Taking THOMAS to the next level

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-08-20

Summary:

“The THOMAS database of federal legislation is already gratis and libre OA. But users can only fetch information piecemeal, not in bulk. That's a serious obstacle to use and reuse, mashups, and the creation of new services to benefit voters, journalists, and scholars. OpenCongress has started an action campaign to change this. If you're a US citizen, please sign (or revise and sign) its template letter to your Congressional delegation. There's more detail on the OpenCongress blog . I like the way this campaign aims at making THOMAS more useful. But I also like the way it recognizes that gratis and libre OA are not enough when a database is configured to limit bulk access and use. What could we do with bulk access that we can't do now? Good question. Here's a start at a list. We could develop tools to compare different versions of the same bill, or to compare different bills that would affect the same agency or amend the same regulation or statute. We could develop tools to alert us to new bills on any given topic. If an odious standalone bill like #RWA of #SOPA seems to be dead, a tool could alert us when some of the same language is silently inserted into a gigantic must-pass bill on another topic. Extend this list! But first send a letter to Congress.”

Link:

https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/posts/iKGTEE44k68

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.data oa.comment oa.government oa.usa oa.legislation oa.rwa oa.nih oa.advocacy oa.copyright oa.crowd oa.tools oa.libre oa.lay oa.thomas oa.gratis oa.sopa oa.loc oa.opencongress

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

08/20/2012, 18:12

Date published:

04/20/2012, 16:43