Freedom of Information

Disclose Act: Super PAC Transparency Legislation To Be Introduced By House Democrats
“Amid growing concern over the growing influence of super PACs, congressional Democrats are set to introduce new legislation designed to bring an increased level of transparency to campaign-related expenditures. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) will introduce in the coming weeks an updated version of the DISCLOSE Act, the legislation aimed at increasing transparency in election spending that failed to pass Congress, in September 2010, by a single Senate vote. Senate Democrats will introduce their own version of the legislation after the House moves first. The two bills are likely to differ slightly in language, though those differences aren’t immediately known.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/disclose-act-super-pac-chris-van-hollen_n_1232008.html

White House Launches Education.Data.Gov
“The White House last week announced the launch of education.data.gov as part of the overall data.gov project. The site seeks to target developers, teachers and students. For developers, the site offers access to raw data on kindergarten through grade 12 schools, and enrollment and finance data related to colleges and universities. In addition, the site will highlight competitions for developers to design apps related to education.” http://techpresident.com/news/21667/white-house-launches-educationdatagov

Energy.gov: Where information goes to die
“We live in an Information Age. Never before have we had so much data at our fingertips, thanks to digitization and the Internet. But information is only useful if it is accessible, searchable, and intelligible. Last August, the US Energy Department proudly announced a “comprehensive website reform, making Energy.gov a cutting-edge, interactive information platform and saving taxpayers more than $10 million annually.” In short, the government eliminated 12 separate department program sites and merged them into one (with plans to add many more), upgraded the content-management system, and streamlined information into the cloud PDF. In theory, Energy.gov is now the “cutting-edge” go-to site for information on everything from home weatherization to nuclear research. In practice, however, it’s more often a black hole.”
http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/dawn-stover/energygov-where-information-goes-to-die

Public Policy

San Francisco’s Plan: Open Government, Open Data, Open Doors to New Business and Better Services
“San Francisco’s a town with a lot of mobile apps that can help its residents to navigate everyday life in the city. Routesy provides real-time transit information; Mom Maps helps both residents and tourist parents alike quickly locate kid-friendly places to hang out; Zonability helps make local zoning rules more accessible. In fact, a small cottage industry of app-makers based on government data has sprouted up since the city launched DataSF, its machine-readable online library of government statistics. Seeing the potential for more development, San Francisco has started to push government 2.0 projects as a way of promoting economic development. It turns out that San Francisco is only one of several cities that have been mulling over this idea.”
http://techpresident.com/news/21676/san-francisco-push-accelerate-government-20-economic-development-tool-could-just-be

Achieving Greater Transparency in Legislatures through the Use of Open Document Standards
“Improvements in technology over the last decade offer parliaments new opportunities to foster the democratic values of transparency, openness and accountability. Making information available on a timely basis in machine readable and re-usable format has become a vital means for enhancing the transparency of legislative bodies and for improving public access to parliamentary documents. The use of open document standards is one of the essential and effective ways of achieving these goals through technology. To address these challenges in an international context, the United Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the U.S. House of Representatives are organizing the event Achieving Greater Transparency in Legislatures through the Use of Open Document Standards. The International Meeting will be held at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. on 27, 28 and 29 February 2012.”
http://www.ictparliament.org/XMLMeeting2012

Digital History

President Clinton’s Former Chief Of Staff Says: “Yes We Scan”
“While efforts to digitize the contents of libraries has been going on for years now by organizations such as the Internet Archive and Google, the Library of Congress and, in fact, the U.S. Government, has yet to embark on its own comprehensive digitization program.  There are efforts here and there, but nothing tackling all the books, film, and other content owned by the United States. While the topic didn’t make its way into President Obama’s Sate of the Union speech last night, Mr. Obama’s former transition team co-chair, John Podesta, thinks creating a “Digital Library of Congress” comprised of “the vast holdings of the federal government” deserves executive level attention. I spoke with him by phone in the TCTV video above.”
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/25/podesta-yes-we-scan-tctv/

Carl Malamud Answers: Goading the Government To Make Public Data Public
“You asked Carl Malamud about his experiences and hopes in the gargantuan project he’s undertaken to prod the U.S. government into scanning archived documents, and to make public access (rather than availability only through special dispensation) the default for newly created, timely government data. (Malamud points out that if you have comments on what the government should be focusing on preserving, and how they should go about it, the National Archives would like to read them.) Below find answers with a mix of heartening and disheartening information about how the vast project is progressing.”
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/23/1725231/carl-malamud-answers-goading-the-government-to-make-public-data-public

Open Access

UK Parliament Policy Briefing on Open Access
“Expanding access to scientific publications and data could deliver widespread social and economic benefits. There are several ways of achieving this. In March 2011 the Minister for Universities and Science held a round table discussion to explore the issues. At this meeting the government committed to supporting efforts to expand access to both research publications and data as part of its wider “Transparency Agenda”. OA is seen by many as a key option for expanding access. However, there are challenges as well as benefits to providing OA to publications and research data. This briefing examines these separately before highlighting cross-cutting issues.”
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/POST-PN-397

Who Gets to See Published Research?
“The battle over public access to federally financed research is heating up again. The basic question is this: When taxpayers help pay for scholarly research, should those taxpayers get to see the results in the form of free access to the resulting journal articles? Actions in Washington this month highlight how far from settled the question is, even among publishers.”
http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403

Intellectual Property Issues

Door opens for Issa-Wyden online piracy bill
“The collapse in support for two anti-piracy bills last week leaves the door ajar for movement on alternative legislation offered by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).”
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/205805-this-week-in-tech-door-opens-for-issa-wyden-online-piracy-bill

What If We Asked the Librarians? Or, How The Librarians’ Code Is Different
“Today, with help from our partners at the Center for Social Media at American University, and the Law School at AU, and with support from a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, ARL is proud to unveil the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. Based on 36 hours of focus group deliberation with 90 academic and research librarians representing 64 institutions in meetings held all over the country, the Code is comprised of eight Principles that describe general circumstances where the groups found library uses to be fair, followed by Limitations that describe the outer bounds of the consensus and Enhancements that the groups thought represented salutary but not necessary steps to protect the interests of other stakeholders.”
http://policynotes.arl.org/post/16520252319/what-if-we-asked-the-librarians-or-how-the

