the future of the library – Balliol College

Posted on March 15, 2009 by pm286

In preparation for my presentation to The JISC and The Bodleian on 2009-04-02 in Oxford I’m continuing a somewhat flippant random walk through web pages that might tell me what a library is and what it is for. So I have visited the web pages of Balliol College – where 3 generations of Murray-Rust have studied…

For the library I find

Balliol Library is ‘the jewel in the crown’ of Balliol College. From an early stage the Scholars had a ‘library’ of books in common; a manuscript bequeathed before May 1276 is still with us. The collections of manuscripts and books have continued to grow by gift, bequest and purchase. We serve both the Balliol community of undergraduates, graduates and Fellows, and the worldwide scholarly community who come to study our special collections of early printed books and early and modern manuscripts.

The Library aims to provide the books which undergraduates need for their weekly work, to keep multiple copies of standard texts, and to respond quickly to urgent requests for book purchase (books can often be bought the same day). There are ample funds for the purchase of books, and the modern sections cover all the main subjects of undergraduate study. The ‘in-depth’ collections of 19th and 20th century scholarly books are of interest to graduate students. Balliol was among the first Oxford colleges to begin to computerise its library catalogue. The Library has a microfilm/fiche reader-printer and computer terminals on which the Oxford automated union catalogue (including the Bodleian Library’s and Faculty Libraries’ holdings), and external databases can be consulted.

PMR: So, this seems to be consistent with what we have found so far in the Bodleian and the University:

  • collect and make available books and manuscripts
  • provide services for undergraduates

Can we find a deeper purpose for the college or its library in the statues of Balliol? I’ve managed to find three resources by Googling:

“Early history of Balliol College“. This appears to be an OCRed creation and it is a nice challenge to see whether the incomprehensibility (e.g.

 Ear/)' //lstor.J' of .I]a//io/ Co//c, qz

) comes from the 13th or 21st centuries. It’s not all as bad as that – the running chapter titles are the worst. Typical extract relating to the library:

' Thus farre concerning y library y' now ttands, w'
ye Coll: had before I find little or noe mention, they
reposing their books in it, only soe farr y' seuerall y'
had bin Oxford Scolars left in their wills books to y*
Coll without any mention of a library viz among y
rett was m r Simon de Bredon ye worthieR mathe-
matician of his rime who a ° 137 -, left seall books
of Afronomie & lathematicks therto. \Vill Rede
Bishop of Chiceire, o books, c  i money & one
siluer cup 382 & Roger whelpdale Bishop of Carlile
S' AutIê de Ciuitate dei 422.'

The second consists of a catalog of  early and later manuscripts such as A. STATUTES, FOUNDATION DEEDS AND CHARTERS 13 th – 20 th centuries. This is essentially metadata – pointers to manuscripts and printer books – highly worthy but no immediate use to me.

[In passing I am very pleased to see the College is a strong supporter of Freedom of Information – which is highlighted in the sidebar. Indeed, until I discovered the next resource I contemplated a formal FOI request for the Charter.]

Finally I came across a document representing the modern statutes which gives me exactly what I need.

It does not explicitly (on cursory reading) give the purpose of the college or its library, but states – inter alia –

In elections to the Mastership the electors shall choose the person who is, in their judgement, most fit for the government of the College as a place of religion, learning, and education. [PMR: this document is modern (2008) and still apparently stresses religion.]

So I have had fun on a Sunday morning browsing round the online resources for academic libraries. No very clear idea emerges as to what a library is for. Is it more important for a college to have a library or a chapel?

If we are to look to the future of libraries we have to know what they are for. Flippancy apart, I don’t now know what a library is for. I’d be grateful for suggestions, including formal statements of purpose.

