SLA Government Information Division

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).

FOIA Tip: Reading a DoD Document

The National Security Archive blog, Unredacted, offers a new 2-page PDF guide to interpreting U.S. Defense Department documents released in response to a FOIA request. From the blog post:

More than documents from any other agency, DoD records can read like Greek, full of acronyms, abbreviations, stamps, and numbers...We devised some guidance for readers of declassified documents to make sense of at least the basic features of an ordinary DoD headquarters document, in this case a 1971 letter to Henry Kissinger from the Secretary of Defense.

US Archives: New Archivist, New Collections Protection Team

Sharing a sense of history, in today's Washington Post, profiles tenth Archivist of the United States David Ferriero. A brief video accompanies the article. Ferriero, sworn into office on 13 November 2009, is the first librarian to hold the position.

Ferriero announced the creation of a new National Archives Holdings Protection Program today. The press release states:

The Holdings Protection Program will serve as a nationwide resource developing and administering policies to enhance holdings protection of original records, regardless of their format to reduce the loss of and aid in the recovery of holdings while ensuring ready access for research by all stakeholders.

Grey Literature Conference Dec. 14-15 at the Library of Congress

Grey Mosaic: Piecing it all Together, the 11th annual International Conference on Grey Literature, will be held December 14-15, 2009 at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

As would be expected, sessions cover such topics as uses of grey literature, access to grey literature, and preservation/repositories for grey literature. 

You can view abstracts for each of the sessions at http://www.textrelease.com/gl11program.html

The poster sessions sound interesting too.  Several have a sci/tech focus, including two by DTIC and OSTI (Defense Technical Information Center and US DOE office of Scientific and Technical Information, respectively.)

Poster titles can be seen here http://www.textrelease.com/gl11program/posterpresentations.html

If I were in the DC area I'd be tempted to attend all or part of the conference, but that's not the case.  If you attend, I'd love to hear from you. - Nora

Free Online Gov 2.0 Conference

O'Reilly Media Inc. is sponsoring a free, online Government 2.0 conference on 10 December 2009.The O'Reilly Gov 2.0 Online Conference, Winter 2009 will feature the five most popular presentations from the O'Reilly/TechWeb Gov 2.0 Expo held in September 2009 in Washington, DC.

The Gov 2.0 online conference has a half-day agenda, from 9:30am to 12:30pm US Pacific Standard Time (noon-3:30pm US Eastern Standard Time). Although the conference is free, you must register. For details, see:

• Conference home page
• Agenda
• Reservation page

Revised Google Books Search Settlement Filed

Parties submitted a revised class action settlement 13 November 2009 in The Authors Guild Inc. et al. v. Google Inc., otherwise known as the Google Book Search Settlement. The settlement was filed so late on Friday night that comprehensive reviews and analysis are still being written. For now, here are some good summaries:

Amended Settlement Filed in Authors Guild v. Google, from the Authors Guild website

Modifications to the Google Book Settlement, from Google Public Policy blog (links to amended settlement agreement [PDF])

Revised Google Book Settlement Filed & Live Blogging the Press Call, from Search Engine Land

Open Book Settlement Revised: Open Book Alliance pans it as a mere 'nip and tuck', from ZDNet's Between the Lines blog

Is the Google Books Settlement Worth the Wait?, from Open Book Alliance website

SLA is a member of the Open Book Alliance.

Google's official site for settlement news and documents is www.googlebooksettlement.com. More information should be posted there in the near future.

World Usability Day Focus: Sustainable Design

The theme for World Usability Day 2009, organized by the Usability Professionals Association, is "Designing for a Sustainable World." Online and in-person events are scheduled on and around the day, 12 November 2009. The schedule of 2009 events around the globe includes workshops, contests, freebie offers, open houses, and even BBQs. Not all events incorporate the sustainability theme.

The library world usually intersects with the usability world on the topic of information design, such as website usability. The US government has a World Usability Day web page on the WebContent.gov site and offers links to two educational videos, one on usability and one on using plain language. (Note: Some of the WebContent.gov information and services are for government employees only.) The videos:

http://www.howcast.com/videos/241198-How-To-Increase-Usability-Of-Government-Websites-and-Boost-Your-ROI/

http://www.howcast.com/videos/241179-How-To-Use-Plain-Language-on-a-Government-Website/

Privacy and the Congressional Record

Stars and Stripes newspaper online has an interesting story to tell about the military, the Congressional Record, and redacting information from old government documents. The story is fascinating and detailed, so best to read the original article, Military lags in safeguarding officers' identities by Charlie Reed.

Cory Doctorow has also blogged about it today at boing boing. In his post - Congressional record exposes military officers to identity theft, covers up - Doctorow reprints remarks by Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org, the protagonist in the story.

Afghanistan Population Estimates in Flux

Today's Washington Post carries a column about revisions to the official U.S. estimates of the Afghanistan's total population count. I could do without some of the column's snark, but the topic is of interest to reference librarians everywhere. In All those Afghans, give or take a few million by the Post's Al Kamen, we learn that the statistic has been changed from 33,609,937 to 28,396,000 in the CIA World Factbook. Kamen writes that the CIA "apparently posted the new numbers last week".

The Factbook's entry for Afghanistan now carries the note: "This is a significantly revised figure; the previous estimate of 33,609,937 was extrapolated from the last Afghan census held in 1979, which was never completed because of the Soviet invasion; a new Afghan census is scheduled to take place in 2010." The Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB), a source for the Factbook's population estimates, included Afghanistan in a list of "26 countries and areas updated to include new data and/or analysis" in their June 2009 release notes. The IDB uses the figure 28,396,000.

In his column, Kamen refers to an online forum discussion by the State Department's specialist Steve Donnelly. The discussion is hyperlinked from the online version of the Post and can be found on the Small Wars Council website at http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=8797. This brief discussion thread, active for the past week, makes for an interesting lesson in population estimates.

New Office of Government Information Services Now Online

The new Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has begun operations. 

The role of OGIS, as described on their new website, is to:

• provide services to mediate disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies
• review policies and procedures of administrative agencies under FOIA
• review agency compliance with FOIA
• recommend policy changes to the Congress and President to improve the administration of FOIA

OGIS was established by the OPEN Government Act of 2007, Public Law 110-175. The law amends sections of the Freedom of Information Act; OGIS has posted a list of the provisions related to the office.

The new director of OGIS is Miriam Nisbet, who has previously served in the Washington office of the American Libraries Association and as Special Counsel for Information Policy at NARA.