Who Moved My Data?Black Holes in Cyberspace

Judith J. FieldSenior LecturerWayne State University

Have You Wondered?

What’s wrong with this URL?Where is that document that I retrieved earlier?Where is the article that goes with this citation?Where are the archives?

More Questions

Why can’t I get access to this resource?

Where are the charts?Why can’t I duplicate a former

search?

In other words….

Have my searching skills failed meDo I still have faith that my search

strategies are results in the answers that I need

Government Documents Before 9-11

The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA)Migration from print to nonprintSmaller sample sizesMore of the data being released as

raw or unprocessed dataAgencies establishing new publishing

and access policies

Agencies with differing opinions about what it means to archive

Different technology being implemented by agencies with varying results Federal Register search engine does not

retrieve all actions taken on particular classes of duties

SEC created a fake site to educate users www.sec.gov/headlines/scamsites.htm

Government Documents After 9-11

Documents recalled from Depository Libraries and from agency Web sites

Web sites closed or made inaccessiblePatriot ActPrivacy ActIntelligence Community System for

Information Sharing (ICSIS) protocols hampering information sharing between agencies

Data Quality ActThe Proposed TIA which would have

imposed greater access problemsRemoval of material for political

reasons PubSci Education Department redesign Centers for Disease Control removed

material dealing with AIDS

Examples of material removed for national security Airport safety data Chemical plant risk-management plans US Geologic Service recalled material on

surface water Defense Department removed 6000

documents

Example of an extreme case “Brady Act Instant Background Check is

not applicable to antique firearms was recalled. A 2-page letter but items cited were still available.

Many state governments are following suit using “National Security” as the reason

Tracking Sites

Ombwatch.org maintains a list of documents that have been withdrawn

“Homefront Confidential” also provides a chronology

Updates at www.rcfp.org/behindthehomefront

RATIONALE

An increasing effort to eliminate any service the government provides that competes with commercial providers continues to grow. Justifications: Cost savings Greater nation security Strong printing market Convenience of e-government

Counterpoint is that this philosophy is a contraction of our right to hold the government accountable by insisting that the public record be complete and accessible.

Patrick Henry said :”The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

The Commercial World

Operates in a different manner from government

The principle is that profit may take precedence over public interest

Commercial Databases

Data input errorsSubstandard digitizationDatabases removed from a commercial

provider Moved to another aggregator with differing

content Creating a stand alone database Impact of electronic access to print subscriptions

Articles without electronic copyright authorization removed result of Tasini

EXAMPLES

Not all Primedia author contracts include electronic rights creating a difference between print and nonprint titles

Sage publications pulled their publications from EBSCO and ProQuest because electronic access negatively impacted sales of their print titles

Jane Publications have pulled their material from commercial aggregators; material now available directly from them

Elsevier admits pulling items from their Science Direct database saying “For legal reasons this article has been removed by publisher”.

Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) has pulled their material from Dialog and by the end of the year from EBSCO. They were not happy about how the cites provided linking to their standards

Gale Group’s policy does provide notes about what they have removed; currently 0.25% of their records

Dialog removed several newspaper files including Chicago Tribune,Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel; also BIP; Court Filings (File 793) They maintain a list of files removed at http://www.dialog.com/whatsnew

Removal of news stories that have been plagiarized or fictionalized Newspapers philosophy on corrections

The problem of stories that are reported by various sources over a period of time

Migration of files that lead to loss dataMaterial archived as an abstract and not

full-text

Delays in direct feed from newspapers to the commercial databases

E-journals production, indexing, and archiving issues including the need for standards

Quality of research that is based solely on government sources

Problem of first run stories needing to be corrected but not necessarily appearing in the vendor files

The lack of commonality of standards related to: Full-text Archiving Indexing and Indexes

The evolving relationship of database producers and aggregators

The Web

URL’s that are changed or withdrawnMaterial pull for political reasons Increasing problems in deep linkingRapid growthNo one perfect search engineAccessing ArchivesThe movement to charge fees

Security concernsPop-up ads CookiesSpamRepeat searches often times give

different resultsDisappearing or restructured indexes

Examples

Denmark has filed a lawsuit contesting copyright in deep linking

Searching creates a trail that could provide competitive intelligence to others

Other Issues

The increase in wireless applications and corresponding security issues

Continuing need to justify expenses since everything is free and on the WEB

Decreasing control over the exact reproduction of content

The need for new international standards Increasing dependency on relevance

features of meta searches

Solutions that are needed

Determining the true level of the Information Literacy/Fluency of our clients

Permanent preservation concerns Digitalization is not the answer….yet

NASA satellite data of the 70’s not readable60’s land-use and natural resource inventories in NY

can no longer be readWhen JPEG2000 is adopted; JPEG will not be

compatibleHalf-life of a referenced URL is approximately four

years

FirewallsIncreasing hoaxes and frauds

Whales in the Great lakes

What do you need to do?

Being aware 24/7Regular monitoring of listservs Active participation in users groupsBeing willing to be an honest criticGo to conferences and local meetingsAttend product demonstrations Network, network, network

Our reputation as quality information providers is in our hands

Don’t let those BLACK HOLES swallow you!

Judith J. FieldSenior LecturerWayne State Universityaa4101@wayne.edu