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The Sunlight Foundation was founded in 2006 with the goal of using technology to enable citizens to learn more about what their elected representatives are doing, to help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and... [more]
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Library of Congress
Library of Congress tests Web 2.0 photo archive
Written by Paul Blumenthal on March 25, 2008 - 10:51am.
Read more: Flickr | Library of Congress | Web 2.0 (see all terms)
Read more: Flickr | Library of Congress | Web 2.0 (see all terms)
Source Name
Federal Computer Week
Snippit
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 on Flickr
You should proceed as soon as possible to check out the Library of Congress's page on flickr, as announced this morning.
It's an awesome collection of about 3,000 images, of the quality you'd expect from the world's largest library. It's wonderful to see them available the same way we expect to share images with each other, sort of making history less of something living in a museum, and more of something available, relevant, and even sorted through tags.
If you're like me, you're likely to do nothing else for the next hour or two...
Written by John Wonderlich on January 16, 2008 - 3:36pm.
Read more: Flickr | Library of Congress (see all terms)
Bibliographic Control, Agile Government
I found this post from the Library of Congress blog yesterday, and it has me thinking about a bunch of other things I've been intending to write about.
Written by John Wonderlich on December 2, 2007 - 4:06pm.
Read more: agililty | GPO | Library of Congress | NARA (see all terms)
Library of Congress Website Upgrade
Via the Library of Congress blog, it looks like the LOC Website will be getting an upgrade in the coming weeks. They make a good point about choosing between providing RSS feeds and email updates, noting that many more people use email than RSS:
While only a fraction of people on the Web use RSS feeds, something like 100 percent of them use email, and this is just another part of our efforts to get information to people in the way that is most useful to them. You can get a sense for how the email updates will function by looking at the FBI’s Web site.
Happily, they’re not choosing between the two, and have a pretty broad set of RSS feeds already on offer on their RSS page.
Written by John Wonderlich on August 30, 2007 - 1:55pm.
Read more: GAO | GPO | Library of Congress | NARA | RSS (see all terms)
Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations Review
(Cross-posted from the Open House Project blog.)
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 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.)
Written by John Wonderlich on August 23, 2007 - 12:41pm.
Read more: Appropriations | Library of Congress | preservation | Senate Appropriations Committee (see all terms)
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Past Projects
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Congressional Web Site Investigation:Employing citizen oversight to find out if we are getting our money’s worth from congressional Web sites.
Today's Ethics Watch
No money coming to Young’s legal defense: Alaska congressman Don Young (R) is having trouble getting contributions to his legal defense fund. A document filed with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct shows “no activity” since the fund was approved by the committee on Jan. 9. (The Hill)
Seats of Power: A Return to Skybox Lobbying?: Not long ago, lobbyists regularly entertained lawmakers and their aides in skyboxes at local sports arenas. But after a series of scandals on Capitol Hill, the law was changed to forbid congressional officials from accepting anything of value from lobbyists without repayment -- let alone the best seats in the house. (Washington Post)
Companies Start to Lift Veil on Political Spending: Ever wonder how much companies really spend to influence government through trade associations? Well, a few corporations are coming clean, or at least cleaner. (Washington Post)
Dems, GOP together nix Murtha earmark: Democrats and Republicans joined together to strip a pet project of Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) from the 2009 intelligence authorization bill — the same project Democrats defended last year. (The Hill)
NAPA launches collaboration Web site: If you’ve ever wished your federal agency could adopt wikis, use YouTube or delve into the virtual world but feared the security, technology and political barriers were too high to overcome, take heart. You’ve got supporters, and they have success stories. (NextGov)
Jefferson lawyers cite race case in change of venue request: Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) lawyers have asked a federal judge to reconsider a ruling denying a change of venue for his corruption trial. (The Hill)
Jefferson Tries New Argument: Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) has asked a federal court to use an international criminal law treaty to force the depositions of three people in Nigeria who have been implicated in corruption charges levied against him. (Roll Call)
Foreign Gifts Test Rules: Even as new ethics restrictions have made it difficult for Members and staff to accept gifts — aside from token baseball caps or T-shirts — one area remains where lawmakers and their staffs can collect trinkets more or less guilt-free: foreign travel. (Roll Call)
K St.’s ‘Max Out’ Crowd: The 20 top K Street donors this election cycle have handed federal candidates nearly $1.8 million in personal cash. The majority of that money, $1.3 million, has gone to help Democrats as the party in charge of Capitol Hill looks to expand its majority. (Roll Call)
Senator’s Ties to Real Estate Draw Criticism: He has made millions as a title insurance executive, landlord and real estate developer in this college town, where the economy, despite trouble nationwide, is still growing nicely. Now, as a United States senator, with the mortgage mess fueling a national economic slowdown, Richard C. Shelby has more say over the revamping of housing finance laws than almost anyone else in Congress. (New York Times)
Oil Lobby Reaches Out to Citizens Peeved at the Pump: Faced with a national outcry over the high price of gasoline and soaring profits for energy companies, the oil and gas industry is waging an unusually pricey campaign to burnish its image. (Washington Post)
[ More in the Archive ]
Seats of Power: A Return to Skybox Lobbying?: Not long ago, lobbyists regularly entertained lawmakers and their aides in skyboxes at local sports arenas. But after a series of scandals on Capitol Hill, the law was changed to forbid congressional officials from accepting anything of value from lobbyists without repayment -- let alone the best seats in the house. (Washington Post)
Companies Start to Lift Veil on Political Spending: Ever wonder how much companies really spend to influence government through trade associations? Well, a few corporations are coming clean, or at least cleaner. (Washington Post)
Dems, GOP together nix Murtha earmark: Democrats and Republicans joined together to strip a pet project of Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) from the 2009 intelligence authorization bill — the same project Democrats defended last year. (The Hill)
NAPA launches collaboration Web site: If you’ve ever wished your federal agency could adopt wikis, use YouTube or delve into the virtual world but feared the security, technology and political barriers were too high to overcome, take heart. You’ve got supporters, and they have success stories. (NextGov)
Jefferson lawyers cite race case in change of venue request: Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) lawyers have asked a federal judge to reconsider a ruling denying a change of venue for his corruption trial. (The Hill)
Jefferson Tries New Argument: Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) has asked a federal court to use an international criminal law treaty to force the depositions of three people in Nigeria who have been implicated in corruption charges levied against him. (Roll Call)
Foreign Gifts Test Rules: Even as new ethics restrictions have made it difficult for Members and staff to accept gifts — aside from token baseball caps or T-shirts — one area remains where lawmakers and their staffs can collect trinkets more or less guilt-free: foreign travel. (Roll Call)
K St.’s ‘Max Out’ Crowd: The 20 top K Street donors this election cycle have handed federal candidates nearly $1.8 million in personal cash. The majority of that money, $1.3 million, has gone to help Democrats as the party in charge of Capitol Hill looks to expand its majority. (Roll Call)
Senator’s Ties to Real Estate Draw Criticism: He has made millions as a title insurance executive, landlord and real estate developer in this college town, where the economy, despite trouble nationwide, is still growing nicely. Now, as a United States senator, with the mortgage mess fueling a national economic slowdown, Richard C. Shelby has more say over the revamping of housing finance laws than almost anyone else in Congress. (New York Times)
Oil Lobby Reaches Out to Citizens Peeved at the Pump: Faced with a national outcry over the high price of gasoline and soaring profits for energy companies, the oil and gas industry is waging an unusually pricey campaign to burnish its image. (Washington Post)
[ More in the Archive ]