Vincent G. Rinn Law Library

Federal Register Made Available in “XML” …..So ?

The White House Blog announced on October  5  that the Government Printing Office (GPO) is making ten years of the Federal Register available in what is called XML format. Future funding will allow making  the remaining issues  from 1994 – 2000 available, as well. So why does this matter to readers of the Federal Register ?

Actually, right now  it doesn’t matter much to most of us end-users who just search and read relevant sections of the Federal Register either in paper copy  or on an online database. That is because XML is a machine readable computer language that is meant to be applied by those who have a certain level of computer expertise. They will be the ones who will employ XML  “to transport data from a Web site and store it, reorganize it or customize it elsewhere.” As Beth Noveck, director of the White House Open Government Initiative, says “…people can manipulate it and customize it and reuse the content to make the information even more accessible,"

So it will be creative applications using XML that will eventually filter down to most of us on the end user side. Some of these uses are mentioned in the White House post, “For example, Princeton's Center for Information Technology is today set to launch Fedthread.org, which allows users to annotate the Federal Register and comment in its margins. Another organization, Public.Resource.org, has created a software application that makes it simpler to search the Federal Register. And GovPulse makes it possible to visualize the Federal Register by topic or by location so the reader can see how particular government actions affect different local communities.”

In  an ABA journal website story,  Mary Alic Baish from the American Law Library Association calls the change "a win-win situation for business, the regulatory community and consumers." "We see law libraries being able to use the data for empirical research by law professors who want to track agency activities. For being able to track trends in the regulated industries. Even for studies of semantics and language,"

So while for many of us, XML  is just an acronym. For law librarians and other information providers these developments will open up whole new areas of enhanced services for our clientele.

Bloated & Outdated Browser Bookmarks ? - “CheckPlaces” a Firefox Add-On to the Rescue!

Over the years,as my browser file of bookmarks grew to almost unmanageable proportions, I wondered why no one had developed some software to automatically check for the validity of all these URLs. I recall asking my more computer-savvy colleagues if they might be  aware of such a marvelous application.

But no luck, until recently when our local computer tech discovered just such an app as a Firefox Add-on, called “CheckPlaces”.  It was developed by Andy Halford who introduced it in July 2009. The fourth release in Sept.13, 2009, is available now.

“CheckPlaces” checks all the bookmarks. You can delete all the broken bookmarks, or choose to delete them selectively. If you have hundreds of bookmarks, it can take a few minutes to check. But  once it has identified the dead URLs and duplicates, you can delete them wholesale and emerge with a slimmer more useable collection of bookmarks. Thanks Andy !

    
          

CheckPlaces  only works with Firefox v3 and above. If you want to give it a try, you can downloaded it from these sites:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10897

http://www.andyhalford.com/checkplaces/

"FDsys", the New GPO Online Public Information System Almost Out of Beta

In the early 1990s the Government Printing Office (GPO) implemented GPO ACCESS, a service that provides free electronic access to a wealth of important information products produced by the Federal Government. It has been a mainstay for providing digital government information into the present. But a new online system called FDsys is being deployed that will succeed GPO access and provide significant  additional functionality. Content is being migrated to the new system from GPO access. The process should be completed later this year when GPO access will be retired.

The three main functions of the new system are described as:

• FDsys is a Content Management System —  FDsys securely controls digital content throughout its lifecycle to ensure content integrity and authenticity

• FDsys is a Preservation Repository —  FDsys follows archival system standards to ensure long-term preservation and access of digital content

• FDsys is an Advanced Search Engine —  FDsys combines extensive metadata creation with modern search technology to ensure the highest quality search experience 

To prepare GPO Access users for using the new system, GPO staff have developed several introductory instructional videos about using FDsys:

FDsys Overview (Adobe Flash) - This video is a brief overview on the background of FDsys.

FDsys Simple Search (Adobe Flash) - This is a video tutorial on how to perform simple searches within the system and filter your results.

FDsys Advanced Search (Adobe Flash) - This is a video tutorial on how to perform advanced searches and citation searches within the system.

FDsys Browse (Adobe Flash) - This is a video tutorial on how to browse for government publications within FDsys.

Law Librarians Initiate Petition On PACER Service

A group of law librarians have drawn up a petition regarding the PACER litigation documents service operated by the Administrative Office of the US Courts (AO).On September 11 a representative from Stanford Law Library, University of Texas Law Library and from the Georgetown Law Library will present the petition to the AO and the staff of the Judiciary and Appropriations committees and also Senator Lieberman's office.(Source e-mail on GovDoc-L )

Earlier this year, Senator lierberman had written the AO with concerns about the costs of  using the PACER service and inquiring why free public access might not be feasible. ( See blog posting: "Fees For Judiciary PACER Service Questioned by Sen. Lieberman" )

Also, an in-depth artice "The case against PACER: tearing down the courts' paywall"  from arstechnica.com , strongly argues for the AO paying attention to a much broader constituencies and removing the registration and cost barriers to users which would include third parties who could remix the data in new and useful ways.

