It looks like the Committee for Economic Development, a DC public policy NGO, has undertaken a systematic study of openness as it applies to American Health Care.  Their new report (pdf), “Harnessing Openness to Transform American Health Care”, examines healthcare’s potential transformation in the face of Internet technology, much like the Open House Project has for Congress: “Our goal in this report is to bring the DCC’s expertise in information and communications technology and electronic commerce to bear on those aspects of healthcare that have been or can be changed by the Internet, the continued growth in computing power and data storage capacity, and the increasing digitization of information.  These technological changes, and the greater openness that they enable, are visible in areas that range from biomedical research and the disclosure of research findings, through the process of evaluating drugs and devices, to the emergence of electronic health records, and the development and implementation of treatment regimes by caregivers and patients.”  (pdf, page 1)

This is absolutely a step in the right direction, and I’m glad to see a concerted well coordinated analysis of disclosure in other fields.  This study pairs nicely with the recently passed requirement that the National Institutes of Health disclose results of publicly funded research.  (I’m not sure which bill is responsible for this reform, if you are, let us know in the comments.)

If you look through the National Science Foundation’s requests for proposals, many of them pertain to the cyber-infrastructure issues that are the stuff of the future of public science collaboration.  I’m especially fond of the  “Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partners (DataNet)” rfp, because my sister researches HIV, and I’ve witnessed the contorted amalgamation of web searches scientific researchers need to go through to stay on top of their field.  Scientific discoveries and health information both face the same public access revolution that legislative information does, and I’m happy to see when the problems are being approached in the same public, collaborative manner.

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 report lists the essential documents which must continue to be printed, regardless of how digitized we become.

For more background on the document, see this post, and for updates, I’m keeping notes on this page, from which future updates will likely be pulled.

-John  (start review)

foreword:
compiled by the Task Force on the Documentation of Congress of the Society of American Archivists Congressional Archivists Roundtable, coming from 1989’s “Understanding Congress: A Bicentennial Research Conference”.  “the fragmented nature of congressional primary source documentation” is partly responsible for the lack of scholarly writing on the legislative branch.  Report is a “study of the archival sources that document the operations of Congress.”

Preface:
“Because the documentation of Congress, in particular, most directly reveals the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives, it is especially crucial to preserve evidence and information about the legislative process and make it accessible to the public.”  (gives great detail on problems with public access: “fragmented and geographically scattered; collections are often voluminous, of complex arrangement, inadequately indexed, and in poor physical condition; contents of many collections are uneven, with unexplained gaps in information; and repositories that receive these collections frequently lack the resources to provide state-of-the-art arrangement, description, and archival preservation.”  Project undertaken by the Task Force on Congressional Documentation of the Society of American Archivists’ Congressional Archivists Roundtable (that’s correctly transcribed).  “many of its suggestions will take years to be carried out; others can be effected immediately.”  “Among the most pressing needs are actions to improve the documentation of legislation, representation, congressional leadership, political activities, and programs of congressional support agencies.  Other recommendations are aimed at better documenting Congress’ relations and interaction with media, the executive and the judicial branches, lobbyists, and think tanks.  Finally, steps are suggested to improve documentation of the administration of Congress’ to fill gaps in the historical record through structured, coordinated oral history interview programs; and to improve the preservation of congressional sources.

Intro:
Report organized into congressional “functions”, “documentation”, and “recommendations”.  (apparently there’s a 1978 report from the National Study Commission on the Records and Documents of Federal Officials, which “recommended that office files and personal papers of members of Congress be legally designated as federal records with guaranteed public access after fifteen years” (this wasn’t implemented, but that report would be useful to find).  This report led to a 2 day conference, where they decided to publish a handbook on member records management.  1985 then saw a 2 day conference on documenting Congress, put on by the “Dirksen Congressional Center and the national Historical Publications and Records Commission” (another great report to find)  This conference led to the creation of the Congressional Archivists Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists (which, in turn, led to the current day 2008 Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress (link).  (The Congressional Archivists Roundtable appears to be defunct, perhaps being defunded in the mid 90’s?)  “the “importance” [of congressional material] had not led to a determined effort to systematically appraise and preserve a documentary record of Congress.” (page vi)  Problems archivists face: “the information explosion, the computer and telecommunications revolutions, insufficient resources for archival work as government and repository budgets tighten, and the lack of clearly defined long-term strategies and action plans to accomplish overall documentary objectives.”  The response to this is a strategy, which matches the organization of this document (functions, documentation, and recommendations).    The report then lists participants.