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the library of the future – what's the purpose of Oxford University

Posted on March 15, 2009 by pm286

Following friom previous posts – and in a slightly flippant vein – I’m trying to find the purpose of libraries by browsing the web and starting with Oxford. I can’t find much stated purpose for the Bodleian library, so I’m trying to find the purpose of the University Of Oxford Off to Wikipedia…

The expulsion of foreigners from the University of Paris in 1167 caused many English scholars to return from France and settle in Oxford. The historian Gerald of Wales lectured to the scholars in 1188, and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland arrived in 1190. The head of the University was named a chancellor from 1201, and the masters were recognised as a universitas or corporation in 1231. The students associated together, on the basis of geographical origins, into two “nations”, representing the North (including the Scots) and the South (including the Irish and the Welsh). In later centuries, geographical origins continued to influence many students’ affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. Members of many religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians, settled in Oxford in the mid-13th century, gained influence, and maintained houses for students. At about the same time, private benefactors established colleges to serve as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest were John I de Balliol, father of the future King of Scots; Balliol College bears his name. Another founder, Walter de Merton, a chancellor of England and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, devised a series of regulations for college life; Merton College thereby became the model for such establishments at Oxford as well as at the University of Cambridge. Thereafter, an increasing number of students forsook living in halls and religious houses in favour of living at colleges.

So my hypothesis that universities and therefore libraries are founded to promote God and his Kngdom starts with a good foundation. Let’s try and find the stautes…

Googling for “statutes of the university of Oxford” yields an act of parliament. It dates from 1859, is Crown Copyright (so I will be taken to the Tower if I reproduce it) but basically it repeals the taking of Oaths in Oxford and Cambridge. The Oaths are not mentioned but we can assume that God features prominently. It’s from OPSI – the Office of Public Sector Information – but although the document references changes to an act, the act that is changed is not hyperlinked – and I am not going to search for it.

Oxford University pages on governance are clearer

1. Legal status of the University

The University of Oxford is a lay corporation first established at common law by custom or prescription and later formally incorporated by statute. It has no founder and no charter. The early history of the University1 shows that it evolved from a group of Masters and students residing in Oxford in the latter part of the twelfth century. The academic society which they collectively brought into life paralleled similar associations at other centres of learning in Europe, notably Bologna and Paris. The term originally used throughout Europe to describe such a society was studium generale. The purpose of the studia generalia was to provide instruction in the seven liberal arts – grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium) and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the quadrivium). Graduates in arts could embark upon a higher course of study leading to degrees in law, medicine, or theology.

and tellingly it indicates…

The establishment of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge may be contrasted with the foundation of their colleges. All the colleges are founded by charter. With the exception of the more modern foundations they are eleemosynary corporations, that is to say they were established and endowed for the perpetual distribution of the bounty of the founder and were frequently charged with the duty of saying masses or prayers for the founder and his or her kin.8

PMR: The lack of charter at least gives Oxford the chance to adjust with the times. It’s frustrating that although this document has many references and many of these point to potentially e-paper documents (such as Acts of Parliament), none of them is hyperlinked. I’d like to read the Act – perhaps it doesn’t mention God. But clearly the colleges – and presumably their libraries – are devoted to the furtherance of God’s purpose… so I’ll be browsing Balliol College…

Note that what I am doing might be considered as either learning (being a student) or scholarship. Is that something that libraries – whatever they are – should be involved in?

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The library of the future – what is the Bodleian for?

Posted on March 15, 2009 by pm286

I’m talking at Oxford on 2009-04-02 on the future of libraries and I’m doing some simple browsing to see what I can find – by intelligent browsing only – about the purpose of libraries, specifically Oxbridge.

