GODORT Update

06.23.2007, 10:30 - 12:30

Speaker 1: Patrice McDermott

(Director, Open the Government)

• recent trends in public access to federal government information
• National Security Archive - national security issues; has FOIA-requested documents archived and made available
• ...going to introduce bill as a single piece of legislation
• W3C workshop she attended recently
  • develops interoperable technologies, guidelines, etc. for the web
  • toward a more transparent government, online
  • British government for the most part more up on this
  • allow topical tags to allow this information to be easily used in a Web 2.0 context
  • alot of gov info is locked up in proprietary systems, not XML or other interoperable technologies
  • only gov folks at this session were LC folks working on THOMAS
    • they've got a lot of information on that Congressional intranet that they're not giving us access to (not the least of which are CRS reports)
    • the reasons for not publicly providing it are political
  • "those are our records, they are not public documents, you cannot have them"
  • this attitude in government is true beyond the current administration
  • the information patrons need is down in the nitty-gritty, it's low visibility, and it's not sexy
  • every decade or so, we get Congress to pay attention and they pass legislation that's intended to get the executive branch's attention
  • e-government act: it's not the statute it was meant to be
  • because it's not sexy, it gets no political attention, and therefore no oversight
  • gov agencies don't have to organize it well; they can ignore the consulation part of the law
  • for 90% of federal websites, search remains a top requirement
    • people have to find the information for it to be useable
  • transparency isn't just about databases, it's reports and lots of things
  • people don't know what they don't know
  • no way for any of us to know all the information an agency has, much less what might exist gov-wide on a topic
  • that committment of resources is a political decision--so would be a review of those resources
  • deciding what info goes up
  • for a lot of agencies, their standard operating procedure is to not put info up online
  • companies don't want their information posted for the public to view
  • 21st-Century right to know initiative
  • keep an eye on openthegovernment.org for further developments
  • will be open to state and local levels, as well
  • 2008 elections -- we need to make this a political issue
    • get involved at your state and local levels
    • find a coalition in your state and get involved; some don't have library groups involved
    • access and accountability are not always best achieved through FOIA
      • FOIA should be your last resort, not your first, for getting gov info
  • sunshine week ideas for next year (around March 16th each year)
  • politicians are not going to talk about this or do anything unless they know that their constituents care

Speaker 2: Leah Tarbell

(Director, Information Access and Managing Editor, DNI Open Source Center (formerly FBIS))

• public access to open source intelligence material collected by the US government
• scope: all publicly available information
• vision: the nucleus of a global informaiton enterprise searving US national interests
• mission: using publicly available information to provide those who make and implement policy with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions
  • help the government exploit what's publicly available
• brief FBIS history, timeline (slides)
• 90 languages; 160 countries
  • worldwide network of independent contractors who collect information
• source and blog analysis, trends (expanding where they analyze)
• OSC and NTIS have partnered for over 15 years
• Q: opensource.gov website; available to those working for government; can patrons not get access to it?
  • only if they are a contractor with the government; they'll be able to ID themselves on the website in that case
• Q: GPO used to distribute a CD-ROM, reports through April 2004, but not since then. And where can we get access to information from the 1940's?
  • the CD-ROM info is available now through NTIS, because of copyright terms with NTIS we can't provide it directly. we are talking to our lawyers about that right now. about the 1940's, i'm not sure but will be happy to research it.
  • through Readex, some is available
• Q: do you do breakdowns of how much of your work deals with business/commercial interests?
  • there is alot abroad, but I don't have a breakdown of how much. economic is available as well, but smaller--less than 20%?
• Q: when people talk about FBIS, they think about report... but there were a lot of other materials produced in the 40's by the gov., and available at NARA; it's a vast amount of material
• how we decide what we collect
  • we work with intelligence directives
  • we do coverage assessments for the best sources
  • with new media (wikis, blogs), new tools for search assessment around key issues
    • large-scale internet exploitation project looking into this
  • 2300+ reports a day, 60% = translations, 40% English-language material

Speaker 3: Noriko Gines

(Chief, Consortium and Collections Unit, United Nations Dag Hammarskjold Library)

