Law student, Robb Shecter, who has created the OregonLaws.Org web site, wrote us recently about the fact that California Codes have accessibility issues:

The California Codes are published online (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html) with crucial information absent (removed?) that renders them nearly impossible to use:

No Section names ("leadlines") are present in this version-for-the-public. For example, the Sections relevant to the California Highway Patrol are presented like this:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&group=02001-03...

The sections are thus relatively unusable, greatly increasing the cost of legal research and defeating access and transparency for nearly all people. The missing information is also crucial for third parties (like me) who'd like to create easy-to-use directories of the codes.

The needed information does seem to exist, however.  The names for this particular section, for example, can be found on the DMV website, for example:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/tocd2c2a2.htm

Those DMV pages are unfortunately the exception that proves the rule. After seeing these Section names, it should be immediately obvious that these represent a crucial element of the codes that should be published along with the codes.

Oregon once again claims that law is copyrighted, by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, October 30, 2009.

The Oregon Attorney General has asserted ownership over the "Attorney General's Public Record" and "Public Meeting Manual."

See also:

• The Oregon Question: What is the copyright status of primary legal materials governing the actions of the citizens of Oregon?, Carl Malamud, Public.Resource.Org.
• Oregon Tries Claiming Copyright Over Gov't Materials Again, by Mike Masnick, techdirt, Oct 30th 2009.

Lobbyists beware: judge rules metadata is public record, By Jon Stokes, ars technica (October 29, 2009).

"The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the metadata attached to public records is itself a public record. Given the frequency with which metadata outs lobbyists' and corporations' efforts to mask their own contributions to public debates, this is a good thing."

States urged to create data catalogs, by Joab Jackson, Federal Computer Week (Oct 07, 2009).

Federal agencies shouldn't be the only ones to open their data for the public — states and local governments should also be ramping up efforts to become more transparent, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) contends in a newly published report.

The first thing a state should do is create a one-stop portal, or data catalog, for all its publicly-accessible data, along the lines of the White House's Data.Gov , the report states.

Official government publications, reports, laws, hearings, and judicial decisions are only a part of the collection of the University of Georgia's Civil Rights Digital Library. The collection includes a variety of audio visual media, most notably historical news film of a broad range of key civil rights events. In addition to the news film, the digital library provides a seamless virtual library connecting related digital collections from 75 libraries, archives, and museums across the nation. Most are original documentation of the period, such as oral histories, letters, diaries, FBI files, and photographs. It also has instructional materials to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.

See also: History comes alive, by K.K. Snyder, The Albany Georgia Herald July 20, 2008.

The 50-State Agency Databases Registry, which I coordinate, has launched a new set of subject-focused database collections under the heading of history:

* Biographical Databases - Databases that provide biographical sketches of authors, state officials, famous state residents, etc.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Biographical_Databases

* Historical Media Databases - Databases that provide online access to photographs, video, or audio.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Historical_Media_Databases

* Historical Newspaper and Magazine Indexes - Databases that index articles in older newspapers, journals and magazine that contain historical information. These databases will usually lead one to microfilmed items that may be obtainable through Interlibrary Loan.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Historical_Newspaper_and_Magazine

* Museum Collection Databases - Catalogs of state museum holdings which often have historical notes. Museums listed here are either run by a state or by one of the state's political subdivisions
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Museum_Collection_Databases

* Official Records Databases - vital records, (birth, death, etc), war pensions, etc.
http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Official_Records_Databases

These pages just launched, so they are a little light on content. The Registry volunteers will be adding to these pages in the next few weeks.

If you are registered with the ALA GODORT wiki and would like to help the effort along, please browse the state pages or search for words from the historical categories and copy and paste databases from the state pages to the appropriate subject page.

Why these topics? Because after making solicitations here, on govdoc-l and on Facebook, more people wanted subject pages for historical materials than anything else. It's my personal hope that when these annotated historical materials pages are filled out, they will be of special value to historians and to schoolchildren stuck with "I need to do a report on the State of _____." It will help them go beyond state symbols and the like.

Hope you enjoy them!

Recently, the 50-State Agency Database Registry produced an annotated list of searchable inmate locaters. Many states have databases on many given subjects, so the volunteer staff of the Database Register is interested in expanding the offerings on our subject-focused databases page.