My first visit is obviously to Wikipedia:

The late sixteenth century saw the library go through a period of decline (to the extent that the library’s furniture was sold, and only three of the original books belonging to Duke Humfrey remained in the collection).[8] It was not until 1598 that the library began to thrive once more, when Thomas Bodley (a former fellow of Merton College) wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the University offering to support the development of the library: “where there hath bin hertofore a publike library in Oxford: which you know is apparent by the rome it self remayning, and by your statute records I will take the charge and cost upon me, to reduce it again to his former use.”[9] Duke Humfrey’s Library was refitted, and Bodley donated a number of his own books to furnish it. The library was formally re-opened on 8 November 1602 under the name “Bodleian Library” (officially Bodley’s Library).[10]

PMR: We immediately see one of the many problems of digital curation. Although I assume that “apparent”, “rome” and “remayning” are faithfully transliterated, their semantics and deeper meaning are unclear. I would value a modern interpretation. There is no mention of a charter or purpose… so let’s go to the official Bodleian site:

Ten things you need to know about the Bodleian Library

  1. The Bodleian Library is a reference-only library. We do not lend books, and you cannot borrow them.
  2. The Bodleian Library is the second biggest in Great Britain, after the British Library itself. The Bodleian collection includes more than 8 million volumes.
  3. The Bodleian Library is one of five legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom. We are entitled to claim a copy of every book and periodical part published in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. We are also obliged to keep them in perpetuity.
  4. The Bodleian Library is part of Oxford University Library Services (OULS), the group of more than thirty research, faculty and departmental libraries that make up the largest part of Oxford University’s library provision.
  5. The Bodleian’s printed collections are listed on Oxford University’s union catalogue OLIS, which is available for all to consult on the internet.
  6. The Bodleian’s holdings include internationally significant collections of manuscripts, maps, sheet music, and printed ephemera.
  7. Our open access (open shelf) collections include the material that our experts believe will be most helpful to you in your learning. These comprise approximately 14% of our total collection, and are spread across nine reading rooms in the central Bodleian itself, and twelve other OULS libraries.
  8. The remainder of our collections are kept in a series of closed access warehouses called the Bookstack (stack books). Material from the Bookstack can be ordered, using a function on the OLIS catalogue, to the central Bodleian’s reading rooms or twelve other OULS libraries.
  9. Our facilities staff will search your bags both when you enter the Library and when you leave.
  10. If, having read this, you are unsure where to start or have any questions, please:…

PMR: so from this we learn that the Bodleian collects books and manuscripts and is part of (not the whole of) Oxford libraries. It clearly has a purpose to collect things and a minor mention of learning…

Does it have a stated purpose?

The best I can find rapidly is:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SERVICES
MISSION
To provide the most effective university library service possible, in response to current and future users’ needs; and to maintain and develop access to Oxford’s collections as a national and international research resource.

The first phrase is worthy, but self-referential – as I don’t know what a library is, it won’t help me. The section is clear – OULS collects things. Note this is not just the Bodleian now, it’s the whole University of Oxford.

Can I find a charter? This is a legal document which requires the grantee to have certain aims and to abide by certain conditions. There is no link on the Bodleian site to any charter, so I’ll use the history. This states:

[Sir Thomas Bodley] married a rich widow whose husband had made a fortune from trading in pilchards and, in his retirement from public life, decided, in his own words, to ‘set up my staff at the library door in Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded, that in my solitude, and surcease from the Commonwealth affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose, than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the public use of students’.

So Bodley’s purpose was for the public use of students. This is partly clear; we’ll assume we know what a student is (thought that is not self-evident). It doesn’t say what they are going to use the library for.

I doubt that I shall find a charter for the library – it’s probably subsumed under the Charter of the University or one or more colleges. So our trail so far has yielded:

  • libraries collect things
  • libraries are for the use of students.

I’ll now try to find what the purpose of the University and one of its colleges is…

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the library of the future – Oxford 2009-04-02

Posted on March 15, 2009 by pm286

In this and subsequent posts I shall explore some ideas on the library of the future, being catalyzed by the following invitation from Rachel Bruce of The JISC:

…I’m now writing on behalf of the JISC and the Bodleian Library to invite you to speak at an event that will explore the future library on 2 April 2009.

The event will be in the style of a question time panel, before questions are put to the panel a number of key stakeholders will present their perspective on their requirements. I thought you’d be a […] speaker and member of the panel able to give the perspective of a researcher. … we’d like you to speak about your information needs, how you undertake your research and what you, as a researcher, need to remain relevant and to produce new and innovative research.