• UN documentatino update
• currently working with electronic resources
• our contact: Mr. Anatoli Sidorenko, chief of Outread Support Unit, Knowledge Sharing Section
  • dhldl@un.org
  • 212-963-7444
• depository program structure and UN
  • moving from collections to connections
  • publications board -- also responsible for the UN website
• small units do create the specialized webpages, but the main pages are the PB
• (break--missed some)
• ODS - Official Document System
  • free since Jan 2005
  • no enhancements to the current platform
  • future--ODS as part of ECM (enterprice content management)
  • present--ODS Enchancement Project (proof of concept)
  • create metadata for all docs in the ODS
• snapshot of current ODS interface (6 languages)
• who is digitizing UN docs, and what is being digitized?
  • all parliamentary docs after 1993 should be in ODS
  • 1998 started digi project (the library is doing this)
  • goal to digitize every paper doc in the stacks
  • one recent estimate: would require $20 million (difficult to achieve at the moment)
• who is doing it?
  • UNHQ, New York
  • UNOG, Geneva
    • also production of microfiche as a backup copy (moved here from NY HQ)
  • ECLAC, Santiago Chile (economic commission)
    • digi. own docs (all their docs are not routed to HQ, so this is the best method)
    • starting with small projects
  • ESCWA, Beirut Lebanon
    • digi. own docs
  • ESCAP, will start 1st phaseof digi of old docs in poor condition
    • digi. own docs
  • at current pace: it would take +100 years to complete: a long way to go!
• what is being digitized?
  • Security Council (SC) docs
    • take ten years as a batch (1965 - 1974; 20-29th year)
    • start with English and French
      • 6 languages are ongoing (others at Geneva)
    • English 1968 - 1992 completed (pre-ODS docs)
  • 1974 - 1992 completed in all languages
• what else? (special projects)
  • have to look at metadata to be sure ODS has what it needs for the docs
  • UN Commission on International Trade Law, 1967 - 1995, 506 docs
  • UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1979 - 1982, 234 docs
• digitization future
  • will continue...
  • large scale projects are uncertain due to limited funds
  • third party partnership is uncertain (legal issues); large search engine companies (gee, I wonder who?)
• UN Current Focus
  • increased output in:
    • peace & security
    • human rights
    • UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
    • Environment
      • new chapter on the environment (webpage research guide): May 2007
        • please send UN library any feedback
• Equity of Access
  • language equity (mandated); ODS and official websites
  • digital divide
    • 90 out of 176 countries have 10% or less
    • 70 out of 176 countries have 5% or less (MDG 2004 data)
  • content accessibility guidelines
    • DPI accessibility task force
      • to make Secretariat-wide recommendations for webmasters (Fall 2007)
• does ODS plan to improve accessibility?
  • yes, but a lot of obstacles
  • end-user interface = possible
  • "accessible" PDF doc = aware but the standards aren't implemented
  • global implementation of PDF standard is more difficult
  • mgmt decisions and financial implications
• Training
  • http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/training/dhltrain.htm
  • you're welcome to attend training courses in NY or online

Speaker 4: Barbara Corson

(Program Director for Library Services, State Library of Iowa)

• Iowa Publications Online, web-based depository for e-pubs from all Iowa agencies, and how it has expanded public access to state gov info
• history of access to state docs in Iowa
  • state library became deposiory in 1978
  • 63,00 state docs in tangible formats
  • will loan if they have a circulating copy; otherwise will scan or photocopy if a short doc
  • don't collect anything on a destruction schedule
  • Document Depository Program
    • send docs to 32 libraries around the state
• legislative titles
  • databases are intimidating to the general public
• non-leg. titles
  • driver's manual, etc.
  • vital stats
  • fishing/hunting
• barriers to acces for tangible materials
  • electronic shelving
  • most records are available through OPAC and worldcat
  • most patrons try Google first (will search worldcat soon)
  • some public libraries charge for ILL
  • physical access: 8-5 M-F (state library), hard for working patrons
  • need more catalogers
  • 12,000 titles left in older system that need to be converted to LC (separate location)
  • only make 4 shipments a year
• late 1990's Iowa pubs online
  • stopped printing many of them
  • hard to find before IPO; located on dozens of agency websites; browsers don't always find them--angecies have different attitudes about metadata
  • agencies have no committment to PPA for these online docs
• IPO
  • created a depository of docs for the general public
  • Feb 2002, change in code of Iowa state, required to come up with a permanent depository for e-gov info
  • they use e-prints
  • in process of purchasing their own server for this
  • primarily collect born-digital docs
  • have digitized a few high-demand items, but that's not their focus
    • unpublished Iowa supreme court briefs (only avail. 2 locations in paper)
    • small staff; hard to do
• metadata screen for IPO
  • subset of Dublic Core (DC)
  • 183 people from agencies deposit at least some docs into IPO
  • they enter the metadata themselves, but an editor reviews the records
  • docs could be in more than one format
• improvements
  • docs online 24/7
  • one source for many agencies
  • permanent depository
  • docs may be printed on demand
  • browsers love IPO (good metadata)
• currently about 5,000 docs in IPO (no idea of total percentage)
  • up from +1,000 in 2004
  • software "watch that page" -- monitors webpages for serial pubs -- notifies when an update has been added USE THIS
  • URL in worldcat records
• web hits to track usage
  • consistently raising
  • -3,000 (05) to 6,000 (07)
• future plans
  • ePrints software: upgrades
    • improved submission process
    • email alerts for new materials
    • RSS-enabled
    • thumbnail images of the title pages will eb available in the search results
• own server will give them
  • 24/7 access to server
  • ability to run two versions of db at once for testing and production
  • immediate access to server if problems arrive
• http://www.publications.iowa.gov/
• Q: Missouri state library stopped all print production and is doing a similar thing... when they switched to online, they thought agencies would be more cooperative, but this has not improved.
  • it hasn't improved agency submission for Iowa, either. the number of producers of agency material has only increased. agency don't even know who is producing docs on their own website anymore.

Open for Discussion

• notice: government information online (GIO); chat service open for use to anyone, anywhere; all different kinds of libraries are participating (govinfo.org); working with GPO to promote the service