The petition specifically asks for:

•  For verification and reliability, the AO should digitally sign every document put into PACER using readily available technology.
•  PACER needs to be much more readily accessible if it is to be usable for research ,education, and the practice of law. Improved accessibility includes both lowering the costs for using PACER and enhancing the web interfaces.
•  Depository libraries should also have free access to PACER.

Initiatives like the Carl Malamud's Public.Resource.org, Justia's harvesting of users paid-for PACER documents and most recently, the Firefox extension created by the Center for Information Policy at Princeton which captures PACER content and sends it to the Internet Archive for access, are also putting pressure on the AO to re-examine how the PACER service has been operating for over 20 years.

The current law librarian petition joins these stakeholders who are also pushing for change in the PACER service.

New Google Operating System – More About the Web Than the Box

The announcement that Google plans to develop its own operating system ( OS ) that can be used on the newer smaller netbook computers, has people wondering whether this may fundamentally challenge Microsoft in its  traditional stronghold.

Microsoft is well aware of the growth in the market for netbooks for which it’s desktop versions of  Vista and Windows-7 OSs are ill-suited. It has aggressively  pushed an abbreviated version of Windows for use in these netbooks.  This is meant to blunt the growth of Linux OS-based netbooks in the market. However, now it looks like Google is stepping into this market by developing its own Linux based OS for use in the web-centric netbooks.

However, there may be more than just the current competition for the netbook market, occurring here. A clue to what may be Google’s broader vision and plans, is the fact that their new OS is based on their recently introduced internet browser, Chrome.  In addition, Google has also been releasing what use to be traditional Windows desktop applications such as word processing  and  spreadsheets, for use over the internet.

If more applications can be moved to “the cloud” on the internet, the smaller the role for an OS inside the “computer box”, and the greater the need for an OS that fully integrates with this emerging “cloud computing” and the central tool that mediates this: the internet browser. It appears that Google’s new Linux-based OS is aimed directly at furthering this process which means that less software will be needed on the computer box itself, to run applications.

Competing versions of the Linux OS and non-Windows application packages like Google Apps , Open Office and Star Office,  have yet to seriously challenge the Windows OS dominance on computers  worldwide. Perhaps, Google’s “end around” the software in the computer box, via a web-centric OS and cloud computing applications, may yet present a more effective challenge to Microsoft.

Sources:

Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Google Blog, 7/07/2009

Google Challenges Microsoft With New Chrome Operating System
By Thomas Claburn  InformationWeek   July 8, 2009

Google to challenge Microsoft with launch of own operating system
Press Trust of India / Washington July 8, 2009

Would You Miss Windows With a Google Operating System?
By Saul Hansell   New York Times,  July 8, 2009

Chicago City Council Page Revamped by City Clerk

A June 2009 notice on the City Clerk’s website announces significant changes to its City Council pull down menu.

Here are some highlights of the enhancements :

UPDATED and REORGANIZED PULL DOWN MENU

•  A new menu heading Key Legislation/Votes includes: Key Introduced Legislation, Key Passed Legislation, City Council Attendance Records and Divided Roll Call

•  A new menu heading All Introduced/Passed Legislation includes: Journals of the Proceedings, Introduced Legislation Referred to Committee, Budgets, Guides to the Journals of the Proceedings, Annual Index of All Passed Legislation

•  A new menu heading Committee Calendar includes: A monthly calendar listing the date of every Committee meeting, including their Committee meeting Notices, Agendas and Summaries

•  Municipal Code continues to take you to the AmLegal website which hosts the City’s Municipal Code online.

Also a notification from librarian Jean Wenger of the Cook County Law Library informs users that :

“The blue Guide to Legislation that has accompanied the Journal of the Proceedings of the City Council of Chicago was discontinued with the December 17, 2008 meeting. The City Clerk now issues a Legislative Index that is available in the last print volume of the Proceedings for a particular meeting. The Legislative Index is available as a link from a meeting's Table of Contents on the website. Scroll to end of the Table of Contents.

In the Legislative Index, listings of Municipal Code amendments are available under the heading "Municipal Code (Amendments)" from the December 17, 2008 through the April 22, 2009 meeting. Starting with the May 13, 2009 meeting, see the heading "Municipal Code" for adopted amendments. Adopted amendments are listed as passed.”

"Data.gov" Debuts Promising Huge Quantities of Re-usable Government Data

In a Fall 2008 article in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, entitled, "Government Data and the Invisible Hand",( 11 Yale J.L. & Tech. 160 (2009), the authors recommended that,"In order for public data to benefit from the same innovation and dynamism that characterize private parties’ use of the Internet, the federal government must reimagine its role as an information provider. Rather than struggling, as it currently does, to design sites that meet each end-user need, it should focus on creating a simple, reliable and publicly accessible infrastructure that “exposes” the underlying data." It appears that an initiative from the Obama administration may actually be fulfilling this recommendation.