The event will run from 2pm – 6.30pm and should have an audience of 150 -200. It will be held at the University of Oxford.

The purpose of the event is to consider some of the key challenges that will shape the library of the future. So in effect key issues libraries need to respond to if they are to survive. The types of issues we expect to be raised include: skills for the future librarian from marketing to data curation, the need to foster partnerships between public and private sectors as well as working across the organsiation ( university ); the need for a heightened understanding of the changing user base and increasingly diverse needs of users; future information needs of researchers and what will they need to undertake their research and how to serve the citizen.

We are hoping this event, with the aid of high profile speakers, will serve to make a high profile statement to libraries about how they need to respond to support research and society more generally into the future and in the digital age.

I’m very excited about this and I’m starting to think and do some browsing (I won’t call it “research”). I shall blog from time to time as I go through – I shall be provocative but, I hope, constructive.

The main question has to be “what is a library?”, moderated by “what is it for?” **in the current century**. Unless we can answer those questions, and the second one in a constructive manner – then the rest of the discussion is likely to be ill-directed.

So I have started by trying to ask “what is the Bodleian Library for?” I may try to moderate it by looking at colleges on Oxbridge, specifically Balliol and Churchill. Both have archives, but with a wide difference in content and approach.

I’m taking a pragmatic approach.

If, as a citizen of the world with no special privileges, I can’t find a resource on the web within 5 mnutes then it doesn’t exist..

I am not a historical researcher who can travel to read medieval documents – I require them to be online and transcribed into accessible twenty-first century documents. And although in practice I would probably enlist the actual help of librarians/archivists at Bodley, Balliol and Churchill I am doing this deliberately blind. I ask forbearance from anyone whose collections I may apparently criticize – I have unreserved admiration for all who curate the past and present and know how difficult this is with limited resources.

I am a scientist so will start with a hypothesis:

“The stated purpose of libraries at Oxford and Cambridge is to glorify God and promote His Kingdom on earth”. This purpose has not been formally modified

Since Cambridge and Oxford are about 800 years old (Cambridge celibrates its 800th anniversary this year) there may have been minor deviations from this purpose (kings and primeministers have sometimes tried to steer away from this) but our charters and other founding documents willl confirm the hypothesis. (I do not have enough resource to do a proper study, so in the spirit of the collaborative electronic age I will be delighted to see whether the blogosphere can help).

Let’s start with the history and statutes…

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Research support roles for the library

Posted on March 14, 2009 by pm286

A long and thoughtful post from Richard Akerman on how the library should support research.

revisiting potential research-support roles for the library

Three years ago, I wrote this list of potential research-support roles for a library in the digital environment:
  1. institutional repository for pre-prints and post-prints of the research organization’s publications
  2. data repository for the research conducted at the organization
  3. providing advanced (data/publication/information/discovery/etc.) tools that integrate into the researcher’s workflow

These are numbered for convenience, not importance.
What do I think, three years on.

Institutional Repositories

1. While institutional repositories are valuable, they currently benefit primarily organisations, not researchers. 

…
If providing an institutional repository is your primary or core value to the organisation, you are putting yourself at tremendous risk, because a savvy administrator may notice that you can purchase hosted repository services from BePress and BMC Open Repository.  Any time a primary function (however valuable) has become commodity, you are at risk.

…

Data

2. Data is a strange thing.  Unlike the publisher resistance to article repositories, there is pretty much universal agreement amongst all parties that data should be openly shared.  …  The most practical things we can do right now is share what data we have, think about what open data will mean, and try to get more and more data openly shared.

Advanced Discovery and e-Science

3. This is an important area that I think offers enormous potential for libraries. 

…

Where I think things are possible is on the smaller scale, building and integrating advanced discovery and integration with researcher workflows piece-by-piece. 