Page ix lists contents, listing the major topics to be examined: Institutional Setting, the Legislative Process, Representation, Political Activities, External Relations, Administration and Support, Research Use of Congressional Collections, Appendices, and Notes.

Summary Report and Recommendations
Repeats problem.  “Historical records do not simply materialize.”  They’re trying to balance the needs of three authorities: members and officials of Congress “individually responsible for the on-site management of the information that is collected and maintained in their offices”, NARA’s CLA, and the “literally hundreds of archival repositories across the country [that] preserve and provide access to the personal papers that are deposited in them by the members”.  This listing seems to me to be a result of their institutional setting, my take on the jurisdictions at work in congressional information access can be found here.

Major Findings:
1. “Congressional committees are relatively, although not uniformly, well documented, [but] there is great variation in the documentary quality of individual members’ collections”  This conclusion strikes me as a result of writing in the mid 1990s, when paying meaningful attention to legislative affairs through the Internet was rather impossible.  There was little difference then between “well documented” and “publicly available (online)”, where now that difference is quite clear.  What is “well documented”, like committee hearing transcripts, or the upcoming schedules for committee hearings, in the archival sense, can also be useless for those hoping to actually watch Congress in action, even in time for upcoming elections, which is a much lower bar than the near-real time awareness lobbyists need in order to be legislatively relevant.  Thus the report’s focus on member records, which were managed in a much less standard manner then.

2. The need for a “coordinated retention plan that meets the long-term needs of Congress” as applied to congressional support agencies.  The GAO was doing well, the (now defunct) Office of Technology Assessment and Government Printing Office had partial programs, and the CRS and CBO had none.  Again, no real mention of OTA and GAO providing public documentation while CRS does not.  Our expectations of finding things online has led to a new set of expectations.  (well, that and the expectation of equal access to publicly funded documents, since CRS reports are sold through private companies.)

3. Executive Branch and Judicial Branches are doing a rather good job, but are relevant here nevertheless.

4. Other sources they feel have been thitherto overlooked: nat’l, congressional, and individual campaign committees, political party organizations; and congressional member organizations and caucuses.  (still true, 16 years later)

5. Member documentary repositories are hard to use, recommend better practices here.

6. Member materials will be better processed if offices hire and train archivists, and keep up with documents processing.

The Report then launches into specific recommendations, lining up with the table of contents, but in summary form.

The status page has a fascinating run through the project’s expected development, including user profiles, file conversion, customizable alerts, and even a “collaborative working environment”. I wonder if this is directed towards the work of GPO, or towards the creation of government-wide documents that end up archived by the FDLP?
The GPO’s mission statement lists 3 main functions: (quoting)

“To provide the agencies and organizations which make up the three branches of the Federal government with expert publishing and printing services, on a cost recovery basis… To provide, in partnership with Federal Depository libraries, for nationwide community facilities for the perpetual, free and ready access to the printed and electronic documents… To distribute, on a cost recovery basis, copies of printed and electronic documents…to the general public.”
I wonder to what degree this is coordinated or overlaps with the functions of OMB or the GSA? (this may be another example of negotiated terrain.)The strategic vision suggests that the “digital information system” will “[catalogue and authenticate] all known Federal Government documents within the scope of FDLP, whether printed or born digital.” ( p.4)

This reworking of the FDLP may require new authorization, as envisioned, as page 9 says “GPO will also ask Congress to review proposed changes to the FDLP to determine whether or not new legislative authority is required.”

I also wonder about overlap between the new GPO envisioned FDLP and NARA, although I guess that depends on FDLP and NARA’s guidelines on what they preserve and maintain access to. The GPO vision also suggests the creation of “two collections, on in the East and one in teh West, which will hold all known tangible and electronic FDLP documents withdrawn on a controlled basis as a last resort when no circulating copy is available.” Is this a departure from the LOCKSS model of preservation (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and model of FDLP function outlined in FGInfo’s report Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program?

I don’t know. But there’s a lot of information about coordinating resources and understanding government agencies’ jurisdiction to process here.

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 suggestion is that the archiving happen with greater frequency, perhaps coordinated in order to capture the greatest amount of material possible, and for those responsible for the Web Harvest to coordinate with the CAO, systems administrators, and vendors to be sure that the digital records management practices used in organizing member sites encourages easy crawling and archiving by NARA and CLA.

The House has a document laying out best practices for documents management for House offices; I wonder if the digital materials management should be expanded to include digital materials availability, perhaps including standards like sitemapping, in order to ensure the preservation of member sites?

My other suggestion is to increase the exposure of the captured sites, perhaps encouraging links from the bioguides, or current member sites, and to ensure that the collection itself is crawlable through search engine indexing practices.

