum on Classified Information and Controlled Unclassified Information, 27 May 2009, ordering a review of EO 12958 as amended.

Innovation: Government v. Commercial Websites

The Brookings Institution has released a paper examining the nature of technology innovation in the private sector to determine keys to success that might be adopted by governments. The authors compare commercial websites with U.S. state and federal government sites and assign them a "technology innovation rating." From the executive summary of Comparing Technology Innovation in the Public and Private Sectors:

The following paper evaluates the websites of leading U.S. corporations with state and national governments, grades their overall performance, and examines nearly two dozen features of digital innovation, including: personalization, interactivity, transparency, PDA access, disability access, language translation, number of online services, privacy, security, and user feedback. We found that many government websites lacked multimedia, interactivity, and personalization—key features that allow users to tailor information to their own needs. On the other hand, public sector agencies were more effective at providing disability access than commercial enterprises. When it came to privacy policies, public sector websites also offered stronger consumer protections than commercial sites.

E-Government Needs Public Libraries

U.S. Public Libraries and E-Government Services [PDF] is a new issue brief from the American Libraries Association (ALA). From the press release announcement:

 “Public libraries often are the only organizations within a community that can help individuals interact with government agencies and access e-government services,” said ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. “As more and more government information and services are becoming only available online, there is an urgent need for governments to collaborate with public libraries to provide e-government services that best meet community needs.”

WorldWideScience.org Gets Clusters and Goes Social

WorldWideScience.org, developed and maintained by the Energy Department's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), launches several new features today:

• clustering of search results by topic (including full text availability), publication, author, and year; and
• the ability to share search results on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Del.icio.us. (This feature is under the link currently called "Bookmark this search.")

The site has also been upgraded for increased speed and improved relevance ranking.

WorldWideScience.org provides a federated search of science databases and portals from over 50 countries, including the U.S.

Every Fact Matters to Someone

The Politico.com news site takes a look at obscure government databases and how they came to be in the article The Government has a database for most everything, by Erika Lovley, 24 June 2009. This may be of interest to citizens just discovering the breadth of government databases thanks to the new Data.gov portal. From the article:

The government has answers. Lots of answers. Wondering which airline is the most stingy with passenger snacks? No problem. Want to know how many people were injured by vending machines last year? Got that, too.

As the article states, "every fact matters to someone."

Australia Launches Gov 2.0 Taskforce

The Australian national government has established a Government 2.0 Taskforce, described in a 22 June 2009 press release, quoted here.

The Taskforce will investigate and make recommendations on how to:

• make government information more accessible and usable — to establish a pro-disclosure culture around non-sensitive public sector information;
• make government more consultative, participatory and transparent — to maximise the extent to which government utilises the views, knowledge and resources of the general community;
• build a culture of online innovation within Government — to ensure that government is receptive to the possibilities created by new collaborative technologies and uses them to advance its ambition to continually improve the way it operates; and
• promote collaboration across agencies with respect to online and information initiatives — to ensure that efficiencies, innovations, knowledge and enthusiasm are shared on a platform of open standards.

Importantly, the Taskforce will not just provide advice to government. It will also be able to fund initiatives and incentives which demonstrate the value of government 2.0 objectives.

The Taskforce has a blog at http://gov2.net.au/.

National Archives News: Nixon & YouTube

Two unrelated news items from the US National Archives & Records Administration (NARA):

1) The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, administered by NARA, is opening up new sets of materials--tapes and documents--today, 23 June 2009. The NARA media alert has this to say about the tapes:

On June 23, 2009, the Nixon Presidential Library will be opening approximately 154 hours of tape recordings from the Nixon White House recorded in January and February 1973 and consisting of approximately 994 conversations. The conversations cover topics such as the conclusion of a peace settlement between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the return of American POWs, President Nixon's second inauguration, the U.S. and Europe, the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, energy policy, the reorganization of the executive branch, and the first Watergate trial. The newly released recorded conversations will be made available on the web at www.nixonlibrary.gov. They will also be available at both the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA and at the National Archives College Park, MD facility.

2) NARA now has a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/USNationalArchives. Playlists include "From the Archives to the Moon" and "Touring 1930s America." For more information, see the 19 June 2009 NARA press release. NOTE: USA.gov maintains "the official YouTube channel of the US Government" at http://www.youtube.com/USGovernment.