…

Many pieces of this environment are being built.  The library has a key role in integrating them and educating researchers about them.  As indicated above, this is everything from

…

An important point must be made here: if you don’t have some point of connection with your researchers – some discovery tools on your site and in their browser that the library provides, then you have no point of contact or credibility upon which to base all the advanced capabilities you may want to bring to bear. [PMR’s emphasis]

Some of the topics about data and e-science that I have discussed above will be covered in the ICSTI 2009 conference in Ottawa this June (about which more in the following posting).

PMR: I urge you to read it in full. If librarians are not in touch and helping their researchers directly then they will be sidelined. That’s the way to modern world is going. I store my code on sourceforge, mail on Google, slides somewhere else, etc. We are looking to virtualize our software… and so it goes.

So libraries should do what they do well – work with academics to advance knowledge, capture knowedge, enhance the scholarly process. Not build bit buckets for the bureaucrats.

For science it’s clear. The library must be in the lab, or it’s nowhere. Our chemistry department (and we are part of that) is now planning its own approach in capturing and preserving research data. That’s means giving the the scientists what they want. Chemical information systems. Using their own theses to inform and enhance decisions on a daily basis. Protecting their intellectual property. Embargoing until appropriate release date. Searching for chemical structures. Comparing spectra. … etc. And I could write similar words for bioscience, materials

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Earth's proud empires

Posted on March 14, 2009 by pm286
Rich Apodaca commented:
March 13, 2009 at 9:08 pm (Edit)

Peter, IMHO being funded by Microsoft is neither inconsistent with advocating Open Data nor with advocating Open Source. Microsoft isn’t evil – it’s just increasingly irrelevant.
The marketplace is currently dealing Microsoft what it deserves. Its customers now have choices like never before and they’re increasingly saying “no” to overdesigned products, planned obsolescence, and the general arrogance and disinterest in customers that monopoly breeds.
One of the things Microsoft’s former customers are turning to is a Web-centric way of working. Google docs is one example, but companies like 37signals, Firewheel Design, and a host of others are showing that the number of situations in which a desktop application is necessary is smaller than many would have predicted. Many of them charge for their services and a good number are profitable. Nothing wrong with that.
As long as Microsoft’s money is there, I’d take it without the slightest reservation. But I’d also try to make sure that what I’m being paid to do had some relevance to people doing their work on the Web.

Very much my own feelings as far as Microsoft Corporation is concerned. At school we used to sing “like earth’s proud empires pass away” and this holds well for the ICT industry. The exciting thing about writing compoter systems is that’s it’s possible to create smethign where you can see the contribution to change – albeit it slight. When working in the W3C XML group we could see how this was going to change the world – and interestingly some people in MS (e.g. Jean Paoli) understood that at a very early stage. Whatever else I have MS in part (along with Jon Bosak/SUN) to thank for the emergence of XML.

MS has to reinvent itself. I remember MS’s challenge to IBM – how could IBM possibly fall from grace? But in the mid 90’s it wa an ailing company. Now MS is going through the same process, being challenged by Google. The process will continue 10 years down the line…

I’m working with MS Research. I’m not exactly sure what part MS Research plays wrt. the main company. That’s true of many research divisions of companies. It’s probably clearer in traditional medicinal chemistry (where I worked) in that the drugs then had to come through the system. Now it may be diifferent. The same with Unilever Research (who now pay me). Companies don’t necessarily want their RDs to create new products – or even new ideas for products. Many want them to keep them connected and agile in an ever changing world. To link into universities and complementary businesses. To funnel the best graduates into their company.

The people in MSR with whom I work know the company has to change. They’re headed by Tony Hey who pioneered the eScience (== cyberinfrastructure) program in UK. And one major change – at least in MSR – is the need to espouse Open approaches. To do that they need a window onto that world – Open Source, Open Data, Open Standards, Open Access. MSR (sic) is involved in sponsoring all of these. They are members of Apache.