I found Appendix A particularly interesting (page 24), laying out their guidelines for partnerships with businesses and non-profits who will be taking on some of the immense digitizing. The guidelines deal heavily with public access, intellectual property, metadata, and document certification issues, many of which I have only basic familiarity.

I assume that others will have opinions on how they’re proceeding, given the likely enormity of the project and the sheer importance of its subject matter. That they’re welcoming public input is heartening:

NARA takes its stewardship responsibility very seriously. We recognize that we are entrusted with the care of America’s documentary evidence, and that these materials are an invaluable public resource. We are seeking written comment on this draft through a Federal Register notice and announcement on our website, and will hold a public forum during the comment period. We will revise this plan as appropriate to incorporate public comment. The approved plan will be posted on our website at www.archives.gov.

Check it out.

While the majority side of the Senate Appropriations committee did include a brief review of their bill (as did their House counterpart), I’d like to give my impressions of the appropriations from the perspective of an advocate for public access and transparency, using the Senate report as a guide. (The Republican websites don’t feature any press releases, which isn’t surprising, given the minority’s smaller staff and budget, comparative lack of clout in controlling committee functioning, and their opportunity to add dissenting views to the report, as I discovered in reading the House report.)

Reading the actual report yields much greater detail about how our federal government views its own functions and prioritizes. Committee reports are carefully structured documents, largely in response to the specific requirements of House Rule XIII, governing the explicit disclosure of legal wording, and the production and availability of reports. Aside from raw statistical details comparing spending to the President’s budget requests (which the Leg. Branch subcommittees managed to stay below), the reports also afford an intimate view into the priorities and inner functions of the government.

The Senate report contains a similar admonishment against legislative branch waste, explaining the creation of an Inspector General for the Office of the Architect of the Capitol. (p. 3, page numbers as numbered on the report).

The report similarly touts the passage of S.1, defending their spending power while asserting the benefits of transparency:

The Committee believes trongly that Congress should make the decisions on how to allocate the people’s money. In order to improve transparency and accountability in the process or approving earmarks (as defined in S. 1) in appropriations measures, each Committee report includes, for each earmark…[the Member's name, the location of the recipient, and the purpose for each earmark.] (p. 4)

The report lists budgets and priorities for offices throughout the Senate, including the Office of Captioning Services, as authorized by Public Law 101-163. I wonder if the likely public domain status of these captions could be leveraged to help provide a text stream to accompany internet based legislative video, to help with section 508 (accessibility) concerns for members posting videos of themselves on their websites?

Budgets for each Senatorial office are posted, ranging from about $2 million to about $4 million, depending on the size of the population of each state and the increased travel expenses associated with more distant states.

Each separate committee and administrative office has a detailed budget; within these estimates one can see that one year of utilities for the Capitol costs about $64.4 million.

The Library of Congress gets about $577 Million, and also gets castigated for apparent poor budgeting (p. 35)…

The Committee continues to be concerned with the Library’s budget development process… The Committee recognizes improvements in the Library’s strategic planning efforts, but believes a better job needs to be done of setting priorities, recognizing budgetary constraints, and linking the budget to performance-based metrics.

The LOC is an essential American institution, controlling and maintaining much of the information and knowledge that permits Congress to function. The Congressional Research Service also gets singled out:

It has come to the Committee’s attention that CRS has been holding annual management retreats at expensive off-site locations… The Committee is also concerned that the Congressional Research Service often acts as if it were an independent agency, separate from the Library of Congress. CRS is in fact part of the Library of Congress, and its policies and procedures should reflect this fact. (p. 39)

Many of the report’s admonishments suggest strange issues or struggles whose origin is unclear to the observer. For example, the restriction of public travel and occupancy of the LOC “to the sidewalks and other paved surfaces” is rescinded (p. 49). I can only imagine what resulted in that particular rules change.

The Office of Technology Assessment come up in the Senate report again as well…

The Committee recommends funding of $750,000 and four full-time equivalent employees to establish a permanent technology assessment function in the Government Accountability Office. The Committee has decided not to establish a separate entity to provide independent technology assessment for the legislative branch owing to budget constraints… (p. 42)

The report goes into further detail about their plans for a revisited OTA (which was disbanded in the Gingrich revolution. Background about the Open House Project and the OTA is available here.

The report also mentions the FDLP program under the Office of Superintendent of Documents, describing the distribution process of government documents. (p. 42)

The amount of detail in appropriations reports is staggering, and Congress does a great service to anyone looking to understand where the government’s money is spent in providing detailed appropriations reports in human readable (non-legal) language.