[Infowarrior] - Federal Register relaunches

[Richard Forno]

A More Web-Friendly Register
With Federal Data in XML Form, Users Have New Options
By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 5, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/04/AR2009100402533_pf.html
Lawyers, lobbyists, librarians and concerned citizens, rejoice: As of  
Monday, it is much easier to access the Federal Register.

The de facto daily newspaper of the executive branch publishes  
approximately 80,000 pages of documents each year, including  
presidential disaster declarations, Medicare reimbursement rates, and  
thousands of agency rulings on policies ranging from banking to  
fishing to food. It's a must-read for anyone with business before the  
federal government or concerned about inside-the-Beltway decisions,  
including academics, good-government advocates and Register junkies  
(yes, they do exist).

Starting Monday, issues dating back to 2000 will be available at  
Data.gov in a form known in the Web world as XML, which allows users  
to transport data from a Web site and store it, reorganize it or  
customize it elsewhere. Officials suggested that the move puts  
readers, rather than the government, in charge of deciding how to  
access the Register's reams of information.

"In much the same way that newspapers have looked at making content  
more accessible by changing the print and typeface, we can now do the  
same thing by making the Federal Register available such that people  
can manipulate it and customize it and reuse the content to make the  
information even more accessible," said Beth Noveck, director of the  
White House Open Government Initiative.

Monday's launch is the outgrowth of President Obama's first executive  
order, which mandated greater transparency in federal government.

The Office of the Federal Register publishes the Register each  
business day. The first issue, in 1936, had 11 pages; Friday's had  
157. According to the White House, the Register totaled 79,435 pages  
in fiscal 2008, with 31,879 documents, its largest year ever. Online  
readers downloaded more than 200 million Register documents in fiscal  
2009, the White House said.

The Register may be the ultimate record of the business of the  
executive branch, but it is universally recognized as a difficult  
document to navigate.

Monday's release should make it easier for users to find their  
specific topic without having to wade through volumes of unrelated  
material. Government officials expect information-hungry users -- be  
they good-government groups, news organizations or the college student  
pulling an all-nighter -- to make the most of the new access. The  
technology will allow users, including Web site designers, to quickly  
gather data and manipulate the information with tools such as mapping  
software, word clouds, spreadsheets and e-mail alert systems, White  
House officials and government observers said.

Lawyers and activists tracking Environmental Protection Agency  
policies might subscribe to an e-mail alert system built by a good- 
government group that will notify them of updates published in the  
Register. A Maryland resident monitoring the impact of federal  
regulations on his neighborhood might visit a Web site that allows him  
to search the Register's items by state, county and Zip code.

"It makes it much easier to follow a specific topic area or look at  
specific regulations from a specific agency or search within a  
geographic area," said John Wonderlich, policy director of the  
Sunlight Foundation, an open-government advocacy group.

"It's not going to be useful for everyone, but if you're looking at  
making government processes more efficient, this view across the  
government will be very useful," Wonderlich said.

Noveck, her White House colleagues and staffers at the Federal  
Register and Government Printing Office have been working on the  
details of Monday's launch since Obama signed the executive order.

Mary Alice Baish, director of government relations for the American  
Association of Law Libraries, said members are "delighted" about the  
move. "This is a win-win situation for business, the regulatory  
community and consumers," she said.

"We see law libraries being able to use the data for empirical  
research by law professors who want to track agency activities. For  
being able to track trends in the regulated industries. Even for  
studies of semantics and language," she added.

It cost the government approximately $100,000 to convert the issues  
dating to 2000, according to Ray Mosley, director of the Federal  
Register, which is part of the National Archives and Records  
Administration. The Register went online in 1994, and converting  
issues from '94 to 2000 will cost at least another $150,000, Mosley  
said. He anticipated little effect on his 59-member staff of editors,  
technical experts and lawyers. He also noted, however, that the  
changes online may inspire someone to find the next best way to  
publish, display and distribute the Register.

"Someone could demonstrate something to us, and we could start the  
wheels rolling," Mosley said.