Critics may say that this is an inexpensive way of buying goodwill in a world which has shown them that monopolies – and especially arrogant monpolies – will not always prosper. History will tell. But if MSR is going to change it is going to need to do the Open things that will be a amjor part of the future. If so, they are going about it constructively.

Is our work with MS relevant? I try extremely hard to make it so. We have had to work in a .NET environment and coming from our Open Java Blue Obelisk community that has been very painful. There’s been a lot to learn which has been necessary just so we can code collaboratively.

Has it been worth it? We are 9 months in and it’s too early to say. We (through Joe Townsend) are fairly up to speed with .NET/WPF/XAML etc. The .NET environment is (I think) ultimately a lot better for creating graphics than Swing (which has cost me a lot of blood). I like the integration of WPF with XAML so that many aspects of screen display can be created though external XML. Is that better than the newer GUIs coming from the Web-centric players? No opinion yet.

There’s been a major benefit in working in a fully XML-compliant environment, and with people who are as enthusiastic as us. Chem4Word is completely based on XML both at the chemical end and on the screen. That leads to a much higher semantic coherence than traditional legacy systems where there is transduction from legacy to internal data structure and back, In C4W there is only one representation of the chemistry…

But I am getting ahead. We’ll be telling you more later about the details and how we want to explore collaboration.

Microsoft may have owned our bodies – companies like Google will end up owning our soul. We need constant vigilance.

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Open Data in Science

Posted on March 14, 2009 by pm286

I’m delighted to be part of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s new initiative on “Open Data in Science”. Here’s Jonathan Gray’s email:

Hi all,

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new Working Group on Open
Data in Science. In the first instance, the group will aim to:

  • Act as a central point of reference and support for people who
    think they are interested in open data in science.
  • Identify practices of early adopters, collecting data and
    developing guides.
  • Act as a hub for the development of low cost, community driven
    projects around open data in science.

We are currently working on:

  • a prize for open data in science
  • a service to request that a given dataset to be made open or to
    request clarification about whether or not it can be re-used
  • case studies on the benefits of open data in different domains

Further details can be found at:

http://okfn.org/wiki/wg/science
http://blog.okfn.org/2009/03/13/working-group-on-open-data-in-science/

Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org

Open Data has come a long way in the last 2-3 years. In 2006 the term was rarely used – I badgered SPARC and they generously created a set up a mailing list. I also started a page on Wikipedia in 2006 so it’s 2-and-a-half years old.

Now “open data” is a widely used phrase. I don’t know how many people regard “Open Data” as a term, but when they do I hope they’ll concentrate on positive action. We’ve restricted the OKF effort to Science because it’s important and it’s bounded. The logic of the case is very simple:

  • Science rests on data. Without complete data, science is flawed.
  • Many of todays global challenges require scientific data. Climate, Health, Agriculture…
  • Scientists are funded to do research and to make the results available to everyone. This includes the data. Funders expect this. So does the world.
  • The means of dissemination of data are cheap and universal. There is no technical reason why all the data in all the chemistry research in the world should not be published into the cloud. It’s small compared with movies…
  • Data needs cleaning, flitering, repurposing, re-using. The more people who have access to this, the better the data and the better the science.

Some of the lack of data publication is just laziness. However some is the active non-cooperation or even antagonism of some publishers. The WG will be addressing this and seein if we can help change some views – in a constructive manner…

And my enormous thanks to Jonathan, Rufis and others for the energy they have put into taking this forward.

    • Posted in semanticWeb, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

    JISC on writetoreply.org

    Posted on March 13, 2009 by pm286

    Just learnt about this from a comment on this blog…

    Tony Hirst
    We’ve also had a go at opening the call up a little more, even, on WriteToReply at http://writetoreply.org/jiscri 🙂

    This is a clever idea where public documents are posted and can be annotated. This has lots of possibilities, but the example is of a public funding call and the opportunity to annotate it or propose collaborative ideas.

