As the research of the Harvard Transparency Policy Project has made abundantly clear, applying the principles of openness and transparency to complex systems demands a careful approach to epistemic nuances; questions like what should be knowable to whom need to be answered before disclosure requirements are implemented, and need to be built into a disclosure [...]

In 2001, the GAO published a document entitled “Information Management; Electronic Dissemination of Government Publications” (pdf).
The GAO is responding to a congressional request for information on electronic documents dissemination, and ends up discussing the GPO, LOC, and FDLP in great detail. Apparently they considered transferring the FDLP from the GPO to the LOC.
Also, the [...]

After going through the trouble of obtaining and digitizing the 1992 report on congressional documentation, I’ve started going systematically through the document, and, in an attempt to read more closely, have been taking notes.  This is a long post, but the parallels with the Open House Project are startling to me, as are the contrasts: [...]

Is anyone familiar with FDsys being developed by the GPO? From the website:
The Office of the Chief Information Officer is working to develop GPO’s Digital Information System (FDsys). As outlined in the Strategic Vision, FDsys will allow federal agencies to easily create and submit content that can then be preserved, authenticated, managed and delivered [...]

I’m glad to have just found the archive of old Web sites from members of Congress, maintained by the Center for Legislative Archives under the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The collection seems well organized and easy to peruse, with solid explanations of their methodology and disclaimers about what’s available based on the crawling.
My main [...]

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is seeking public input into their draft plan for digitizing their content. This plan builds on their 10 year strategic vision, published last year, and lays out their goals for moving more of their physical materials into a publicly available digital format.
I found Appendix A particularly interesting [...]

The National Archives (NARA, or National Archives and Records Administration) has a great video on their website, telling the story of citizens holding their government accountable through empowered investigation of public documents.
Check it out.

The Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill (reported out of committee on June 21st) provides a revealing look into the priorities that Congress sets in funding its own operations. The House and Senate pass separate appropriations bills; this page on THOMAS organizes the appropriations bills for each fiscal year in a remarkably useful manner.
While the [...]