Wouldn’t it be cool if someone created a one-stop-shopping portal for all
U.S. Government data? Just think of it: data from every department in the federal government available through one web site in a variety of common formats for sorting, downloading, and manipulating. Well, stop dreaming, because it’s being developed right now and is located at
http://www.data.gov. The official goal of this ambitious project is “to improve access to Federal data and expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (e.g., web applications). Data.gov strives to make government more transparent and is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. The openness derived from Data.gov will strengthen our Nation’s democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
I first heard about “Data.gov” when I read an article in
Wired Magazine about the nation’s first Chief Information Officer (CIO), Vivek Kundra, who is the architect of this initiative
(http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/magazine/17-07/mf_cio). According to Mr. Kundra, “The default setting for the U.S. Government should not be that everything should be secret and closed. The default setting for the U.S. Government should be that it’s open.” Launched in May of this year with just 47 datasets, the site already has almost 600 such records in the “raw” data catalog, including results of the Public Library Survey from FY1992 through FY2006. The plan is to continue adding more datasets on a regular basis as agencies submit them and to respond to user requests for new collections of data to be added. This project holds great promise not only for librarians and other research professionals, but also for citizens who want to know how their government is performing.
And what about state governments? They, too are ready to join the effort to make government information more accessible. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) has agreed to collaborate with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Federal CIO, and the General Services Administration (GSA) to make state datasets available, using Data.gov as a model
(http://www.nascio.org/newsroom/pressrelease.cfm?id=36). California, Utah, and the District of Columbia have already established their own state data portals, so you can see how such a project might look
(http://www.data.gov/statedatasites).
