Carl Malamud posed this question over on twitter: "What if our national cultural institutions all worked together on a common problem, attracted White House support?" In his post on the O'Reilly blog, "A National Scan Center: A Public Works Project", Malamud scopes out the issues and calls for Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Government Printing Office, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the National Technical Information Service to come together and make the compelling case for funding a 5-year $500 million effort to create a National Scan Center. Here here Carl!

In the U.S., we face a similar deluge of paperwork that we faced in the 1930s. A huge backlog of paper, microfiche, audio, video, and other materials is located throughout the federal government. Little money has gone from Congress for digitization, and bureaucracies have resorted to a series of questionable private-public partnerships as a way of digitizing their materials. For example, the Government Accountability Office shipped 60 million pages of our Federal Legislative Histories (the record of each law from the initial bill through the hearings and conference reports) off to Thomson West, but didn't even get digital copies back. Another example is the recent failed effort by the Government Printing Office to digitize 60 million pages of the Federal Depository Library Program, an effort they tried to get through as a "zero dollar cost to the government" effort with the private sector.

There are no free lunches and there are no "no cost to the government" deals. The costs involve the government effort to supervise the contract, prepare the materials, and ship them, and in both the GAO and GPO cases, the government wasn't getting much back for its effort. What the government and the people usually get is a lien on the public domain, preventing the public from accessing these vital materials. Similar efforts are sprinkled throughout the government. I testified to Congress that I had learned that the National Archives was contemplating a scan of congressional hearings with LexisNexis under similar circumstances, and many may be aware of the questionable deal the Archives cut with Amazon where my favorite online superstore got de facto exclusive rights to 1,899 wonderful pieces of video.

Library of Congress stands by report on Honduras coup, By LESLEY CLARK, McClatchy Newspapers (October 29, 2009).

Congress's law library is rebuffing calls from the chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations committees to retract a report on the military-backed coup in Honduras that the lawmakers charge is flawed.

The request, by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., has sparked cries of censorship from Republicans who say the Democrats don't like what the August report said: that the government of Honduras had the authority to remove deposed President Manuel Zelaya from office.

...Kerry and Berman maintain the report "contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States and Honduras."

The chairmen charge that a key line in the analysis was based on a provision of the Honduran constitution that was struck down in 2003 and that "critical portions rely exclusively on a single, outside individual who had previously and publicly declared his support for the coup."

The report is: HONDURAS: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW ISSUES, Directorate of Legal Research for Foreign, Comparative, and International Law, The Law Library of Congress, REPORT FOR CONGRESS (August 2009) LL File No. 2009-002965, Prepared by Norma C. Gutiérrez, Senior Foreign Law Specialist. "This report discusses the legal basis under the Honduran Constitution for President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales’s removal from office."

Executive Summary:
The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings. The Constitution no longer authorizes impeachment, but gives Congress the power to disapprove of the conduct of the President, to conduct special investigations on issues of national interest, and to interpret the Constitution. In the case against President Zelaya, the National Congress interpreted the power to disapprove of the conduct of the President to encompass the power to remove him from office, based on the results of a special, extensive investigation. The Constitution prohibits the expatriation of Honduran citizens.

Also see: Law Library of Congress refusing to retract report on Honduras coup: report, by Sarah Miley, Jurist (Oct 31, 2009).

Library Journal has an interesting set of interviews with Library of Congress staff Michelle Springer (on Flickr Commons, Twitter, and blogging), Sally McCallum (on Linked Data and SKOS [Simple Knowledge Organization System]), and Bill LeFurgy (on cloud storage and preservation).

• Stacking the Tech: The Library of Congress Talks Digital Initiatives, by Ellyssa Kroski, Library Journal (8/6/2009).

I particularly like this, from LeFurgy:

Q.) What type of an impact do you think cloud computing could have on the library field?

A.) It has great potential. Cloud computing offers the prospect of a distributed preservation infrastructure, which is vital because no single institution can handle the job alone. Most cultural heritage organizations lack the resources and the capabilities to preserve large amounts of digital content—and the volume of data worthy of preservation is growing by the day. Libraries will need to work together as part of a collaborative network to achieve the necessary economy of scale. Services like cloud computing fit nicely within this collaborative concept.

The Law Library of Congress's Global Legal Monitor has added more than 300 topic and jurisdictional RSS feeds.

Topics include the Census, Freedom of Information, Government Publications, Intellectual Property, Libraries, and Secrecy!

There is also an RSS for all articles in the Global Legal Monitor too.

Tip o' the hate to Resource Shelf.

