SLA Government Information Division

NY Times on Archiving Bush Records

The New York Times reports today (27 December 2008) on the challenge of archiving the electronic records of the George W. Bush Administration. Bush Data Threatens to Overload Archives, by Robert Pear and Scott Shane, states:

The National Archives has put into effect an emergency plan to handle electronic records from the Bush White House amid growing doubts about whether its new $144 million computer system can cope with the vast quantities of digital data it will receive when President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.

The new system the article references is the Archives' Electronic Records Archives. The Washington Post published a somewhat similar article, Bush E-mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer, on Sunday. (See related DGI blog post: Washington Post on White House Records Transfer.)

SLA Sends EPA letter to Transition Office

As reported on the Public Policy Connections blog, SLA has submitted a statement to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Team Leads at the Office of the President-Elect concerning EPA information management and dissemination. Titled Improved Information Access at the EPA, the statement says, in part:

EPA should invest in an innovative information management strategy that leverages technology to
its fullest extent and at the same time utilizes the expertise of information professionals who
understand the diverse needs of various audiences and who know how to collect, analyze and
disseminate information to promote accurate decision making.

Name Authority Files, by any other name

The Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to improving access to government information, is developing a tool that will sound very familiar to librarians. Read all about it in the Name Standardization item on the Sunlight Labs wiki, where they describe some experimentation in creating a name authority file. As they observe,

Names of entities-- donors, members of congress, corporations, even governments are not called the same thing between documents or databases or even in the same document.

Standardization would be a big boost to those who are trying to connect the dots from government database to government database.

Hat tip to Nancy Scola of techPresident, who got goosebumps just thinking about what's in a (standardized) name.

Government Employees and Web 2.0

Governments are beginning to use Web 2.0 and social media networks to communicate with outside constituencies. Recognizing that the social media trend is likely to continue and to grow, the New Zealand government is currently drafting guidelines for government employees ("state servants" in NZ) responsible for social media monitoring and interaction.

The draft guidelines are introduced on the government's Web Standards website, where more context is given. The brief guide is online in two parts:

• Social media monitoring and interaction - guiding principles
  
• Social media monitoring and interaction - implementation guide

The government's In Development blog also introduces the guidelines in the 16 December 2008 post When State servants use social media.

OSTI Launches a Facebook Page

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) now has a presence on Facebook, as announced on their blog. The OSTI Facebook Page includes links to OSTI databases, widgets for OSTI databases, a feed from OSTIblog, staff photos, and videos about the national labs.

Other Facebook Pages from the feds include USA.gov and Veterans Health Administration. You do not need to have a Facebook account to view these pages. (For more on government Facebook Pages, see "The Government Online: Government Sociability," Searcher Magazine, November/December 2008.)

While you are checking out OSTIblog, take a look at the 15 December 2008 post, We need a National Library of Energy to rapidly deploy transformative energy innovations.

Washington Post on White House Records Transfer

The news article Bush E-mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer (Washington Post, 21 December 2008) reports on the current status of the transfer of Bush White House documents, including email, to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):

The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House's electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.

The article also reports on issues related to the records of out-going Vice President Cheney and on the delays in development of NARA's Electronic Records Archives (ERA) system.

Economics of Digital Preservation and Access

The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access has released an interim report, Sustaining the Digital Investment: Issues and Challenges of Economically Sustainable Digital Access [PDF]. From the report:

There is general agreement that digital information is fundamental to the conduct of modern research, education, business, commerce, and government. Future accomplishments are accelerated through persistent access to data and digital materials, and their use, re-use, and re-purposing in ways both known and as yet unanticipated.

There is no general agreement, however, about who is responsible and who should pay for the access to, and preservation of, valuable present and future digital information. Creating sustainable economic models for digital access and preservation is a major challenge for all sectors, and the focus of investigation of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access.

The task force is a 17-member group of experts from economics, computer science, libraries, archives, museums, and related fields with funding and support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.K. Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the Electronic Records Archives Program of the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Council on Library and Information Resources.

Nextgov.com covers the interim report in the article Feds' lack of preserving digital records reaching urgent stage.

Government Web Managers Advise Transition Team

The Federal Web Managers Council, an interagency group of senior web managers from the U.S. federal government, has issued a white paper with recommendations for the Presidential Transition Team. In Putting Citizens First: Transforming Online Government [PDF], the web managers conclude:

By harnessing the collaborative nature of the web, the new Administration has the potential to engage the public like never before. The web can foster better communication and allow people to participate in improving the operations of their government. By listening to our customers we can provide better services, focus on their most pressing needs, and spend their tax dollars efficiently.

The report includes a few statements likely to resonate with federal employees:

• "One of the biggest problems we face in improving government websites is that many agencies still view their website as an IT project rather than as a core business function."
• "The government must ensure that federal employees who need access to social media tools have them, and that these new ways of delivering content are available to all, including people with disabilities."
• "The new Administration should develop government-wide guidelines for disseminating content in universally accessible formats (data formats, news feeds, mobile, video, podcasts, etc.), and on non-government sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, and SecondLife."

Hat tip to TechPresident.

GPO Compares Legislative Site Coverage

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has published an updated comparison of the legislative content included on GPO Access, THOMAS, House.gov, Senate.gov, CQ.com, Hein Online, LexisNexis Congressional, and Westlaw. The report comes in three PDF parts:

• Narrative report
• Chart comparing government databases
• Chart comparing non-government databases

The Law Librarians Society of Washington DC (LLSDC) also maintains comparison charts. See:

• Electronic Sources for Federal Legislative History Documents
• Sources for Congressional Bills and Resolutions

More outstanding reference tools are available from LLSDC on the LLSDC Legislative Sourcebook page.

Washington Post on the Invisible Federal Web

The Washington Post reports today on the fact that much U.S. government web content can't be reached by Google and other search engines. Firms Push for a More Searchable Federal Web (11 December 2008) may not have any startling revelations for librarians familiar with the 'deep web' or 'invisible web', but it provides insight into the progress agencies have made and the challenges they face in opening up content to search engines' crawlers. For another take on this topic, see Bonnie Klein's Google and the Search for Federal Government Information (Against the Grain, April 2008).