From Kable Government Computing:
The National Archives has finished its Seamless Flow Programme to automate the preservation of electronic government records
The programme has developed tools and processes aiming to create a seamless process, so information created by government can be gathered by the Archives, stored and – when allowed – released online.
Archive of entries posted on August 2008
UK National Archives completes e-record preservation system
SEC Announces Successor to EDGAR Database – “IDEA” Will Make Company and Fund Information Interactive
SEC Press Release:
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox today unveiled the successor to the agency’s 1980s-era EDGAR database, which will give investors far faster and easier access to key financial information about public companies and mutual funds.
The new system is called IDEA, short for Interactive Data Electronic Applications. Based on a completely new architecture [...]
Old-school recordkeeping meets the Digital Age
From Federal Computer Week:
How does the government manage data that was born digital, meaning it was created in electronic form? Organizations as varied as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the White House, open-government groups, and House members have recently offered recommendations for managing the growing volume of such information. Their approaches underscore the [...]
Web Security Words Help Digitize Old Books
From All Things Considered:
People who use the Internet to talk to friends, set up free e-mail accounts or buy concert tickets are often unknowingly helping to digitize vast libraries of old books and newspapers.
That’s because more than 40,000 Web sites — including popular ones such as Ticketmaster, Facebook and Craigslist — are using a new [...]
Member states drag feet on European digital library
From EUObserver.com:
The European Commission has urged member states to step up efforts to make Europe’s cultural heritage available to citizens at a mouse click.
Plans for a European digital library containing books, paintings, music, film and photographs are already underway but progress on making works digitally available has been slow with funding problems and lack of [...]
Library Partnership Preserves End-of-Term Government Web Sites
Library of Congress Press Release:
The Library of Congress, the California Digital Library, the University of North Texas Libraries, the Internet Archive and the U.S. Government Printing Office today announced a collaborative project to preserve public United States Government web sites at the end of the current presidential administration ending January 19, 2009. This harvest is [...]
Reclamation Jettisoning Environmental Functions — Lame Duck Reorganization Cutting Green Jobs to Promote Outsourcing
From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is rapidly downsizing its environmental capabilities by forcing scores of Denver-based specialists to go into retirement under threat of layoff, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This massive lame duck restructuring will force the next administration to contract for [...]
Spy fear over e-mail check plan
From the BBC:
Plans to give local councils and other public bodies the power to monitor e-mail and internet traffic have been branded a “snoopers’ charter”.
The government wants to make it mandatory for phone and internet companies to store all information on personal web use for 12 months.
F.B.I. Says It Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records
From the New York Times:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday that it had improperly obtained the phone records of reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post in the newspapers’ Indonesia bureaus in 2004.
Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., disclosed the episode in a phone call to Bill Keller, the [...]
Judge Says F.B.I. Can Examine Library Computers That Scientist Used Last Month
From the New York Times:
A federal judge on Thursday authorized the F.B.I. to search two public library computers used late last month by Bruce E. Ivins, the Maryland scientist blamed in the 2001 anthrax killings, to read about the investigation into the attacks. . .
. . . Library officials turned over the computers voluntarily to [...]