SLA Government Information Division

Australia's Gov 2.0 Taskforce Issues Final Report

The Australian National Government's Government 2.0 Taskforce has issued its final report, Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 [PDF]. The report's central recommendation is a call for a declaration of open government, made at the highest level.

The report's release signals the closing of the temporary taskforce on 31 December 2009; the website will remain online for at least the near future. The most recent taskforce blog post, Christmas 2.0, explains the limited role of the blog going forward.

Previous DGI post: Australia Announces Draft Gov 2.0 Info Policies

CNN on U.S. City Government Apps, Data

CNNTech reports on the social media and open data offerings from major U.S. cities in the article Cities embrace mobile apps, 'Gov 2.0' (28 December 2009). From the article:

A host of larger U.S. cities from San Francisco to New York quietly have been releasing treasure troves of public data to Web and mobile application developers.

That may sound dull. But tech geeks transform banal local government spreadsheets about train schedules, complaint systems, potholes, street lamp repairs and city garbage into useful applications for mobile phones and the Web.

UK Consultation on Legal Deposit of Digital Content

The UK Department for Culture Media and Sport "has launched a consultation on the legal deposit of UK offline and online non-print publications which are available free of charge and without access restrictions." The department has posted the official announcement and the text of the consultation [PDF] online. The deadline for input is 1 March 2010.

The Guardian covers the full story in their 27 December 2009 article Website archives to be fast-tracked. From the article:

New legal powers to allow the British Library to archive millions of websites are to be fast-tracked by ministers after the Guardian exposed long delays in introducing the measures.

The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, is pressing for the faster introduction of powers to allow six major libraries to copy every free website based in the UK as part of their efforts to record Britain's cultural, scientific and political history.

Math, Science, and the Winter Games

We're two days into Winter, we're beginning to wrap things up for the holidays, AND the Winter Olympics loom.  It's a good time to relax, sip some cocoa and tune into the National Science Foundation's Science of the Winter Olympic Games video series. 

Learn about the math and the science behind the beautiful and the daring moves in sixteen video clips - from skiing, to figure skating, to snowboarding to curling, and many more.  Enjoy the series  and enjoy your holidays! -- Nora

Report: Federal Depository Library Program in the 21st Century

Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit research organization, has released the final version of their report Documents for a Digital Democracy: A Model for the Federal Depository Library Program in the 21st Century. (Scroll to the bottom of this report page for a link to the full document.)

From the report's executive summary:

The FDLP’s mission of providing permanent public access to government information remains imperative for the digital environment, and the model for the future presented in this report provides a feasible framework for meeting the challenge posed by the digital era. The FDLP supports one of the cornerstones of American democracy. Its disappearance would be a significant loss.

The report was commissioned by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA).

OSTP Extends Research Access Policy Comment Period

You now have more time to prepare your input on U.S. policy for public access to peer-reviewed publications based on federally funded research. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) first issued a call for input, with 7 January as the final day for public comment, in a 9 December 2009 blog post. They have since added two weeks more for comment. The change was announced in the 19 December 2009 OSTP post Public Access Policy Phase One Wrap-up: Implementation:

...We have decided (and will soon announce in the Federal Register) to add two weeks beyond the scheduled end of this forum. We will use those last two weeks to revisit, on a more detailed level, all three focus areas that will have been addressed by then—perhaps asking you to dive deeper into a few areas that, by then, show themselves as deserving additional attention.

OSTP announces Phase Two of the forum, focusing on features and technology, on 21 December 2009.

Previous DGI blog post: OSTP Wants to Know - How Best to Make Federal Research Results Freely Available?

Help Improve Data.Gov

Along with the folks at USA.gov and the folks at OSTP, the folks at Data.gov are asking for your ideas and comments. Register and log in at Evolving Data.gov with You (http://datagov.ideascale.com/) to submit suggestions or vote on ideas already submitted. This dialog site also provides a copy of the draft Data.gov Concept of Operations [PDF] plan.

US CIO Vivek Kundra put out the call for feedback via the 16 December 2009 White House blog post Changing the Way Washington Works. In it, he describes the key principles for steering Data.gov into the future:

• Focus on access
• Open platform
• Disaggregation of data
• Grow and improve through user feedback
• Program responsibility
• Rapid integration
• Embrace, scale, and drive best practices

Help Improve USA.gov

The USA.gov team has opened a website for dialog on how to improve the  federal government's official web portal. Called Your Voice Matters [http://blog.citizen.apps.gov/yourvoicematters/], the site is open for questions, comments, and ideas through 8 January 2010. USA.gov's web content manager announced the Your Voice Matters site in a December 15th post, Tell Us What You Think, on the USA.gov GovGab blog.

If you would like to participate, you must first register your username and email address at the site. According to USA.gov, ideas submitted so far include expanding to other languages in addition to English and Spanish and 'widgetizing' USA.gov content so that it can be re-used on other websites.

City-Go-Round for Transit Apps

City-Go-Round [www.citygoround.org] is a new effort to highlight transportation-related apps that have been built with open data from local transit agencies. The website also serves as a platform for encouraging transit agencies to open up their data, and it maintains a list of which agencies do and don't.

From the launch press release [PDF]:

“We are calling on transit agencies nationwide to open their data and follow the lead of the Open Government Directive issued this week by the White House,” said Mike Mathieu, Founder and Chairman of Front Seat. “City-Go-Round’s transit apps are a concrete example of how open data can improve citizens’ lives on a daily basis.”

There are 748 transit agencies in the U.S., 84 of which provide their schedule data to software developers. The largest three transit agencies with no open data are: MTA New York City Transit, New Jersey Transit Corporation, and Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company in New York. Visitors to City-Go-Round can add their name to a request for open public transit data in their city.

The City-Go-Round App Gallery is dominated by mass transit apps such as One Bus Away (real-time bus arrival times for every bus stop in Seattle), but it also has sections highlighting biking, walking, and driving apps.

New Gateway: Open Energy Info

The US Department of Energy (DOE) launched a new web platform called Open Energy Info [openei.org] on 9 December 2009. The site, built with MediaWiki, is described on the home page as "a platform to connect the world’s energy data. It is a linked open data platform bringing together energy information to provide improved analyses, unique visualizations, and real-time access to data." From the DOE press release:

The site currently houses more than 60 clean energy resources and data sets, including maps of worldwide solar and wind potential, information on climate zones, and best practices. OpenEI.org also links to the Virtual Information Bridge to Energy (VIBE), which is designed as a data analysis hub that will provide a dynamic portal for better understanding energy data.

Current gateway topics include Clean Energy Economy, Smart Grid, Buildings, and Solar. DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) maintains both Open Energy Info and VIBE.