An interesting article from the NY Times documents the difficulties in tracking people in large metropolitan cities such as New York.
Also the 2010 Census website has detailed information about the upcoming US census.
Month: February 2010
Categories
Data Links
Data.gov. uk – “Launched in 2010 this official UK government site seeks to increase greater transparency and accountability by providing free open access to many government datasets and official statistics. These cover all areas of government policy ranging from health, to the economy, crime rates and education. Users can search by theme or keyword or browse the latest additions. There is also a section with new apps and widgets. The site also includes a blog, twitter feed and forum where users can share ideas on new applications, mash ups and uses of government data. Copyright and technical information is on the website.”-Intute
“The Guardian’s DataBlog contains links to a range of data via their datastore ( a directory of all the statistics that they post and publish pertaining to current affairs) which can be downloaded in various formats incl. MS Excel. This site (which compliments the Guardina’s ‘free-our-data’ campaign) has links to Environmental data, US data, in addition to a range of -easy-to-use visualisation and sharing Web 2.0 tools and APIs. The Blog also acts as a discussion forum for data in the public domain.” – Intute
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is “the oldest international organization in the UN family….(providing leadership) for information and communication technology issues.” The ITU has just launched its “History of ITU Portal” which contains ITU historical documents from radio, telegraph and telephone conferences. Note, the process of digitization is currently underway and as of this date much of the proposed content has yet to be launched online. Still, it’s worth noting for now and will be a terrific resource once the project is complete. The site also provides a link to ITU statistics, which are freely available.
The FAO (Food & Agriculture Organization) has just launched a Gender and Land Rights Database which “puts the spotlight on one of the major stumbling blocks to rural development – widespread inequalities between men and women in their access to land….. (It) offers up-to-date information on how men and women in 78 countries differ in their legal rights and access to land (and) provides policymakers and other users with a better picture of the major social, economic, political and cultural factors which affect access to land and enforcement of women’s land rights.”
Need to look at US government documents that don’t seem to be publicly available? All may not be lost! Thanks to the tireless efforts of journalists, researchers, and average citizens thousands of documents that would otherwise remain closed to public scrutiny are made available each year through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Even better: many of these folks have contributed their FOIA documents to freely searchable web archives. Here are a few of the best:
- National Security Archive at George Washington University: “collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on a wide range of topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States.”
- GovernmentAttic: “provides electronic copies of hundreds of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act….(including) fascinating historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities…and government bloopers.”
- Electronic Frontier Foundation: This site focuses on collecting and disseminating documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act “on controversial government surveillance programs, lobbying practices, and intellectual property initiatives.”
- American Civil Liberties Union: This portion of the ACLU website provides access to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act “relating to the abuse and torture of prisoners in U.S. detention centers overseas.”
Note, some US Federal Departments and Agencies also have well-organized and fairly comprehensive collections of their own FOIA documents, such as
- The CIA’s FOIA Reading Room
- The Department of Justice – also check out the DOJ’s list of its sub-agency FOIA reading rooms
- US Dept of State FOIA Reading Room
Huge kudos to Sheryl Adam for suggesting this topic and for finding these sites!!! Watch the blog for a future entry on similar Canadian sources of FOI documents.
After discovering this morning that a brand of potato-leek soup might have undeclared clams in it….this seemed like an appropriate database to highlight. The Healthy Canadians website has played host to a database of recalled food and consumer products since 2007. You can search by product or by food and the site also provides links to lists of recalled foods and products by month, and articles on various food/product safety topics.
A related site you may be interested to look at is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. This provides you with a great deal of information related to food & food chain safety in Canada. Also links to the various authorities in each region that are responsible for handling restaurant complaints and inspections.
- For Vancouver, this is the Coastal Health Authority. The Health Authority has a very handy database that will allow you to search for and view restaurant inspections for food establishments in Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, “Bellas,” Richmond and Bowen Island. Just may be more information than you wanted to know!