Public Domain U.S. Government Information Will Get Easier To Find – Eventually

A quick note about some new things for us Public Domain users coming down the pike.

You really have to understand “Meta Data” to get the full idea… but what it amounts to is this:

Meta Data – is sort of like how you “search” for stuff online. You and I might use entirely different keywords (search terms) when using a search box… and yet we both are looking for the same thing.

Also – “We” don’t always know what something was called years ago… and yet we want the information.

The idea is for someone to figure out how websites can create “related” search ideas for you (much like Google does) on sites that have public domain information that is essentially hidden from us because we don’t know what to ask for.

Also – Harvard has “dumped” some info into a more “public” option for all of us.

April 24, 2012 – The Harvard Library announced it is making more than 12 million catalog records from Harvard’s 73 libraries publicly available.

A new Digital Public Library will become available in 2013 – this video explains it better than I could.

Government Publications: Enhanced Access and Discovery through Open Linked Data and Crowdsourcing

And this video will explain what is happening with Meta Data and some exciting new things that are going to be happening with Government Public Domain.

I am a huge HUGE fan of using U. S. Government Public Domain content in all kinds of projects. Just watching the video on this page,  gives you a great idea of how much this new Meta-Data integration will be such a huge help in finding more of the “hidden gems”.