gov info

gov info - tech - web 2.0

A New Age

January 20, 2009 by 0 Comments

Today I watched my first inauguration ever. I may not be an American but I understand the importance of this event and was excited to be part of this momentous event, to be part of history. It was amazing to see him recognize the challenges and problems that lay ahead of him and to recognize the diversity in peoples and religion. Obama has a huge battle before him and I wish him all the luck and intelligence to see his country through it.

Obama represents change on a number of fronts. While I intend to follow what he does, I must admit I’m intrigued by this president’s ability to embrace science and technology and am excited to see what he does with it and what impact this has elsewhere. Obama already does weekly YouTube addresses, whitehouse.gov now has a blog, he tweets, he’s addicted to his blackberry and he promotes participation, transparency and accountability (I keep wishing Canada would follow his lead). Hopefully he will continue to embrace these technologies when he becomes overwhelmed with actual work. Libraries have been actively moving towards such technologies and Obama’s use may have a direct impact on these services we provide as others begin to use the technologies to follow and participate in their government. I watched the inauguration on CNN’s live facebook feed. This is an amazing collaboration – people changed their status as they watched history unfold – over 1 million status changes were made during the inauguration – over 4000 a minute. It became a truly social, global event and I bet that Obama’s use of technology had some part to play. I think CNN and Facebook were a great collaboration and would love to see that continue – especially during breaking news, etc. I know Twitter was also going strong but decided to save my connection for the feed itself.

Exciting times are ahead and it’s great to be part of it!

gov info

Common Look and Feel

November 24, 2008 by 1 Comment

The Government of Canada is rolling out a Common Look and Feel for all of their websites. While in theory, this is may be a good idea, I’m not sure I’m a fan of it. StatCan has started changing their site and while it has always been in need of work, I think this might be a step backward. I admit, I haven’t spent much time on the site to completely flush it out yet, but I am disappointed. The site search used to highlight the type of information, and it still does, but it seems more clunky. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I had just gotten used to the previous site. I will give it a shot but I’m not holding my breath. Take a look and see what you think.

CLA - gov info

New Unofficial AGIIG Blog

October 16, 2006 by 0 Comments

Well, I’ve got the Unofficial Access to Government Information Interest Group (AGIIG) blog up and running and announced. I’ve already had some good feedback. I’m hoping the blog will act as a means to discuss issues facing gov pubs and gov pubs librarians. While we all know there are issues, it’s difficult for all of us to come together and talk about what’s happening and what we need to do. What better use of a blog is there!

gov info - library 2.0

Government RSS

September 7, 2006 by 0 Comments

As I try to catch up on the backlog of rss feeds in my Bloglines account, I came across this and thought I would share (for all those gov pubs enthusiasts – and I know you think it’s your dirty little secret but it’s time to be proud of your love for gov pubs). FirstGov now has a list of many of the US government RSS feeds. A nice neat place to sign up for feeds. I’ll pass on any other neat things that I may have missed over the summer.

gov info

E-gov Pubs

September 7, 2006 by 0 Comments

As I do collections in gov pubs, am I very interested in figuring out what to do with e-gov pubs, especailly when it comes to access and preservation. Two reports have been released from the University of Albany’s Center for Technology in Government. Guess what I’ll be reading over the next while. I’ll pass on any good hints and tips. I’m still intrigued by the use of Internet Archive for documents and will continue to mull over this.

gov info - library - web 2.0

Trouble coming?

July 28, 2006 by 0 Comments

I’m sure many have posted on this, but as a Canadian, this was the first time I took a look at the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) in the States (House Resolution 5319). If passed, it will force schools and libraries to block anything that allow users to post profiles, personal information and allow communication among users or lose federal internet subsidies. This could be a terrible blow to the Web 2.0 movement and seems to be mostly backlash at MySpace. I understand the need to prevent predator’s from approaching children, but educating children on proper use of the web may be the most important step. Despite this being an American resolution, I will be keeping my eye on it, just in case Canada feels the need to follow our neighbours to the south. For more info, check out the post from Techcrunch, which offers links to other sites talking about DOPA.

gov info

At Last!

July 26, 2006 by 0 Comments

Well, now that you’ve probably everything you ever wanted to read about the major conferences this year, I’m finally able to put in my two cents worth. Today I’ll be concentrating on CLA.

I actually only attended 1 day of the Canadian Library Association Annual Conference in Ottawa, but what a day to go. I attended the Government Information Track, sponsored by the Access to Government Information Interest Group (more news on this group in a moment). The day consisted of 3 panel discussions.

What are you talking about? Interpreting, understanding and answering government reference questions

This panel included Mike McCaffrey, Ian McDonald and George de Zwann. Mike went over the types of questions (bibliographical, directory/services, statutory/regulatory, legislative/political, administrative, statistical and historical) and stated that the road to improvement incorporates  literacy (political, arithmetic or statistical, legal), literature in the field, a systematic study of your collection and  library schools and colleagues. Ian highlighted the activities of the Library and Archives of Canada (LAC), including the recent merge with  the Archives of Canada.  George followed with the activities of the Archives of Canada. This was the best attended session, despite it’s early time slot. This highlights librarians  ill-ease with government publications and the need to know more about them. With libraries  losing gov docs librarians, seeing gov doc reference desks merged with reference desks, and the increasing number of gov docs on the web, it’s not surprising that interest  in gov docs reference help is high.

 

Preservation of Web-based Government Information

John Stegenga, Annemarie Toth-Waddell, and Julie Schwartz formed this panel. All three gave examples of different approaches to preserving web-based gov pubs. John noted LAC’s use of a more homegrown approach. Annemarie of the Ontario Legislative Library spoke of her library’s use of a commercial software. Julie, of the Connecticut State Library, shared her experiences of using a more supported commercial service (OCLC Digital Archive). All stressed the importance of partnerships for the future of web-based gov pubs.

The Future of Accessing Government Publications

Gay Lepkey, Liz McKeen, and Nancy Brodie tackled this daunting topic. A number of problems were highlighted, including the need to keep better statistics for gov pubs use. Statistics will make it easier to fight to keep these important documents. They also highlighted what is being done, particularly by LAC.

Well, a very brief overview of what happened in the panels. As usual, while the sessions were enlightening, I found many of the conversations held between the sessions particularly useful. Conferences are essential to keeping connections and sharing knowledge.

I mentioned CLA’s Access to Government Information Interest Group (AGIIG) as the sponsor of the above track. In addition to teaching a distance course on reference this fall, I have also agreed to become the new Convenor for AGIIG.  I’ve got some big shoes to fill and hope I can forward this group further in their work. Wish me luck!

 

gov info

Thinking Ahead

April 27, 2006 by 0 Comments

Free Government Information wrote a little piece on the Library of Parliament in Canada. Questions have been raised about preservation. The response is that print is still important. I believe in this whole-heartedly. Electronic is a great medium for access but preservation of electronic information leaves a lot to be desired yet. I'm heading a group at my library to try to figure out what can be done with electronic government publications. The issues are enormous, preservation is just one. I'm also concerned with accessing the many of hidden government documents. More to come on that when solutions are found.