Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 11:48:19 -0400 (EDT) From: James McDonough Subject: EPIN Summary ********************************************************** SUMMARY OF ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER VOL. 5, NO. 10; May 19, 1995 ********************************************************** INDEX: 1. FORRESTER'S QUEST FOR A FOR PUBLIC DATABASE OF FEDERAL CASELAW 2. NPR SPONSORS FEDERAL EFFORT TO CENTRALIZE INFORMATION 3. WHITE HOUSE WEB LEADS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS' THOMAS IN USAGE **************************************************************** For more information on the complete ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER or to receive a FREE sample of the complete printed copy send an email message to EPIN Publishing at epin@access.digex.net. Include your snail mail address. ***************************************************************** 1. FORRESTER'S QUEST FOR A FOR PUBLIC DATABASE OF FEDERAL CASELAW: U.S. District Court Judge J. Owen Forrester (Atlanta) is conducting an informal, personal campaign to try and convince the eleven federal Circuit Courts to make their opinions available at electronic archives for free public access. Forrester believes that several archives would be establish at universities in various parts of the country. At the same time, he made it clear that he is not engaged in any effort to create a public domain legal citation system, and that he has no formal or informal relationship on this matter with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). He denied even knowing DOJ Official Paul Friedman, who had been linked to the Forrester effort by press reports. He stressed that his efforts are personal, and that he will probably not try to involve the U.S. Judicial Conference. 2. NPR SPONSORS FEDERAL EFFORT TO CENTRALIZE INFORMATION: The National Performance Review (NPR) is sponsoring a multi-agency government effort headed by the U.S. Postal Service to bring electronic government services to the American people. Designated WINGS (Web Interactive Network of Government Services), the effort aims to deliver integrated government services to the public via a variety of systems, i.e., kiosks, the Internet, private online services, and through interactive cable television. WINGS is an outgrowth of the work of the Interagency Kiosk Committee, which has just completed the study, The Kiosk Network Solution: An Electronic Gateway to Government Services, for the Consumer Service Improvement Team of the Government Information Technology Services Working Group, a subgroup of the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF). 3. WHITE HOUSE WEB LEADS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS' THOMAS IN USAGE: The Welcome to the White House web at mid-May was averaging 133,615 daily transactions as compared to approximately 33,000 daily transactions for THOMAS, the congressional online service run by the Library of Congress. Since the White House web went online on Oct. 20 until this week, the system has processed 27.2 million transactions. THOMAS since coming online on January 5 through May 6 has processed 3.7 million transactions. Other popular federal government web homepages include FedWorld at the National Technical Information Services, NASA, and Treasury Department. *************************************************************** ARCHIVE: EPIN Summaries are being archived on the Electronic Frontier Foundation system. To access past summaries, use the following addresses: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Publications/E-journals/EPIN gopher://gopher.eff.org/hh/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ ***************************************************************** James McDonough, Editor Electronic Public Information Newsletter epin@access.digex.net; Tel:/Fax: (301) 365-3621