Oregon City puts all its public records online

The City of Ashland in Oregon is posting all its public records online. Many years' worth of material, including contracts, minutes, policies, ordinances and other documents tracing the inner workings of the city's government, will now be just a mouse click away.

"It's all public information anyway," says Ashland City Recorder Barbara Christensen, who has worked on the project for nine years. "What's changed is that now it's available to anyone without having to walk down here, ask someone to dig through files, then make copies, all of which can take a lot of staff time and money."

The documents, estimated in the hundreds of thousands, or 4.2 gigabytes' worth, are searchable on the city web site (www.ashland.or.us). Keywords can be used to search for a document by subject or department. Since 1996, Christensen has put all new records into a digital database. She also digitizes any existing legacy records when they are used by employees.

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New police wireless network will have "astronomical" ability to share data

The police department in Fredericksburg, VA, and nearby sheriffs' offices have banded together to create their own wireless network. It will allow the jurisdictions to share all of their data (except information on informants and internal affairs) via laptops in squad cars. That will bring instant access to police reports, search and arrest warrants and other such information.

According to Sheriff Howard Smith, a big advantage of the network is that it "keeps deputies and officers on the street where we want them [and] should also help solve crimes faster."

Sheriff Charlie Jett is equally enthusiastic, saying the new network will have an "astronomical" ability to carry information. Not only will it mean long-term cost savings "in the millions of dollars," but the network will have so much space that law enforcement officials have invited other government agencies to consider using it to improve their information flow.

On seeing this story DCL's president Mark Gross commented: "What’s interesting here is this is all being done at grass-roots level with relatively small amounts of money."

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Random House to put educational materials on cellphones

Responding to the huge popularity of cell phones, Random House is to offer foreign language courses and video game strategy guides as cell phone text. Last month, the publishing firm announced it had reached licensing arrangements with a San Diego-based firm to provide cell phone access to its Living Language foreign-language study programs and Prima Games video game strategy guides.

"You have a whole generation of consumers, perhaps more than a generation, who are never more than 10 feet from their cell phones, including when they shower," said Richard Sarnoff, president of Random House Ventures, an investment subsidiary of Random House, Inc. "Increasingly, cell phones are becoming an appliance for entertainment and education."

Some predict that popular novels may one day be released on cell phones. But industry experts agree that the small screens are much better for providing simple information, such as words translated into foreign languages, rather than longer works.

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ASIDES

Are you an IT fashion victim?

Does what you wear to work really matter? Apparently it does, according to Valerie Steele, chief curator and acting director of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Her findings – which form part of an ongoing study into IT leadership best practices by the IT Leadership Academy – reveal that:

• Women in IT dress better than their male counterparts (which, she says, "may explain the accelerating ascendancy of women in c-level positions").
• The different tribes of IT have different costumes - IT sales people are "suited up", whereas "repair folks wear mid-dress pants and golf shirts. And security folks remain tragically out of step with sartorial norms.”
• High performance, image-aware IT executives have "discovered the wonders of British Savile Row tailoring."