We Have Every Right to Be Furious About ACTA
“If there’s one thing that encapsulates what’s wrong with the way government functions today, ACTA is it. You wouldn’t know it from the name, but the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a plurilateral agreement designed to broaden and extend existing intellectual property (IP) enforcement laws to the Internet. While it was only negotiated between a few countries, it has global consequences. First because it will create new rules for the Internet, and second, because its standards will be applied to other countries through the U.S.’s annual Special 301 process. Negotiated in secret, ACTA bypassed checks and balances of existing international IP norm-setting bodies, without any meaningful input from national parliaments, policymakers, or their citizens. Worse still, the agreement creates a new global institution, an “ACTA Committee” to oversee its implementation and interpretation that will be made up of unelected members with no legal obligation to be transparent in their proceedings. Both in substance and in process, ACTA embodies an outdated top-down, arbitrary approach to government that is out of step with modern notions of participatory democracy.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/we-have-every-right-be-furious-about-acta

Letter to Congress from 10 Library, Publishing, and Advocacy Organizations Opposing Research Works Act
“On behalf of these 10 national and regional library, publishing, and advocacy organizations, we are writing to express our strong opposition to H.R. 3699, The Research Works Act. This proposed legislation would unfairly and unnecessarily prohibit federal agencies from conditioning research grants to ensure that all members of the public receive timely, equitable, online access to articles that report the results of federally funded research that their tax dollars directly support.”
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/lt_oawg_3699_24jan12.pdf

January Podcast: Copyright with Lesley Ellen Harris
“For this month’s podcast, I had the opportunity to interview Lesley Ellen Harris (www.copyrightlaws.com) about copyright issues for librarians working in nonprofits. In this short podcast, Lesley shares helpful knowledge and tips that would be of great interest to the listener concerned about copyright. Here are the links to the podcast files.”
http://foundationlibraries.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-podcast-copyright-with-lesley.html

International Outlook

Spain’s Navarra Region Presents Progressive Open Government Law
“Access Info Europe has welcomed today’s publication of the Navarra region’s draft law on Transparency and Open Government, qualifying it as a “highly progressive law” which sets new standards for Spain and internationally. The draft law was developed in consultation with the public and input from expert groups such as Access Info Europe and is now subject to a further public consultation until 7 February 2012. It contains three main sections: proactive publication, the right to request information, and public participation.”
http://www.access-info.org/en/spain-coalicion-pro-acceso/215-navarra-open-government-law

Press Freedom Index 2011/2012
“This year’s index sees many changes in the rankings, changes that reflect a year that was incredibly rich in developments, especially in the Arab world,” Reporters Without Borders said today as it released its 10th annual press freedom index. “Many media paid dearly for their coverage of democratic aspirations or opposition movements. Control of news and information continued to tempt governments and to be a question of survival for totalitarian and repressive regimes. The past year also highlighted the leading role played by netizens in producing and disseminating news. Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011. Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous. The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them.”
http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2011-2012,1043.html

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.

Happy 2012, San Francisco Chapter of SLA!

I’m very excited to be serving as your President this year.  Like so many of my predecessors, I’ve decided to select a theme for my presidency, and that theme is COMMUNITY.  For me, the biggest value of my SLA membership has always been the community connections it has provided, particularly at the local level.  Through my local SLA connections I’ve developed new skills, kept informed about industry developments, hired new talent, and learned about career opportunities.  As President, I want to nurture that community, and ensure that you all have those opportunities as well throughout the year.

The most obvious way we develop community is through meetings and programs.  As a chapter, we strive to have two professional development events, two tours, and six dinner meetings in any given year, and this year is no different.  We’re already off to a roaring start, with a very successful dinner meeting featuring Scott Brown last week ( Scott’s presentation slides are at http://sanfrancisco.sla.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/SFSLA_GooglePlus_Jan2012.pdf ), and plans for a Professional Development meeting on Feb 28^th, featuring Past President Eris Weaver (see announcement at http://sanfrancisco.sla.org/2012/01/quick-dirty-strategic-planning/).  March brings us Sunshine Week, and we’re planning another panel discussion as we have in recent years.  April will be our Neighborhood Dinners, May will be our annual joint meeting with the Silicon Valley chapter, and in June we hope to have our first tour of the year, at the Asian Art Museum!  We won’t have a local event in July, but we’ll be participating in the Western States Chapter Reception at the SLA Annual Conference in Chicago, and I hope many of you will join us there.  Then in August we’ll begin our local programming again, with an event roughly every month in the second half of the year.  As we have in past years, we’re keeping registration fees low for these events, generally $25 for programs, to enable as many of you as possible to participate.  I look forward to meeting many of you at these sessions, to making connections, and to building our community.

Bayline has also been a tool for building the chapter community for many years.  It has been a very effective way to send messages, to share successes, and to share knowledge.  However, with the rollout of our new website, the board is sensing that the PDF format is showing its age.  Now, we’re beginning to explore opportunities for moving the newsletter content to the web.  I’ll be heading a small task force to look at ways to do that without losing the benefits of the newsletter.  I welcome feedback as we work through that process.

As I write this, I’m preparing to attend SLA’s annual Leadership Summit, one of the places our local SLA community meets with the larger association community.  This is an opportunity for me to learn about the organization’s plans and expectations for the coming year, and I look forward to sharing those messages with you all when I return.

Finally, I want to encourage you all to get engaged with the organization and build our community spirit.  That may be something as simple as attending an event, providing feedback on that event, or reaching out to make a suggestion for a speaker, or a topic you’d like covered in Professional Development.  The executive board welcomes your feedback and input at any time.  I hope some of you will also get engaged by volunteering to work with the organization.  We have volunteer opportunities for everyone, from simple projects like preparing name badges for meetings, right up to participating on the board.  We have several open positions on the advisory council, and we’ll be doing active recruitment in the months ahead.  Finally, I hope you’ll all reach out to your friends and colleagues and get them involved as well.  Our community will be all the stronger for the growth.