The Library of Congress announced via their Twitter account, that:

LOC will capture tweets on #sotomayor for its web archives on the Sotomayor nomination. http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/

Here is a list of some of the latest web capture projects they are working on:

Supreme Court Nominations 2009

The Supreme Court Nominations 2009 Web Archive will be a selective collection of Web sites archived between June 2009 through the completion of the hearings process. Web sites collected will include materials produced by watchdog, public policy, and political advocacy groups, blogs and tweets, community and religious organizations, foreign and domestic news sources, educational and research institutions, and independent websites.
Collection dates: June 2009 through confirmation hearings.

Indian General Elections

The Library's Delhi Overseas Operations Office is documenting the ongoing process of India general election in 2009.

Presidential Transition During a Time of Crises Web Archive

Presidential Transition During a Time of Crises Web Archive will be a selective collection of Web sites archived between January 2009 and June 2009. Web sites collected will include materials produced by domestic and foreign political groups, community and religious organizations, advocacy groups, foreign and domestic news sources, and independent websites.
Collection dates: January 2009 - June 2009. The collection will be evaluated prior to completion and may be extended.

I would suggest they start archiving the tweets about the #iranelection (see earlier blog post) by James R. Jacobs.

Library Of Congress On YouTube, iTunes, National Journal, TechDailyDose, March 30, 2009.

New channels on video-sharing Web site YouTube and the Apple iTunes service will allow the Library of Congress to begin sharing content from its vast video and audio collections. The channels ... will be rolled out in the coming weeks....

The American Historical Association blog has a nice, short writeup on Flickr: The Commons, where national and state government libraries (including the Library of Congress) are displaying photographs of historical interest.

• Snapshots of the Past: The Commons on Flickr, By Jessica Pritchard, December 22, 2008.

Unfortunately, there are reports of layoffs at Flickr, including the head of the Commons project.

Library of Congress Photos on Flickr. The Library of Congress has prepared a report on the results of the first nine months of it use of Flickr.

The report: For the Common Good: The Library of Congress Flickr Pilot Project, by Michelle Springer, Beth Dulabahn, Phil Michel, Barbara Natanson, David Reser, David Woodward, and Helena Zinkham. October 30, 2008

This project significantly increased the reach of Library content and demonstrated the many kinds of creative interactions that are possible when people can access collections within their own Web communities. The contribution of additional information to thousands of photographs was invaluable. Performance measures documented in this report illustrate how the project has been successful in achieving the objectives and desired outcomes of the Library’s strategic goals. The Flickr project increases awareness of the Library and its collections; sparks creative interaction with collections; provides LC staff with experience with social tagging and Web 2.0 community input; and provides leadership to cultural heritage and government communities.

Near the end of the report, the authors quote some of the typical fears about projects like this and say that experience has not borne out the concerns of critics.

At the start of the pilot, critics pointed out several risks often expressed as questions. Experience so far has not borne out their concerns. The skeptics wondered: Would the public conversation contribute to a better understanding of the photos or would fan mail, false memories, fake facts, and uncivil discourse obscure knowledge? Would a public-commercial partnership undermine the Library’s reputation for impartiality? Would the Library lose control of its collections? Would library catalogs and catalogers become obsolete? Would the need to moderate and respond to comments overwhelm all other work? Would history be dumbed-down? Would photographs be disrespected or exploited? Would entire collections be welcome or would selection of safe content border on censorship of historical information?

This is an interesting, well done report with specific details that should be useful to others thinking about how to expand their library services.

Library of Congress tests Web 2.0 photo archive, By Wade-Hahn Chan, FCW.com, March 24, 2008. "The Library of Congress has turned to the popular online picture-sharing community of Flickr for help with tagging the library's voluminous photo archives."

Library of Congress Photos on Flickr, Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Reading Room. "We invite you to tag and comment on the photos, and we also welcome identifying information—many of these old photos came to us with scanty descriptions!" See also the FAQ.

The Library of Congress' photos, Flickr. "Yes. We really are THE Library of Congress."

See also: EPA Pilot Project Tagging Project.

The Open House Project has a report on the March 5 testimony of Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress. His prepared statement (see attached) presented information on on current LoC initiatives, and described funding priorities. The testimony repeatedly mentions 2008's "deep and painful cuts to the Library’s budget", and the Librarian adds "I feel obligated to say that if we are stretched much farther, we may soon reach a breaking point." Furthermore, the statement adds,
"Demand for online services, increased pressure on web services operations to enhance THOMAS, the World Digital Library (WDL), and the Legal Information Services (LIS) databases, and the need to develop new configurations and applications have severely strained technical assistance and infrastructure support provided by the Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) and Information Technology Services (ITS). Since 1995, THOMAS has provided free legislative information on the web. Our congressional and public constituencies have for several years been requesting upgrades to both THOMAS and LIS to enhance content and searchability. ... However, the IT and digital demands on the Library will need support from the Congress in fiscal 2010 to sustain the Library’s ability to provide services to the Congress and its constituents. "