Categorization of Government Information (CGI) Working Group\
of the Interagency Committee on Government Information

# Seventeenth Meeting, October 25, 2004 at White House Conference Center, Washington DC

##### CGI Members attending

> Chair (Eliot Christian, USGS)
>
> Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (Leslie Campbell, US Courts)
>
> Federal librarians (Richard Huffine, EPA)

Federal Enterprise Architecture (Eliot Christian, USGS)

> CENDI (Jim Erwin, DTIC)
>
> FGDC (Eliot Christian, USGS)
>
> ICGI Electronic Records WG liaison (Susan Sullivan, NARA , by
> telephone)
>
> ICGI Content Management WG liaison (Joann McGovern, GSA), by telephone

##### Others attending

> Walt Warnick , DOE / OSTI
>
> Greta Lowe, NASA -- Langley
>
> Marcia Christian (USGS), providing notes
>
> Andy Hoskinson (Unisys, IAC EA SIG)
>
> David Conner (Convera)
>
> Tom Bascom (LinkSpace)

1.  Attendees of the meeting, in person and by telephone, introduced
    themselves.

2.  The notes from the September 27, 2004 meeting were accepted as
    written.

3.  Participants were reminded that the November 8 meeting will be 9:00
    to 4:30, same room. (The afternoon conference call will have a
    different call-in passcode: 352851).

4.  The presentation on "The AQUAINT Program " scheduled to be given by
    Lucian Russell (Computer Sciences Corporation) was rescheduled to a
    future meeting.

5.  A presentation was given by Walt Warnick, Director of the Office of
    Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) at the Department of
    Energy, which makes Federal R&D reports available to the public.
    Walt said that OSTI makes 47 million pages searchable and has
    increased search traffic 100-fold. He said that he is a proponent of
    meta-search and distributed search and is interested in advancing
    the state of the art for searching the \"deep web\". Walt advocates
    full-text searching as a cost effective way to search the top layer
    of government web pages that are "inherently searchable" (not
    including databases, maps, etc.) A technical discussion among the
    group clarified that there is a spectrum of cataloguing ranging from
    traditional human cataloging through machine-assisted cataloging to
    fully automated cataloging. Walt requested that the CGI WG reports
    make clear the definition of government information with respect to
    use of "persistent identifiers". He also said that currently
    available commercial search mechanisms should not be cause for
    government to abandon its own search technology. He emphasized that
    government search must be of value over the long term, and therefore
    must be designed to maximize compliance. For instance, a practical
    approach might define an ideal for indexing several data elements
    but accommodate in practice that not every element would always be
    populated.

6.  Susan Sullivan of NARA reported on activities of the ICGI Electronic
    Records Policy Working Group (ERPWG). She said the Draft of
    Recommendations for the Effective Management of Government
    Information on the Internet and Other Electronic Records report was
    released last week for public review. It is available online at:
    <https://www.cio.gov/documents/ICGI/ERPWG_Recommendations.pdf> The
    public comment period will last until November 24, then an updated
    report will be presented to ICGI on December 6. The Recommendation
    will go forward by December 17, 2004 to the Director of OMB and the
    Archivist of the United States. Susan also said that the ERPWG
    November meeting will be focused on ERM Toolkit issues such as which
    metadata elements to collect.

7.  Joann McGovern of GSA reported on activities of the ICGI Content
    Management Working Group. She said that they are waiting for OMB to
    respond to the draft of their Web Content Standards recommendation.

8.  Eliot Christian of USGS reported on the the Common Metadata
    Definitions (aka "Common Characteristics"). These are definitions
    which will be used in informing the ICGI but the document itself is
    not slated for ICGI approval and dissemination. These definitions
    are coming out at the same time as the Federal Enterprise
    Architecture Data Reference Model (FEA DRM) and the methodology is
    consistent with that guidance.

9.  The CGI WG Work Plan was reviewed. Two of the CGI Recommendation
    products have gone forward for ICGI pre-clearance: (1) the
    definition of government information, and (2) open, interoperable
    standards for searchable identifiers. After discussion, it was
    decided to also send forward the third request for pre-clearance,
    concerning standard categories of Government information.

10. The next meeting of the CGI Working Group will be held on November
    8, 2004 from 9:00-4:00 at the White House Conference Center.