On April 7, federal agencies released “Open Government Plans” detailing how they will make their operations and data more transparent and expand opportunities for citizen participation, collaboration and oversight. In addition, each agency identified at least one “flagship initiative” – a signature open government innovation in the agency. The plans were mandated by President Obama’s Open Government Directive issued in December 2009.
On April 14, Twitter announced it is donating its digital archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress. Twitter is a social networking service that enables users to send and receive tweets, which consist of web messages of up to 140 characters. Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets per day from people around the world. The Library will receive all public tweets-which number in the billions-from the 2006 inception of the service to the present.
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) has issued a proposed rule that would remove individuals from eligibility for NHPRC grants, and change the time for posting of grant opportunity announcements from four to three months before the application deadline.
The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) this week issued its Fiscal Year 2009 Report to the President providing data about the Government-wide security classification. It is accessible at www.archives.gov/isoo/reports/ .
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has launched a new initiative called Bridging Cultures, which encourages projects that explore the ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the subcultures within America’s borders, have influenced American society. NEH is seeking proposals to plan and implement a program consisting of a forum and a workshop on one of two humanities themes: “Civility and Democracy” or “The Muslim World and the Humanities.”
The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) will meet on April 22 in room 1310 of the Longworth House Office Building from 10 am to 12:30 pm, here in Washington. Presentations will be made by Acting National Declassification Center Director Michael Kurtz and by Wayne Leathers of the Defense Change Management Organization.