Quick & Dirty Strategic Planning

A Professional Development program
presented by
Eris Weaver

A good strategic plan is like a good roadmap; it helps you get where you want to go. Of course, you first have to decide on your destination in order to know whether you’ve arrived or not! A strategic plan doesn’t have to be a huge document that takes months to create – it’s better to have a one-page plan that is a living document, consulted and amended regularly as a guide for daily decisions. This workshop will provide guidance and a template for quick and dirty strategic planning that will help you get results.

Former SLA member Eris Weaver is a facilitator, consultant, and trainer known for her clarity, forthrightness, and humor. She became a facilitator because she has little patience for poorly run meetings – given how much of our work life is spent in meetings, it is important that we make the best use of our precious time!

Eris is deeply committed to the use of consensus and other cooperative decision-making processes to improve life within our communities and the world at large. She holds Masters degrees in Public Health and Library & Information Studies, both from University of California at Berkeley. She is a member of the International Association of Facilitators, the International Forum of Visual Practitioners. She is a Fellow of the Leadership Institute for Ecology & the Economy and an Ambassador for the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce.

Current and former clients include Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources; California Center for Cooperative Development; University of Utah Medical School; Goldfarb Lipman LLP; Community Experience Partnership; Sonoma County Energy Independence Program; Affordable Housing Associates; Napa County Mental Health Services; and the American Medical Student Association.

When: Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Agenda:

8:30 AM – 9:00 AM Registration & coffee

9:00 AM – 12:00 PM Presentation

Where: Mechanics Institute, 57 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94104
http://www.milibrary.org/

Cost: $40 for SLA members, $80 for non-members, and $25 for students, retired, and unemployed.

Registration Deadline: Friday, February 24th 2012 – CLOSED

Registration Form: Mail-in Registration

View SLA-SF Professional Development in a larger map

Freedom of Information

Dept of Energy Wants to Reclassify Some Info as “Restricted Data”
The Department of Energy has asked Congress to amend the Atomic Energy Act to allow certain nuclear weapons information that has been removed from the “Restricted Data” classification category to be restored to that category.
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/01/doe_rd.html

Now There’s a Congressional Record App for That
“I am very excited that today marks the launch of the Congressional Record App presented by the Library of Congress, an initiative of the House leadership under the guidance of the Committee on House Administration.  The goal of this new free app is straightforward – easily read the daily edition of the Congressional Record on your iPad (and maybe save a few trees in the process).  Just like the Library of Congress does with THOMAS, we are pulling together data from our  partners: the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, and the Government Printing Office.”
http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/01/now-theres-a-congressional-record-app-for-that/

“Bills To Be Considered on the House Floor” Repository
“You can now access “Bills To Be Considered on the House Floor” – a new digital repository from the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives. “Bills To Be Considered on the House Floor” provides access to any measures which may be considered on the floor in the coming week, including bills, resolutions, and amendments.  The repository, launched January 13, 2012, in time for the 2nd session of the 112th Congress, is intended to expand upon and replace the legislative announcements made on the House Rules Committee’s website throughout 2011.”
http://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/01/bills-to-be-considered-on-the-house-floor-repository/

Public Policy

Indiana Bills would put teeth in open record statute
“Public employees who intentionally circumvented public meeting and disclosure laws could be subject to fines under legislation reintroduced in the Generally Assembly. The bills would let a judge fine a person $100 for first offense and $500 for subsequent violations of the Open Door Law or Access to Public Records Act. The act requires meetings of public agencies to be open and public documents to be made available for copying or inspection except for specific exemptions spelled out in the law.”
http://www.jconline.com/article/20120117/NEWS02/201170321/Bills-would-put-teeth-open-record-statute

House of Reps Sets Conference on Public Access to Legislative Info on Feb 2
“Today, the House of Representatives announced it will host a full-day conference on public access to legislative information on Thursday, February 2. This is a big deal. It will bring together the people who create and encode legislative materials and the people that use (and transform) that information. This announcement follows on the recent launch of a House transparency portal, which in of itself will change how the public makes use of legislative information. Entitled “Legislative Data and Transparency,” the conference will include discussion of how legislative information is created, how it is made available to the public, what the impact is of current levels of public access, what improved public access would look like from a technological perspective, and the benchmarks to determine and benefits that would come from a truly transparency Congress.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/19/house-of-reps-sets-conference-on-public-access-to-legislative-info-on-feb-2/

Emanuel announces plan to reopen libraries on Mondays
“Chicago’s branch libraries will reopen on Mondays, thanks to a political end-run engineered by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.”
http://www.suntimes.com/10131449-417/emanuel-announces-plan-to-reopen-libraries-on-mondays.html

Digital History

David Ferriero response to the Yes We Scan petition on the White House’s We the People site:
Digitizing Federal Public Records
“Thank you for signing a petition asking the Obama Administration to digitize all public records. The Obama Administration believes increasing access to our collections by digitizing our records is a great idea. Our most recent efforts to do this ourselves as part of our OpenGov initiative, include the Citizen Archivist project, a Wikipedian in Residence, Tag it Tuesdays, and Scanathons. We are also moving forward on implementing the President’s recent Memorandum on Managing Government Records, which focuses on the need to update policies and practices for the digital age. But all those things aren’t enough. Your petition, and the Yes We Scan effort broadly, calls for a national strategy, and even a Federal Scanning Commission, to figure out what it would take to digitize the holdings of many federal entities, from the Library of Congress to the Government Printing Office to the Smithsonian Institution.”
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/digitizing-federal-public-records

Internet Access

Could SOPA and PIPA interfere with State Dept.’s global Internet freedom agenda?
“Two Internet anti-piracy bills working their way through Congress that are heavily backed by the movie industry could have significant impacts on technology companies, a threat highlighted Wednesday by Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing and other sites that went offline for the day in protest. As a result, some reporters have characterized the standoff over the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act – SOPA and PIPA for short – as a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. But at an event put on by The New Republic Wednesday, Alec Ross, the State Department’s senior advisor for innovation, pointed out that that this issue is bigger than California. If done wrong, anti-piracy legislation could restrict the rights of Internet users across the country – and put U.S. diplomats in a very awkward position.”
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/01/19/7899/could-sopa-and-pipa-interfere-state-dept-s-global-internet-freedom-agenda

