December 2, 2003

Government Documents Digital Projects

Check out the Digital Government Document's Clearinghouse, a project of the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table.

The goal of the project is to collect information to facilitate cooperation and partnerships between libraries for digitization projects. They hope to do so by providing a centralized database of digital resources for local, state, federal, and international government documents that are currently planned, in progress, or already completed.

You can add a project (not necessarily your project) to the database, or search it by keyword (though I'm certain they'll have more sophisticated retreival of the information once the project is completed). From what I can tell, there are already in excess of 150 digitization initiatives already entered into the database.

Posted by michael at 4:00 PM

April 28, 2003

The Ohio House of Representative

The Ohio House of Representative may pass bill that would limit government agencies ability to provide free information on their websites. The bill, HB 145, had been voted down last year, but was attached to this year's budget bill without any debate.

The bill is based on non-compete laws, the idea that government agencies should not compete without private enterprise. If the bill were to pass information provided by at least two private corporations, would not be also legal to post on any government websites. This article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer explains it more.

A silly example - if you can wal into a rest stop along any Interstate in Ohio and pick up a free roadmap, provided by the state, despite the fact that if you'd walked into the gas station only a few steps away, you'd have to pay for a similar map. But if you wanted to download an Ohio map online, you couldn't because Mapquest and Expedia already provide that service.

This really punctuates the continuing mind-set of some legislators that the Internet is somehow outside the scope of traditional government services, rather than what it really is, just an extension of those services in a new form. Citizens are legally entitled to free government information. Yet, somehow when that information is provided online, in a more readibly available manner, it is subject to different rules.

(links via (beSpacific)

Posted by michael at 12:16 PM