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Monthly Archives: April 2003

State of Tennessee Launches New E-Gov Site

Tennessee launched a new url and website to facilitate easier and expanded access to the state’s many e-gov services. Users may now locate information through the following categories: About TN, Government (Departments and Agencies, including legislative bill search), Employment, Travel, Residents, Education, Business, Laws & Justice, State News, Online Services (permits, licenses, etc.). The site… Continue Reading

Anniversary of Introduction of Web Browser

Ten years ago this April, Marc Andreessen and his colleagues at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, launched the first free web browser, called Mosaic. See also this MSNBC article for more background, and this News.com article, Legacy: A brave new World Wide Web that profiles “Jon Mittelhauser, a founding father of the Web browser,”… Continue Reading

New E-Gov Survey

The third annual survey on e-government, The New e-Government Equation: Ease, Engagement, Privacy and Protection, conducted on behalf of the non-partisan Council for Excellence in Government, indicates that Americans are pleased with improvements in e-gov services, but are also deeply concerned about data privacy issues associated with the collection and dissemination of personal data by… Continue Reading

New German Copyright Law Opposed by Publishers

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the recently amended German Copyright Law (pdf – in German) now exempts universities from fees associated with providing students and scholars with copyrighted materials in a digital environment. For additional information, please see this April 10 posting from amiga-news.de, New Copyright as Good as Succeeded, which provides some… Continue Reading

Google Powers Growing Advertising Empire and Responds to Privacy Concerns

Internet advertising has become a growing source of revenue for search engine giant Google, and this April 13 New York Times article documents the company’s human and machine resources which are an integral part of their successful marketing strategy, and also provides illustrated examples (available in the print version of the paper) of how they… Continue Reading

Law.com Launches Redesigned Site

American Lawyer Media announced a redesigned version of their law.com site. The previous main page brown, black and white color scheme has been replaced by one that is blue, white and grey, with links to News and Information sources (AmLaw’s national and regional legal publications, much of whose content requires a subscription) now in the… Continue Reading

Executive Order on Classified National Security Info

The DOJ Office of Information and Privacy FOIA Post website published a statement presenting its perspective on the recent Executive Order on National Security Classification Amended. On March 27, I posted a link to, and related resources on, Executive Order 12958, As Amended, Classified National Security Information. For futher reference, the Federation of American Scientists… Continue Reading

Passing of a Pioneering Librarian

The New York Times noted the passing of “Seymour Lubetzky, who helped librarians channel the rising tide of information with his ingenious transformation of cataloging.” Mr. Lubetsky was lauded as “the finest mind of the twentieth century devoted to the discipline of cataloging, and “one of the most significant influences in the field of cataloging”… Continue Reading

Iraqi National Museum of Antiquities Destroyed

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad was looted of its priceless collection and “an extensive card catalog of every item the museum owns, some of which date back 5,000 years, was destroyed.” The deputy director of the museum is quoted as saying, “our heritage is finished.” According… Continue Reading

GAO Report on Critical Infrastructure

Information Security: Progress Made, but Challenges Remain to Protect Federal Systems and the Nation’s Critical Infrastructure, by Robert F. Dacey, director, information security issues, before the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations, and the Census, House Committee on Government Operations. GAO-03-564T, April 8. Highlights (pdf). Continue Reading

Search Engine Resources

Search Engine Watch launched a redesigned site, as well as a new url, athough the old one still works too. In other search engine news, see this Web Search Relevance Test report (pdf), commissioned by Inktomi, comparing its search engine to Google, Wisenut, FAST, Teoma, and AltaVista. “The goal of the test was to compare… Continue Reading