Privacy Concerns

Inter-Parliamentary Union Condemns Government Investigation into Member of Iceland’s Parliament
“For more than a year, Icelandic Member of Parliament and EFF client Birgitta Jonsdottir—along with security researchers Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp—has fought the efforts of the Department of Justice to force Twitter to give up information about their online activities. In December of 2010, the government obtained a court order requiring, among other things, Twitter to hand over their IP addresses at login (which can be used to trace their locations) along with a long list of other information. EFF, with the ACLU and a host of private attorneys, fought back, but the U.S. courts rebuffed our efforts. The courts’ analysis is troubling on many grounds. One such ground is the fact that the courts determined Ms. Jonsdottir’s information could be seized despite the fact that Ms. Jonsdottir, whose actions on behalf of Wikileaks all seem to have occurred in Iceland, appears to have complete immunity against this investigation under Icelandic law as a member of the Icelandic Parliament. While Ms. Jonsdottir’s specific situation is unique, many non-U.S. users of Twitter are rightfully unnerved. At least according to the magistrate and judge in Virginia, all of a users’ communications records can be subject to review by the U.S. government without a warrant becuase the users chose to use an online “cloud” service that stores data about them in the U.S. But even as the U.S. courts have refused to see the dangerous implications of their rulings, others have appropriately raised alarm.  In a little noticed story last fall, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which represents members of parliament from 157 countries, issued a stunning rebuke to the United States and the Department of Justice over its investigation into Ms. Jonsdottir.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/inter-parliamentary-union-condemns-government-investigation-member-iceland%E2%80%99s

Intellectual Property Issues

US Supreme Court Rules On Golan v. Holder, Key Public Domain Case
“The United States Supreme Court today ruled on one of the top intellectual property legal cases expected this year. The case questioned whether the US Congress acted constitutionally when it restored copyright to millions of foreign works that had been in the public domain in the US. And it affirmed Congress’ actions, allowing the US to avoid questions of compliance with its international obligations.”
http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/01/18/us-supreme-court-rules-on-golan-v-holder-key-public-domain-case/

Reid postpones vote on Internet piracy bill
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has indefinitely postponed next week’s vote on the controversial Protect IP Act “in light of recent events,” he announced on Friday. The move is a resounding victory for online activists, who staged an unprecedented protest against the anti-piracy measure on Wednesday. . . Just minutes after Reid’s announcement, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said he would shelve the House’s version of the legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).”
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/205337-senate-postpones-piracy-vote

International Outlook

China says government to be more open
“China will be more open about the often secretive workings of the government and ruling Communist Party in the coming year, although strict controls over the Internet would remain in place, a senior propaganda official said Wednesday. Officials will expand the use of government spokespeople, boost the overseas reach of state media, and further promote the use of microblogs to interact with the public, Wang Chen told reporters.”
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_hi_te/as_china_openness

From the UK – Digital standards agreed for public libraries
“The heads of more than 4,000 public libraries across the UK have agreed to national digital standards, which include providing free internet access in every library, and the ability to join a library and renew and reserve items online. The Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) said that National Digital Promise will set the minimum standard for online services provided by public libraries in Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2012/jan/17/digital-standards-public-libraries

Irish National library gets digital
“For 135 years, saving paper has been its focus. But with so much of the world’s written content and images increasingly in digital form, the National Library of Ireland has embarked on a major project to digitise its collections and give equal weight to archiving new material that comes in bits and bytes. An ambitious four programmes of work were launched during the past year, approaching the digitisation task from a range of directions.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0120/1224310512980.html

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.

Freedom of Information

Administration folds in immigration FOIA fight, admits error
“The Obama Administration has quietly thrown in the towel in a long-running battle to prevent disclosure of internal legal memos about its plans to force local law enforcement agencies to participate in the controversial immigration-enforcement system known as Secure Communities. The government also admitted it made an embarrassing mistake by giving a federal judge false information last year about the circulation of one of the documents. With much of official Washington shut down between Christmas and New Year’s, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security released the long-sought memoranda on Dec. 28 to three immigrants’ rights groups that filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the documents.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/01/administration-folds-in-immigration-foia-fight-admits-110124.html

Small Wins for Transparency in 2012 Spending Package
“The fiscal year 2012 spending package signed by President Obama on Dec. 23 included some good news for government transparency and right to know. Many of the worst provisions of the bill were removed from the final compromise, but open government advocates remain concerned.”
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/11943

Agencies plan for governmentwide FOIA portal
“Three federal agencies are creating a common web portal for Freedom of Information Act requests with the intention of launching it in fall 2012. The $1.3 million portal, being built mostly with funds from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Commerce Department, with some participation from NARA, could save the federal government $200 million over 5 years were it to be adopted governmentwide, according to a NARA blog post.”
http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/agencies-plan-governmentwide-foia-portal/2012-01-10

The EPA Shines a Light on Transparency: Makes Greenhouse Gas Data Publically Available for the First Time
“On Jan. 11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released greenhouse gas (GHG) data to the public for the first time. Through an online tool, the public will be able to access critical air pollution data. With this new data, the public can hold industry accountable to ensure that emitters take responsibility for the way they are contributing to climate change. The online tool presents 2010 GHG data from 6,700 large facilities around the country in nine industry groups, including suppliers of certain fossil fuels and industrial gases. The public will be able to use the data to analyze sources of GHG pollution in their areas, compare facility and industry performance, and eventually track trends.”
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/11951

House Launches Transparency Portal
“Making good on part of the House of Representative’s commitment to increase congressional transparency, today the House Clerk’s office launched http://docs.house.gov/, a one stop website where the public can access all House bills, amendments, resolutions for floor consideration, and conference reports in XML, as well as information on floor proceedings and more. Information will ultimately be published online in real time and archived for perpetuity.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/13/house-launches-transparency-portal/

