Posted to STS-L:
I am forwarding this message, which you may have received on other lists, on behalf of the STS Government Information Committee. It is a lengthy, and important, message regarding the appropriations proposed (representing a decrease of $2.9 million) for NBII: National Biological Information Infrastructure.
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Thank you very much to those of you who have [...]
Archive of entries posted on April 2008
NBII appropriations needs your support
Liberate and disseminate – Free information freely available is the rallying cry of Erik Ringmar, who wants others to join in putting restricted documents on the web
This is an interesting approach to getting old UK government documents freely available online. From Times Higher Education:
. . . So, I’ve taken it upon myself to start an organisation called MLOP, the “Movement for the Liberation of Old Papers”. What I do is hack into restricted websites, download the documents I’m interested in, [...]
Groups Praise Orphan Works Legislation Introduced In Senate and House
From Public Knowledge:
Public Knowledge, the Internet Archive, Association of Public Television Stations and the Association of Research Libraries joined today to praise the work of Senate and House legislators for introducing legislation that would allow for greater use of “orphan works.”. . .
. . . While there are differences between the bills, the two pieces [...]
Court Sets Deadline for White House Answers on Missing E-mail
From the National Security Archive:
Responding to the National Security Archive’s motion in the pending White House e-mail lawsuit, Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola of the U.S. District Court today ordered the White House to provide “precise information” about the users of the e-mail system from 2003 to 2005 and how many of their hard drives [...]
Hearings on H.R. 5811, the “Electronic Communications Preservation Act”
From the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives:
On Wednesday, April 23 2008, at 2:00 pm in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building, the [House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives] will hold a legislative hearing on H.R. 5811, the “Electronic Communications [...]
Some Libraries Shun Google in Book Battle
From NPR’s All Things Considered:
Technology has made it possible to make books accessible to anyone, anywhere. But in the effort to digitize the world’s books, there’s a fight brewing over who should control tomorrow’s virtual libraries, and how open they should be. Some libraries are choosing to pay to digitize their collections rather than accept [...]
Publisher sues Mass. prisons chief over book ban
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
A publisher that distributes books on the legal rights of prisoners sued the chief of the state’s prison system Wednesday, claiming he is banning its publications in Massachusetts prisons.
Prison Legal News, a nonprofit publisher, alleges that Department of Correction Commissioner Harold Clarke and other prison officials refuse to add it to a [...]
Science 2.0 — Is Open Access Science the Future?
From Scientific American:
The first generation of World Wide Web capabilities rapidly transformed retailing and information search. More recent attributes such as blogging, tagging and social networking, dubbed Web 2.0, have just as quickly expanded people’s ability not just to consume online information but to publish it, edit it and collaborate about it—forcing such old-line institutions [...]
Microsoft unveils e-government platform
From Information World Review:
Microsoft has released its Citizen Service Platform (CSP) designed to help governments of all sizes deliver services to citizens via the internet.
The e-government application comes with free templates to help implement technological solutions to some of the most common issues faced by governments.
The CSP application framework, announced by Microsoft in January, claims [...]
Agencies not complying with record preservation policies
From Nextgov.com:
Agencies are not preserving e-mail records properly because of depleted staffs, an overwhelming volume of messages, and a reliance on an archaic print-and-file storing process, industry and government representatives told a congressional panel on Wednesday.
“Records management in general is afforded low priority across government,” Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at the Government [...]