January Issue of the Washington E-Bulletin

The January issue of the Washington E-Bulletin is now available on AALLNET. Here is the Table of Contents:

UPDATES FROM THE HILL AND THE GOVERNMENT RELATIONS OFFICE

• Special Message from Mary Alice Baish, Director of Government Relations
• New Advocacy Toolkit for the 112th Congress
• Bills We’re Tracking
• Save the Date for March Sunshine Week Event
• January State Working Group Spotlight: CT, GA and SC Meet our Challenge

OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY: CHAPTER NEWS

• LLOPS Members Help to Ensure Digital Authentication of WA Legal Resources
• Update on Connecticut Task Force to Study Converting Legislative Documents from Paper to Electronic Form

FREE TIME WELL SPENT: Further Reading for the Information Policy Junkie

• President Obama’s State of the Union Address in FDsys
• National Archives and Kennedy Presidential Library Unveil Online Archive
• Report Reveals Growth in Classification Activity by Office of the Director of National Intelligence
• Internet Archive Launches New Wayback Machine in Beta

Network Neutrality Issue Brief Updated with Analysis of New Rules

Ryan Harrington, Reference Librarian at Yale Law School, has updated AALL’s Network Neutrality Issue Brief with an excellent analysis of the new rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 21, 2010. The rules require transparency of network management practices; no blocking of lawful content; and no unreasonable discrimination. The updated issue brief explains AALL’s concern, shared by many open government groups, that these new rules do not apply to mobile broadband – a significant loophole because increasing numbers of people are opting to use mobile devices to access the Internet.

Please mark your calendars for a timely one hour session on Network Neutrality during AALL’s Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, “Can the FCC Regulate the Internet?” (F2) on Monday, July 25 at 10:45 a.m. Ryan will moderate a lively discussion between Markham Erickson, Executive Director of the Open Internet Coalition, of which AALL is a member, and Dan Brenner, Partner at Hogan Lovells. The speakers will discuss the impact of the new rules on law libraries as well as legal challenges the FCC may face in implementing and enforcing these rules.

Looking for Your Feedback on GPO’s FDsys

On December 20, the U.S. Government Printing Office announced that it had formally launched the Federal Digital System (FDsys) as GPO’s primary portal for online access to information from all three branches of the Federal government. GPO Access will continue to be updated until mid-2011, when it will officially sunset.

FDsys includes many new features that are designed to ease searchability and enhance the basic functionalities that GPO Access offers. The new system allows users to:

• Search across multiple government publications or collections from a single search box.
• Perform an advanced search against metadata about each publication from a single advanced search page.
• Construct complex search queries using advanced Boolean and field operators.
• Refine and narrow searches by applying filters, sorting results, and searching within results.
• View additional information about a publication and access multiple file formats from each search result.
• Download content and metadata as a single ZIP file.

AALL members offered helpful feedback on the beta version of FDsys in small focus groups at the 2008 AALL Annual Meeting in Portland and at GPO’s headquarters here in Washington, D.C. We were pleased that the FDsys team incorporated many of our members’ suggestions, including the option to find documents by citation.

The Government Relations Office is looking for your feedback on the new FDsys, including what you like about the system and what you think could be improved—both from your own perspective and that of your users. Please email Director of Government Relations Mary Alice Baish with your comments, using FDsys as the subject line. Thank you!

December Issue of the Washington E-Bulletin

The December issue of the Washington E-Bulletin is now available on AALLNET. Here is the Table of Contents:

UPDATES FROM THE HILL AND THE GOVERNMENT RELATIONS OFFICE

• Happy New Year!
• Congress Passes Continuing Resolution to Fund Government through March 2011
• Whistleblower Protection Bill Dies in Senate
• Federal Communications Commission Votes to Approve Network Neutrality Rules
• President Obama Appoints William J. Boarman as Public Printer
• Chief Technology Officer Mike Wash Announces Departure from GPO
• Government Printing Office to Sunset GPO Access in Mid-2011
• President Obama Announces Nominations to Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
• Sen. Coburn Attacks Print Congressional Record as “Wasteful”

FREE TIME WELL SPENT: Further Reading for the Information Policy Junkie

• Federal Trade Commission Releases Report on Consumer Privacy
• Law Library of Congress Hosts Human Rights Day Event on Cultural Property Rights of Indigenous People
• Law Library of Congress Adds New Features to THOMAS
• Maryland People’s Law Library Launches New Web Site