[Web4lib] city swallows library website

[Robert L. Balliot]

Greetings,

One of the major advances that we made locally was the passage of
a bill that mandated electronic filing of all public meeting agendas
and minutes with the Secretary of State's website.  This enables an
RSS feed that will let you track agendas for any public meeting and
minutes to much more limited degree.

Before, the law only said that you had to publicly post agendas
in two places 48 hours in advance of a meeting for most public meetings -
zoning and a few other entities had more stringent guidelines. 
What could end up happening is an agenda would be 'posted' and disappear
before being 'noticed'. With the electronic filing, the agendas are
time stamped and retained so you know if the law was being followed.
It is very easy to imbed the feeds into any local government website.

This process and the RSS feeds add transparency to the democratic
process.  As an electronic filing coordinator I worked with the SoS
and set up the process for 18 boards and commissions along with their feeds.
I think the process has increased government accountability.  The SoS
mission statement almost completely matches the ALA guidelines. 

I presented this paper at Oxford for a debate in 2005 regarding open
government:  http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/oxford_presentation.htm


It remains free. :)

*************************************************
Robert L. Balliot
1-401-421-5763
Skype: RBalliot
Bristol, Rhode Island
http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm
*************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Houghton-Jan, Sarah
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 7:56 PM
To: Louise Alcorn; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] city swallows library website

You may also want to check out my article, unfortunately not available
online for free, "I've Been Framed! Designing a Library Web Site Within
a Government Frame" in Computers in Libraries  25(6)(June 2005): 6-8,
48.  It discusses strategies when you're put in this unenviable
situation, as I was in my last position.

Best,
Sarah Houghton-Jan
LibrarianInBlack.net