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    More thoughts on JISC funding

    Posted on March 13, 2009 by pm286

    I have been rightly taken to task for a throwaway phrase about secrecy in my posting about JISC projects. It wasn’t the real me … I claim no defence other than being a bit rusty on the blogging…

    Les Carr:
    Comment:
    Surely to get collaboration going in these areas we are going to have to start giving away secrets? After all, what’s to lose? The pots of money aren’t big enough to squabble over.

    Jos Winn
    Comment:
    Couldn’t agree more Les, and as the pots of money grow in size, the potential for funding wider collaboration is greater. Secrecy during funding calls seems like a rapidly out-dated and disadvantageous approach to me. Put people in a room and they don’t sit in the corner working out projects on their own. They talk to each other. With much of our time spent conversing over the web, the time is ripe for building on ideas that are forming through open online conversation every day.
    Here’s something to help us along the way. Hopefully we can offer something else early next week…
    http://wiki.writetoreply.org/wiki/Jiscri_Seeking_Collaborators

    So fully agreed – we’ll work this out in the open… My 2p is that we can involve undergraduate students over the summer, where we have had lots of success. Haven’t thought a lot more than that. This could be a fun project involving several institutions
    P.

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    Whatdotheyknow – is Market Hill a one-way Street?

    Posted on March 13, 2009 by pm286

    There is a hidden reason behind this post which I will reveal in a few days…
    The MySociety group has created sensational software and practices for enhancing government both frmally and informally. Visit them:

    Hello! We are mySociety – we run most of the UK’s best known democracy websites.

    Using our services, 200,000 people have written to their MP for the first time, over 8,000 potholes and other broken things have been fixed, nearly 9,000,000 signatures have been left on petitions to the Prime Minister, and at least 77 tiny hats have been knitted for charity.
    There’s a large Cambridge representation and members are often to be found at Citizen Pollock’s CB2 extravaganzas.
    Here’s “WhatDoTheyKnow?”  – a site which allows anyone to ask questions under the Freedom Of Information (FOI) act.  Yes, although it doesn’t look like it, the UK has an FOI act. It’s fairly toothless when you want to know where the WOMD are, why we invaded Iraq, etc. but it applies to most (?all) public institutios, including Universities. These orgs have to have a FOI officer who has to respond to questions from anyone in a fixed period. Suppose you want to know whether Market Hill in Cambridge is a one-way streeet. (BTW I often cycle along it and, yes, it’s dead flat – A hill in Cambridge is anything about 1 metre above the river.) Here’s how it works:

    • You go to WDTK and select the organization you want to write to. The great thing is that WDTK has already got a list of many of the FOIO’s so there is a very good chance you will be writing to the correct person
    • WDTK filters the requests (i.e. no abuse, spam, etc.) and formats them in a consistent way. So there is a simple statement of the request. This is posted publicly so the whole world knows the request has been made
    • WDTK start the clock ticking. The FOIO has 28 days to conform to the law – yes it’s the law.
    • The FOIO replies and WDTK format and post the reply. The replies are mainly but not always born-digital. Paper and ePaper get posted as PDF.
    • The requester may accept the reply or may ask for clarification, in which case all this is posted.

    So it benefits everyone. I now know that I can’t cycle up MH in one direction (bummer – I though cyclists could, so I’ll have to walk). I don’t have to bother the council or it FOIO so they do their job more efficiently.
    Sometimes the FOI doesn’t reply, in which case they get a red clock. In which case the requester can chase them and point out they are breaking the LAW.
    Sometimes a FOI replies that they do not have the information. That is often true, but often contentious. There has been a request  (see University of Cambridge ) for information for traffic to a given IP address on the University network. The University has said it doesn’t hold the info. I’m fascinated to find the storty behind this. Anyway it’s all public. There have also been requests on employment policy, investment in Icelandic banks and Scientology.
    It’s a great idea – simple to explain – highly useful. It costs money to run, but compared with most projects is amazing.
    Oh, some bodies are exempt. Mainly government departments with something to hide. You have to go to the US FOI to find that info.
    Oh, and Tony Blair, as a de facto god,  has always been exempt.

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