Public Online Information Act Inspires Transparency Advocacy in California
“Transparency advocates in California are drawing inspiration from the Public Online Information Act (POIA) to pursue disclosure improvements in California. POIA was introduced this Congress by Rep. Steve Israel in the House and by Sen. Jon Tester in the Senate. The new transparency organization govUNLEASHED has chosen the California Public Online Information Act (CPOIA) as its first major initiative. The proposed legislation would require any information that “reveals government agency operational conditions and their capacity to consistently deliver cost-effective public services to U.S. taxpayers” be posted online.”
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/01/13/public-online-information-act-inspires-transparency-advocacy-in-california/

Public Policy

Authentication of Primary Legal Materials and Pricing Options
“The recent passage of the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA) has brought to the forefront the issue of costs of authenticating primary legal materials in electronic format. This white paper briefly reviews five methods of electronic authentication. These methods are based on trustworthiness, file types, effort to implement, and volume of electronic documents to be authenticated. Six sample solutions are described and their relative costs are compared. The white paper also frames the legal landscape and background of authentication for primary legal materials in electronic format, and provides context and points to applicable resources. The aim of this collective effort is to promote the understanding of costs related to authentication and invite further discussion on the issue.”
http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/legislativerecords/docs_pdfs/CA_Authentication_WhitePaper_Dec2011.pdf

Internet Access

FCC to Explore Helping Low-Income Americans Afford Internet Access
“FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced Monday that he will be ordering sweeping changes to the Lifeline low-income telecommunications connectivity program. The Lifeline program was formed to help low-income Americans pay for telephone connectivity. Lifeline subscribers have been able to receive as much as $10 off their monthly telephone bills for either a landline or mobile phone. But high-speed Internet has been replacing the telephone as the main connectivity choice for Americans, and the FCC recognizes that shift.”
http://mashable.com/2012/01/09/fcc-broadband-internet/

Intellectual Property Issues

Geeks to Testify (Finally!) About SOPA Blacklisting Implications
“Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), a major opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act, announced Monday he is bringing in the techies to hold a public hearing highlighting the online security implications of a proposed bill that would force changes to internet infrastructure to fight online copyright infringement. The announcement came three weeks after a markup of SOPA in the House Judiciary Committee was abruptly postponed amid concerns over its blacklisting element, which lets the attorney general order changes to core internet infrastructure in order to stop copyright infringement. The fight pits the big donors of Hollywood against Silicon Valley, relative newcomers to the world of influence peddling. Hollywood argues that millions of jobs are lost a year due to pirate websites, while the tech world argues that the open nature of the internet has created millions of jobs and that copyright holders already have tools to fight illegal downloaders.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/geeks-sopa

Obama Administration Responds to We the People Petitions on SOPA and Online Piracy
“The White House has responded to two petitions about legislative approaches to combat online piracy. In their response, Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff stress that the important task of protecting intellectual property online must not threaten an open and innovative internet.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/14/obama-administration-responds-we-people-petitions-sopa-and-online-piracy

ARL Response to White House RFI on Public Access to Scholarly Publications
“Thank you for the opportunity to comment on “Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting from Federally Funded Research.” These comments are submitted on behalf of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). ARL is an Association of 126 research libraries in North America. These libraries directly serve 4.6 million students and faculty and spend $1.4 billion annually on acquiring information resources, of which 62% is invested in access to electronic resources. Enhancing public access to federally funded research results is a priority for ARL and its member libraries because such policies are integrally tied to and support the mission of higher education and scholarship. ARL believes that extending and enhancing public access policies to federally funded research to other science and technology agencies will drive scientific discovery and innovation, and promote economic growth. Extending enhanced public access policies to other federal agencies is long overdue.”
http://www.arl.org/pp/access/accessfunded/rfi-access-to-pubs-8jan2012.shtml

International Outlook

From the UK – The Demise of the Public Library
“A couple of years ago, after a reading in Karachi, I told off a young man who was asking me to sign a pirated copy of one of my books. Piracy is destroying publishing in Pakistan, I told him. He said he understood but added that because pirated books are cheaper he could buy more of them. It’s not as if Karachi is filled with public libraries, he said. A few weeks later, back in London, I walked into my local library and felt immensely grateful for how easily available books were — crime-free. I had no idea then of the crisis facing British libraries. Over the last year or two, you’d have had to be living under several rocks not to notice.”
http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/the-demise-of-the-public-library/

Iran cracks down on Internet as parliamentary elections near
“As Iran nears its March 2 parliamentary elections, Tehran is adding new surveillance measures over its citizens’ Internet freedoms. In a briefing on Friday, the Department of State, said that the move will cut Iranian citizens off from the “global conversation.” The announcement comes as Iranian authorities work to develop a national intranet, which would effectively replace the World Wide Web for Iranians.”
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/09/iran-cracks-down-on-internet-as-parliamentary-elections-near/

Malaysia National Archives Digitising Historical Materials
“The National Archives is in the process of digitising all historical records and materials to make it easier for the public to obtain information, National Archives deputy director-general (research and development) Daresah Ismail said. The digitisation process, carried out under the National Key Economic Area (NKEA), would also endear the public to an institution responsible for safeguarding the country’s history, she said.”
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsindex.php?id=639418

UK’s WhatDoTheyKnow.com’s public archive now contains 100,000 Freedom of Information requests
“Some time in the middle of last night, our Freedom of Information site WhatDoTheyKnow.com was used to send its 100,000th FOI request. It was a simple one, made to the Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.  WhatDoTheyKnow was launched in February 2008, with these aims: to make it easy to file a FOI request, and to keep a public archive of the requests and (more importantly) the responses received from public bodies. The Freedom of Information Act had been in force since 2005, but we wanted to make it fully accessible to people who were not journalists, lobbyists or professional operatives – it is a law that gives us all a right, not just those experts.”
http://www.mysociety.org/2012/01/12/whatdotheyknow-com%e2%80%99s-public-archive-now-contains-100000-freedom-of-information-requests/

Library use in Toronto surges in 2011, new figures show
“As city councillors spend the next week mulling reductions to branch hours, libraries across the city have just tallied up their busiest year ever. New user stats released to the Globe and Mail show that the Toronto Public Library system circulated 33 million books, e-books, DVDs and other items in 2011, up one million from 2010. The number of people borrowing those items also surged by one million, from 18 million in 2010 to 2011 last year. Those are record figures for the third year in a row, according to TPL spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/library-use-in-toronto-surges-in-2011-new-figures-show/article2300109/

Take Action!