In late May this year, the Obama  administration launched a new website called "Data.gov" (www.data.gov) which will provide any public user with access to government information and statistical databases which can be used  to create new web applications that help individuals, communities, and businesses. The site will include data generated across all federal agencies. It will be accessible in two forms: the "raw" data catalog and using tools. The "Raw" Data Catalog provides an instant download of machine readable,platform-independent datasets while the Tools Catalog provides hyperlinks to tools that allow you to mine datasets.

The website currently has searchable catalogs, with access to 261 ‘‘raw’’ datasets and 30 information tools.The catalog of tools links to sites that include data mining and extraction tools. Datasets and tools are searchable by category, agency, keyword, and/or data format. Check the site frequently as the government intends to place much more information on the site over time.

There is a concern from the wording of a part of  the " Data Policy" with which users must agree:
"This Data Policy is intended only to improve the internal management of information controlled by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and it is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit," [ against the US government ]. This is probably mostly legalese that is required to be there. But it also means the the continuation of any part or all of this service, is at the discretion of the executive branch. There is no legislation that guarantees it's continuing presence.

New "Google Public Data" Service To Use Innovative "Gapminder Software"

A posting on the April 29 Google Blog announces an initiative by Google to use new software to make public statistics from the US government much more accessible and useful for users than the standard tables and cross tabulations usually available from government agencies.  The tool, is called Google Public Data. The software converts the statistics into visual time series that  make representation & analysis much easier and intuitive.

The posting says that this is just the beginning of more sophisticated presentations to follow. The software that Google is using for this project was developed by the Gapminder Foundation founded in Stockholm, Sweden by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Hans Rosling in 2005.

They called their creation, Trendalyzer software. The website states that ,"This software unveils the beauty of statistical time series by converting boring numbers into enjoyable, animated and interactive graphics." While Google's first efforts are to apply it to US government statistics, the Gapminder foundation has been applying it to international & UN statistics to help dispel many myths about economic & social development in the world.

To really see the power of these visual applications, one should view a couple of the videos of the presentations that Hans Rosling has made using this powerful presentation software. Several of these can be found at the Gap Minder videos page at  http://www.gapminder.org/videos/

Seeing what is possible by employing the Trendalyzer software holds great promise for Google's own project to make information from federal, state and local governments accessible to citizens.

GPO Launches Federal Digital System ( FDsys)

A previous posting on this blog, New GPO "Future Digital System" Now In Beta, alerted users of online US government information about the testing of the new system intended to replace the previous online information service, GPO Access. Yesterday, GPO ( Government Printing Office) announced the official launch of the new knowledge management system, FDsys. Migration of content from GPO Access is still underway. See below for what is available now :

What's Available?

FDsys provides free online access to official Federal government publications. Through FDsys, you are able to

• Search for documents and publications
• Access metadata about documents and publications
• Download documents and publications in multiple renditions or file formats.

In many ways, using FDsys is similar to conducting a typical web search. When you enter a search query  FDsys will locate relevant information for you, just as if you were using any other search tool. After inputting your search terms, you will be provided with a list of relevant results, which can be narrowed down and filtered.

Currently, there are eight collections available in FDsys. Additional collections will be made available as they are migrated from GPO Access. The collections currently available are listed below.

• Compilation of Presidential Documents    • Congressional Bills
• Congressional Documents     • Congressional Hearings
• Congressional Record     • Congressional Reports
• Federal Register    • Public and Private Laws

Illinois State Bar Association Provides Members with Subscription to Fastcase

In an  article in the April,2009 issue of the Illinois Bar Journal, Helen W. Gunnarsson, a lawyer in Highland Park, and an  Illinois Bar Journal contributing writer, does a pretty good job of selling ISBA  members on their newest benefit of membership. As she points out, Fastcase can provide a cost-effective alternative or complement to the pricier "gold standard" services of Lexis and Westlaw. Members get access to the Fastcase national appllate plan as part of their basic membership dues.

Fastcase was founded in 1999 by two D.C. attorneys who were looking  to offer ".. lawyers an affordable alternative or supplement to other commercial legal research services." Other competitors in this market include Loislaw, Versuslaw, Casemaker. " Fastcase now serves almost 340,000 lawyers and has partnerships with bar associations in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, among other states."

Since Fastcase does not have all the services that Westlaw or Lexis can provide, it does provide links to ChoicePoint and NewsLibrary.com for searches of public documents, newspapers and legal forms.  Links for transactional use of Shepards or KeyCite are also provided since Fastcase concedes that "We do not hold [ Fastcase's] "Authority Check"  out as a complete replacement for [these] services."

Fastcase appears to have come up with an innovation of its own, the Interactive Timeline feature which provides a visual display of search results between a vertical axis with relevance values ranging from zero to 100 percent and a horizontal axis showing dates.

Users see a graph with circles of various sizes depending on the number of cases and by hovering their mouse over the circle without clicking they can identify a case, some relevant language from its text, and the number of times it's cited in the Fastcase database.

This may prove to be a useful addition to the traditional methods of displaying search results. It will be interesting to see if other online legal research providers will also make use of a similar technique.