From News.com:
In an update to NASA archive news posted earlier this week, the space agency has officially announced plans to develop a massive online archive of photography, film and video from its 50-year history. The archive will be developed under a five-year agreement with the Internet Archive, which will host the free site and help [...]
Archive of entries posted on August 2007
NASA to launch photo, film library
About PolitiFact
The St. Petersburg Times of Florida and Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C. – two of America’s most trusted, independent newsrooms – have created the site to help voters separate fact from falsehood in the 2008 presidential campaign.
Journalists and researchers from the Times and CQ will fact-check the accuracy of speeches, TV ads, interviews and other [...]
White House Declares Office Off-Limits
From the Washington Post:
The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House [...]
Anonymous Lawmaker Helps to Build OpenCRS Database
From the Center for Democracy & Technology:
A member of Congress has agreed to provide CDT with a running list of new Congressional Research Service reports in order to help bolster CDT’s OpenCRS project, which provides the reports to the public at no cost. CRS generates in-depth, non-partisan research on a wide range of issues critical [...]
Metavid, hosted by The University of California at Santa Cruz
Metavid is a project which seeks to capture, stream, archive and facilitate real-time collective [re]mediation of legislative proceedings. Metavid makes use of entirely free and open source software and video codecs to make both the footage and the architecture of the site available, accessible and recontextualizable.
Internet Safety Education May Be Catching On in Congress
From the Center for Democracy & Technology:
It seems Congress may be getting the message that Internet safety education — rather than mandatory censorship or burdensome regulatory regimes — represents the brightest hope for protecting kids online. In recent weeks, we’ve been pleased to see bills introduced in the House and Senate that direct the Federal [...]
China: Attacks on Media Violate Olympic Commitments
From Human Rights Watch:
One year before the 2008 Olympics open in Beijing, the Chinese government is violating commitments on media freedom it made to the International Olympics Committee by continuing to harass, intimidate and detain foreign journalists and their local colleagues, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 40-page report, “You Will Be [...]
Scan This Book!
From Library Journal:
In the race to digitize the public domain, is the future of the library at stake? An interview with the Open Content Alliance’s Brewster Kahle
For all the potential of Web.2.0 technologies, our literary future still rests on what we make of our past, specifically, the centuries of ideas and human thought recorded in [...]
Government Information in Legacy Formats: Scaling a Pilot Project to Enable Long-Term Access
From D-Lib Magazine:
Despite the software and hardware problems that these CD-ROMs pose, the main challenges of a large-scale CD-ROM “rescue” project are not primarily technological. Files from CD-ROMs can be systematically copied to redundant, stable server environments. Obsolete file formats can be migrated to non-proprietary formats for continued use of the data; unusual or obsolete [...]
EPA Libraries Update
From ALA’s District Dispatch:
Members of the library community (representing ALA, SLA, AALL, MLA, and FLICC) met with representatives of EPA on July 25, 2007 at ALA’s Washington Office. While the EPA seems to be making efforts to be more transparent and include the library community in the planning, they seem to have a long way [...]