AALL ACTION ALERT: Take Action to Oppose H.R. 3699, a Bill to Prevent Public Access to Taxpayer-funded Research
“Please take a moment to respond to our important new action alert in opposition to H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act. This bill, which was introduced on December 16 by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA-49) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY-14), would reverse the National Institutes of Health’s popular Public Access Policy, which AALL strongly supports, and prevent other Federal agencies from developing similar policies to provide timely public access to taxpayer-funded research.”
http://aallwash.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/aall-action-alert-take-action-to-oppose-h-r-3699-a-bill-to-prevent-public-access-to-taxpayer-funded-research/

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.

Freedom of Information

Effective January 1, 2012, Nevada Law Requires All Campaign and Public Official Finance Reports to be Filed Electronically with the Secretary of State’s Office; System Now Fully Operational
“Secretary of State Ross Miller’s Elections Division today launched its enhanced online system for campaign and public official finance reporting. Effective January 1, 2012, all parties filing Contributions & Expense (C&E) Reports and Financial Disclosure Statements (FDS) are required to report the information electronically with the Secretary of State’s office, as mandated by Assembly Bill 452. To access the fully operational system, visit https://nvsos.gov/SOSCandidateServices/Login.aspx.”
http://nvsos.gov/index.aspx?recordid=819&page=23

EPA Releases 2010 Toxics Release Inventory National Analysis
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing its annual national analysis of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), providing all Americans with vital information about their communities. The TRI program publishes information on toxic chemical disposals and other releases into the air, land and water, as well as information on waste management and pollution prevention activities in neighborhoods across the country.”
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/A64903C5C1540CF38525797C0064E3F5

Watching Them Watching: Issa Touts Video Archive of Oversight Hearings
“As of today, the House Committee on Government Oversight under Rep. Darrell Issa has released 1,139 videos of hearings going back to the 103rd Congress of 1993-1994, committee staff announced today. These videos, dusted off from the House committee’s archives, join hundreds more going all the way back to 1987 on House.Resource.org, a repository for archived video and hearing transcripts gleaned from C-SPAN, the House and the Internet Archive as part of a collaboration between Carl Malamud’s Public.Resource.org and House Speaker John Boehner. At the start of this Congress, Boehner asked Issa’s Oversight committee — which had been recording its own video of hearings, doubling up on video already recorded by the House Broadcasting Studio, since the 2010-2011 session of Congress — to take on archiving and publicising video of committee hearings as a pilot project. The House this year also launched its own streaming of floor proceedings.”
http://techpresident.com/news/21584/watching-them-watching-issa-touts-video-archive-oversight-hearings

Public Policy

NBII To Be Taken Offline Permanently in January
“January 15, 2012, will see the end of a long-term project to empower users of biological resources data and information. The National Biological Information Infrastructure, or NBII, was begun in 1994 within what was then the National Biological Service (NBS) of the Department of the Interior. Its purpose and mission were to ensure that scientists, resource managers, decision makers, and concerned citizens could go to a single place on the Web and find biological resources data and information from vetted sources—whether in government, academia, non-governmental organizations, or the private sector. In 1996, following the Congressionally directed closure of the NBS, the NBII was transferred along with other remaining programs of the defunct bureau and became the USGS Biological Resources Division. . . In recent years, however, the NBII—like so many other important federal programs—was plagued with budget cuts. The FY 2012 budget mandated its termination. The main Web site, www.nbii.gov, will be taken offline on January 15, 2012, along with all of its associated node sites.”
http://www.usgs.gov/core_science_systems/Access/p1111-1.html

State helps protect Baltimore archives
“Baltimore was in danger of losing many of its most precious documents several years ago. A rented building near Druid Hill Park that was used to house the city’s historic archives failed to meet even minimal standards for proper records storage. It was damp and moldy. It lacked air conditioning. The roof leaked. Water got on the floor. Snakes crawled around the building. Few of the documents were available online, and there was no equipment to scan them in. But the state stepped in, and the city’s valuable papers, maps and photos have been moved to a sturdy, climate-controlled storage facility in East Baltimore. And people are coming to use them — students, genealogists, writers, researchers of all kinds. The takeover of the city archives is part of a broader effort by state archivists to take all steps necessary to protect valuable Maryland records before they are lost forever.”
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-ar-archives-20120102,0,6687009.story

Feds aim to serve citizens better by revamping Dot-Gov
“Around the time he took office as the nation’s 28th president in 1913, Woodrow Wilson wrote that “government ought to be all outside and no inside.” That simple binary made sense 99 years ago. At the time, the results of government studies, executive orders and meeting notes were either available to the public or they weren’t. The so-called outside, where government information met the public, was limited to a few key places such as the Government Printing Office and the National Archives. With the birth of the Internet, the “outside” became effectively limitless, which has resulted in a new set of challenges. While the government is publishing more information than ever through about 18,000 websites, it’s become increasingly difficult for agency information to reach the public.”
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20120103_9677.php

Internal Chicago Public Library Memo Details Policy Changes
“While Mayor Rahm Emanuel and library employee union leaders wrangle over library hours, a memo to library employees, obtained by Center Square Journal from a reader, shows that the Chicago Public Library system has altered several other policies to compensate for the loss of staff, seemingly aimed at slowing circulation to a manageable level. Following this week’s announcement that Chicago Public Libraries will now be closed on Mondays, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) have shifted into damage control mode, each blaming the other for the unexpected reduction in hours. At issue: Faced with $6.7 million in budget cuts, CPL has been forced to layoff more than 170 employees, rendering the system unable to staff 70-plus libraries, 48 hours per week.”
http://www.centersquarejournal.com/news/center-square-journal-obtains-memo-to-library-employees-announcing-policy-changes

