GISCafe Voice Susan Smith
Susan Smith has worked as an editor and writer in the technology industry for over 16 years. As an editor she has been responsible for the launch of a number of technology trade publications, both in print and online. Currently, Susan is the Editor of GISCafe and AECCafe, as well as those sites’ … More » What’s at Data.gov?July 1st, 2009 by Susan Smith
A couple of weeks ago, the White House issued a press release announcing Data.gov, a portal whose purpose it is “to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.” The site offers some tools for transportation and the U.S. Census Bureau, National Weather Service, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office datasets, Energy Informatin Administration datasets and more. The concept behind it is to allow the American people better access and use of government-generated data, which the government hopes will result in more interaction and new ideas from citizenry. Hopefully this data will be available via popular search engines, which will certainly make its use more widespread. At this time, however, the site appears to be most useful to government agencies requiring information from other government agencies. Data.gov is part of President Obama’s Open Government initiative. |