We (the Registry volunteers) would like to do this with subjects of interest to the community. So tell us what we should do next, either by leaving comments here or by participating in a brief poll on the main page of the State Agency Database Highlights blog at http://statedatabase.blogspot.com.

For databases from the 50 states, please see the 50-State Agency Database Registry

As a demonstration of things that can be done with ALA GODORT's 50-State Database Registry I have created a page listing sites of state prisoner locator tools at: http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Prisoner_Locator_Tools.

So far it looks like nine states have such sites. If you see a state that's missing, let me know or if you have patrons that need to find folks in state prisons, suggest this site to them.

Is there a subject focused page involving state databases you'd like to create? Register with the ALA GODORT Wiki and get started. Or drop me a line.

I need the help of the FGI community in a strange way. I need you to link to the now official copy of the State Blue Book guide I originally created in 2005 and updated with great assistance from Jennifer Manning of the Library of Congress.

That link is http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Blue_Books. Please post it whereever you can.

Why? Because if you do a Google or Yahoo search on the term "state blue books", the page that comes up isn't the one hosted by ALA GODORT and patrolled by several eagle-eyed sysops (Hi James R!), but the former well-meaning host. I haven't actively looked at old page for over a year.

And that was a mistake. Ugly spammers got to the former page from the history, it looks like they've been there awhile. I had forgottened to watch the page and only found out the problem because of someone who had been planning to show off the page as an example collaboration, but thought twice. Then I realized that I hadn't updated my personal web page to reflect the shift to GODORT, so not only were the search engines going to an outdated page, *I* was telling people to go to an outdated page.

No more. I have redirected my links to http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Blue_Books. If you've got a link to my guide, please update your link. And if enough of us do that, the search engines will direct to the page where we've got the guide's back.

And accept my apologies for not updating the community sooner.

Grading State Disclosure, 2007: Evaluating states' efforts to bring sunlight to political money. A Report by the California Voter Foundation, with the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law A Publication of the Campaign Disclosure Project, Supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Grading State Disclosure is a study of the Campaign Disclosure Project, which seeks to bring greater transparency and accountability to money in state politics through [evaluations] of state disclosure laws and programs.  The Campaign Disclosure Project is a collaboration of the UCLA School of Law, the Center for Governmental Studies and the California Voter Foundation and is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts.  The Grading State Disclosure series is produced by the California Voter Foundation, with assistance from the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of L

A fourth, nationwide [evaluation] of state-level campaign finance disclosure programs has found that 36 states received passing grades, while 14 states failed to meet this study’s criteria for a satisfactory campaign disclosure program. The number of states that passed the 2007 [evaluation] increased by two over the 2005 study, and findings contained in Grading State Disclosure 2007 demonstrate the continued trend of improved campaign disclosure practices at the state level as identified in the previous three studies.

Grading State Disclosure 2007 evaluated four specific areas of campaign finance disclosure: state campaign disclosure laws; electronic filing programs; accessibility of campaign finance information; and the usability of state disclosure web sites.

I'm pleased to report to you that the ALA GODORT State and Local Documents Task Force efforts to create a 50-State Registry of state agency produced databases is nearing the end of its initial setup phase.

With the help of 30 named volunteers, we have created content for 46 states and the District of Columbia. The remaining four states have prospective volunteers who should be filling in content soon or letting me know they cannot take on page volunteer duty at this time.

Please see our nearly completed product at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/State_Agency_Databases.

In these pages you will find databases on finding doctors, shipwrecks, commercial properties, Confederate Veterans pensions, dangerous dogs and much more.

To get a small taste of what is becoming available through the Registry, check out the unofficial project blog "State Databases of the Day" at http://statedatabase.blogspot.com/.

You don't have to be a named volunteer to help with the project. If you go to a state's page and don't see your favorite state agency produced database, go ahead and add it if you are comfortable with editing wikis. If not send your link to the page volunteer, if available, or to me at dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net as project coordinator.

Please try to have a look at the Registry this week. Check out and improve your own state's page. Or check out what's available. A lot of stuff from the California page just amazed me. Think about how you might build subject listings (Wildlife, business, etc) using the Creative Commons' licensed material from this project. Together we're building a good resource. Let's keep at it.