Open Access

New bill to block open access to publicly-funded research
“The Research Works Act (HR 3699) is a new bill to repeal the open-access policy at the NIH and block similar policies at other federal agencies. Co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), it was introduced on December 16, 2011, and referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.”
https://plus.google.com/u/0/109377556796183035206/posts/QYAH1jSJG6L#109377556796183035206/posts/QYAH1jSJG6L

Publishers Applaud “Research Works Act,” Bipartisan Legislation To End Government Mandates on Private-Sector Scholarly Publishing
“The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and its Professional and Scholarly Division (PSP) welcomed the introduction of the bipartisan Research Works Act, H.R. 3699 as significant legislation that will help reinforce America’s leadership in scholarly and scientific publishing in the public interest and in the critical peer-review system that safeguards the quality of such research. H.R. 3699 was introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Committee member Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). The legislation is aimed at preventing regulatory interference with private-sector research publishers in the production, peer review and publication of scientific, medical, technical, humanities, legal and scholarly journal articles.”
http://publishers.org/press/56/

Intellectual Property Issues

Recording industry dismisses alternate online piracy bill
“The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) dismissed an alternate online piracy bill from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) on Wednesday, arguing it is not a “meaningful solution” to the problem of online piracy. The recording industry is among the strongest supporters of another online piracy bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). That legislation would enable the government to force Web firms to delete links to foreign websites dedicated to copyright infringement.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/202327-recording-industry-slams-issa-wyden-online-piracy-bill

Is the AP’s NewsRight a Carrot or a Stick?
“The Associated Press newswire service has just launched a “news registry” and licensing service it calls NewsRight, together with a group of traditional media chains and outlets such as Hearst Newspapers and the New York Times The AP says the new entity—which it has spent more than three years developing—is primarily intended to help members track, then license, their content to websites and news services. But the AP’s long history of antagonism toward the digital news ecosystem raises questions about whether the registry is designed to be a carrot or a club with which to beat aggregators it believes are “stealing” its content.”
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/is-the-aps-newsright-a-carrot-or-a-stick-01062012.html

International Outlook

Anti-internet piracy law adopted by Spanish government
“The Spanish government has approved tough new legislation which could see websites deemed to be trading in pirated material blocked within ten days. The legislation creates a government body with powers to force internet service providers to block sites. It comes as the US plans to adopt similar tough new rules. The crackdown on piracy has been welcomed by the creative industries but criticised by net activists.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16391727

Calgary library system launches three-year strategic plan
“Calgary’s public library is taking a bold approach ahead of its centennial year — one that includes tackling proposals for a new central library, opening a Saddletowne branch and launching its three-year strategic plan. In its annual direct mail campaign, which solicits donations from card holders, officials ask Calgarians online and by mail, “What does the library mean to you?” And Calgarians have answered — with more than 2,000 responses and donations, said library foundation executive director Paul Royston. The aggressive public campaign comes on the heels of a contentious city budget process that saw a handful of alderman propose funding cuts for building a new central library as a means of keeping taxes in check.”
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Calgary+library+system+launches+three+year+strategic+plan/5936970/story.html

Flash Drives are Cuba’s Internet
“Here in Cuba, USB flash drives are used as a substitute for the Internet. People somehow manage to copy TV series, documentaries, books, movies and all kinds of information. They store these on their USBs and then they get distributed randomly. This is how we all learned the details around the capture of Osama Bin Laden. It’s the way teenagers watch the beauty pageants every year and how families are delighted for hours with Caso Cerrado (a Spanish-language TV courtroom series). It’s all thanks to our strange form of the Internet.”
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=58954

Opening Government Data in Bulgaria
“In the beginning of 2011 some open data was released by the Bulgarian government on www.parliament.bg. Visitors could export information of bills and members of parliament as XML or CSV. They could also download the votes of individual MPs or parliamentary groups as Excel files. While what data was useful and an important step forward, I found problems in the format and the exported files. Also, one could find a lot more information on the website, that could not be exported as open structured data. So I started a project to scrape the website, fix the available data, refine, enrich and link it. After several versions of the schema, the final dataset was released in the beginning of December.”
http://blog.okfn.org/2011/12/16/opening-government-data-in-bulgaria/

Take Action!

Call to action: Oppose H.R. 3699, a bill to block public access to publicly funded research
“A new bill, The Research Works Act (H.R.3699), designed to roll back the NIH Public Access Policy and block the development of similar policies at other federal agencies, has been introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives. Co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), it was introduced on December 16, 2011, and referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Essentially, the bill seeks to prohibit federal agencies from conditioning their grants to require that articles reporting on publicly funded research be made accessible to the public online. Supporters of public access need to speak out against this proposed legislation. We strongly urge you to contact these offices to express your opposition TODAY, or as soon as possible. To support you, draft letter text is available.”
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/action_access/12-0106.shtml

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.

Google + = ?

presented by
Scott Brown
of Social Information Group

Google + is arguably the fastest-growing social networking tool out there.  Not only has adoption of Google + soared, but features are also being added on an almost weekly basis.  But is it useful?  And if so, how? In this fast-paced session, you’ll get a crash course on Google + for finding information, as well as some best practices in using it to track companies and people of interest to you and your organization.

Our presenter for the evening will be Scott Brown, owner of Social Information Group (http://www.socialinformationgroup.com), an independent information practice that focuses on the effective use of social networking tools for sharing and finding information.  He has over 20 years of experience in library and information organizations, in public, academic and corporate settings.  The use of social networking has been an area of significant interest to our members, and we’re pleased to have Scott back again to discuss this hot topic.

This will be a joint meeting with BayNet.

