GPO And Cornell University Pilot Open Government Initiative

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) and Cornell University Law School are beginning a year long pilot project to evaluate a conversion process of The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) in XML (extensible markup language) format.  The CFR is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government. The Cornell Legal Information Institute will convert various titles into XML and place them on the university's Web site for students to research.  GPO and Cornell will apply lessons learned from this pilot project and share the information with members of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) to find ways of providing the public openness to government documents. 

"GPO has a historic partnership with the library community in developing ways to provide the American people open and transparent access to the documents of our democracy," said Public Printer Bob Tapella.  "The pilot project with Cornell Law School is another example of that partnership and how we are all embracing President Obama's call to provide the public with more tools to monitor the workings of the federal government."

"Cornell University Law Library is a recognized leader in providing outstanding and innovative information services and resources," said Pat Court, Associate Law Librarian. "As a federal depository library, we will assist the public and the university community with the expanded functions for tracking and updating federal regulations that are developed by this partnership."

Thomas R. Bruce, Director of Cornell's Legal Information Institute, added, "The LII will provide the technical expertise needed to create a high-value version of the CFR, with features that significantly extend its utility beyond current offerings." The LII has long been known for its expertise in creating lawyer- and citizen-friendly versions of the United States Code from bulk data created by GPO in older formats. 

GPO recently announced the conversion of the CFR into XML and placed online at GPO's Federal Digital System (www.fdsys.gov) and the Government's site for Government data (www.data.gov). 

Initially the CFR's from 2007 to present are available and those dating back to 2000 will be added over the next few months.  This project and the Cornell pilot are part of the on going effort to meet President Barack Obama's challenge to Federal agencies to create a more open and transparent Government.  GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys), a world-class information management system for Federal publications, is instrumental in enabling this enhanced capability for the CFR. 

Link: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/bulkdata/CFR

The GPO is the Federal Government's primary centralized resource for gathering, cataloging, producing, providing, authenticating, and preserving published U.S. Government information in all its forms. GPO is responsible for the production and distribution of information products and services for all three Branches of the Federal Government. In addition to publication sales, GPO makes Government information available at no cost to the public through GPO's Federal Digital System (www.fdsys.gov) GPO Access (www.gpoaccess.gov), and through partnerships with approximately 1,250 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit www.gpo.gov.

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