When:  Thursday, January 19, 2012, 5:30-8:00 PM

Agenda:          

5:30 – 6:45 Registration, networking and appetizers

6:45 – 7:00 Announcements

7:00 – 8:00 Program with Q&A following

Where:  Urban Tavern in the Cheval Room, 333 O’Farrell Street • San Francisco, CA 94102     http://www.urbantavernsf.com/

Menu:   A variety of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres will be served, as will non-alcoholic beverages.  Beer, wine and cocktails will be available for purchase from a no-host bar.

Cost: $25 for BayNet and SLA members, $50 for non-members, and $20 for students, retired, and unemployed.

Registration is now CLOSED

Mail In Registration Form

Presentation Slides – January 2012

View SLA-SF Google + = ? in a larger map

Freedom of Information

2011 in Review: Four Cases That Promoted Transparency in 2011
“2011 was an important year for court decisions interpreting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Supreme Court issued two decisions that promoted government transparency and limited the scope of FOIA exemptions, while two district courts addressed how the government administers FOIA. All of those decisions will help shape FOIA to the benefit of the public.”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/four-cases-promoted-transparency-2011

Public Policy

What’s in store for government IT in 2012? One expert weighs in.
“What’s coming in 2012 is so obvious it can hardly be called a prediction: bigger data and smaller budgets. The idea of government agencies making IT investments to contend with the data explosion in a budget environment this tight may seem paradoxical, but it makes more sense than the alternative. So much sense that it just might happen.”
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20111227_9960.php

LSCM FY2011 Year in Review
“The 4th annual Library Services and Content Management (LSCM) Year in Review has been released. It addresses topics such as the Digitization Projects Registry, Needs & Offers 2.0, the GPO Access transition to FDsys, the Cataloging Record Distribution Project, the PACER: Access and Education Program, the FDsys Training Initiative, and more. Titled, LSCM’s Past, Present, and Future of Keeping America Informed: FY2011 Year in Review, this publication speaks to the roots of GPO and the FDLP, our present progress, and the future of the FDLP and the involvement of FDLP librarians in shaping that future.”
http://www.fdlp.gov/home/42-distribution/1146-yir11

Digital History

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like… Election Archiving Season!
“The United States national elections are a year away, but the Library of Congress is already busy archiving presidential campaign websites and preparing to archive House and Senate campaign sites and more starting in March 2012. This actually isn’t the earliest we’ve started – for the 2008 archive we began a full nineteen months before the election.”
http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2011/11/it%E2%80%99s-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like%E2%80%A6-election-archiving-season/

Intellectual Property Issues

U.S. Copyright Office Approves Fix for Sound Recordings
“The United States Copyright Office has recommended that pre-1972 sound recordings should be protected by federal copyright law in its Report on Federal Copyright Protection for Pre-1972 Sound Recordings.  Currently, these older sound recordings are protected by state laws under which copyright exceptions such as library and archival preservation and fair use are uncertain.  This uncertainty leads to caution on the part of music librarians and archivists to actively preserve sound recordings— some in fragile or obsolete formats and extremely rare.”
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2011/12/u-s-copyright-office-approves-fix-for-sound-recordings/

Public Domain Day 2012: Five things we can do in the US
“It’s New Year’s Day again, and in much of the world, this means another year’s worth of works enter the public domain.  That’s a cause for celebration, as Europe and many other countries that have “life+70 years” copyright terms welcome works by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Jelly Roll Morton, and Elizabeth von Arnim into the public domain.  The Communia Project’s Public Domain Day website focuses on works by these and many other authors that are entering (in many cases, re-entering) the public domain in “life+70 years” countries.  Meanwhie, folks in Canada, New Zealand, and other countries that have held the line at the “life+50 years” terms of the Berne Convention can now freely enjoy the works of people like James Thurber, Ernest Hemingway, and H.D. There’s not so much excitement about Public Domain Day in the US, where no published works are scheduled to enter the public domain for another 7 years, due to a 20-year copyright extension enacted in 1998.  But Americans don’t have to simply sigh and contemplate what might have been if our copyright terms hadn’t been extended.  The new year still provides a number of important opportunities for Americans to improve access to the public domain.”
http://everybodyslibraries.com/2012/01/01/public-domain-day-2012-five-things-we-can-do-in-the-us/

Privacy Concerns

Appeals Court Revives EFF’s Challenge to Government’s Massive Spying Program
“The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today blocked the government’s attempt to bury the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) lawsuit against the government’s illegal mass surveillance program, returning Jewel v. NSA to the District Court for the next step. The court found that Jewel had alleged sufficient specifics about the warrantless wiretapping program to proceed. Justices rejected the government’s argument that the allegations about the well-known spying program and the evidence of the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco were too speculative.”
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/appeals-court-revives-effs-challenge-governments-massive-spying-program

International Outlook

From Canada – Human Resources library closure part of troubling trend
“The announcement that the departmental library at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada will be closed in little more than a year is “a generic problem,” says the member of a group protesting recent cuts and changes to the Library and Archives of Canada. “The federal government is really cutting back on its obligations to provide library and archive services both for its own staff and for the public,” says James Turk, who is also executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. “It’s going to do damage that’s not going to be reparable.” The HRSDC library, which operates out of Gatineau and Montreal, will be shut down and its contents relocated or sold, a departmental spokesperson said in an email.”
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Human+Resources+library+closure+part+troubling+trend/5925281/story.html

Take Action!

“Yes We Scan,” A Project to Bring the Library of Congress to the Internet
“The Center for American Progress’ John Podesta and open-government pioneer Carl Malamud are heading up a new effort called Yes We Scan: A call for the federal government to do a better job of digitizing all of Washington’s many cultural treasures, from the Library of Congress to the National Technical Information Service, and making them available online. In a letter addressed to President Barack Obama and posted yesterday, Malamud calls on the White House to conduct a comprehensive review of current archiving efforts and come up with a plan on how to proceed from there. . . A corresponding petition on the White House’s e-petitioning platform, We the People, has 373 signatures. If it gets 25,000 signatures before Jan. 20, the White House will be obliged to respond.”
http://techpresident.com/news/21547/yes-we-scan-project-bring-library-congress-internet

Please feel free to pass along in part or in its entirety.

The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.