Free Pint No.83 - XML and Freedom of Information Free Pint "Helping 35,000 people use the Web for their work" http://www.freepint.co.uk/ ISSN 1460-7239 15th March 2001 No.83 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = IN THIS ISSUE EDITORIAL MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES from Duncan Parry FREE PINT BAR In Association with Factiva a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Reviewed by Simon Collery TIPS AND TECHNIQUES "XML - the DNA of the Internet" By Neil Smith BOOKSHELF "How to survive the eBusiness downturn" "Executive's Guide to eBusiness" "eBusiness and ERP" "How to write a .com business plan" Reviewed by Charles Oppenheim FEATURE ARTICLE "Freedom of Information" By Richard Wakeford EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES CONTACT INFORMATION ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = ADVERTISEMENT = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ********* The Best Kept Secret in the Information World!!! ********* Do you need accurate, relevant information tailored to your global needs? Esmerk's innovative methods can provide you with a strategic current awareness tool which will deliver abstracted information from the world's press directly to your desktop or your intranet. To request a free sample, visit us at http://www.esmerk.com > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [es831] > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<< Free Pint is a community of business professionals who use the Web for their research. Members receive this free newsletter every two weeks packed with tips on finding quality and reliable business information on the Internet. Signing up at provides free access to the substantial archive of articles, book reviews, industry news and events, with answers to your research questions and networking at the "Free Pint Bar" and "Student Bar". This newsletter is best read when printed out and viewed in a Courier font. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EDITORIAL I regularly bring up the subject of money, or the lack of it, in my editorials. In the last issue for instance I sympathised with the large number of dotcoms who are currently laying off staff or folding. It was great therefore for me to able to spend the whole of last week pretending I was a wealthy movie financier in our local operatic society's production of "Mack and Mabel". We played five performances to 1200 people in which I could pretend to be a wealthy and influential 1920s Hollywood tycoon. The reason I bring this up is because I see a lot of parallels between this leisure activity and the Free Pint community itself. It takes an awful lot of effort to produce a show, as it does to run Free Pint, but we very rarely get direct feedback from our audience about how we're doing. I'm in my fifth year as Chairman of the society, as well as performing on stage, but I very rarely get any direct comments about how much people enjoy what we produce. It's always hearsay. It therefore takes quite a lot of self-reassurance to keep doing what we do. I mean, we must be doing something right as our society had a capacity audience for every performance, whilst Free Pint still grows at 900 new members a month. Both of these are achieved almost entirely through word of mouth recommendation. So I guess I'm worrying about nothing. It is interesting though that the success or failure of many things are measured by intangibles. I suppose that if a venture is self-financing and growing then you must be doing something right, but no one will ever point that out to you. I wonder if a few struggling dotcoms could have done with some such reassurance before following the rocky road of external finance. We've packed some great articles and tips into today's Free Pint. Two super articles introduce you to the worlds of XML and freedom of information. The ever popular Charles Oppenheim treats us to four reviews in one as he looks at a range of eCommerce strategy books. We also roundup the latest happenings at the Bar and Student Bar. My thanks to all those who've been spreading the word about our community. We always ask new Free Pinters how they heard about us and 8 out of 10 new members quote a personal recommendation. If you enjoy today's edition then feel free to pass it on to your colleagues. Cheers William William Hann BSc MIInfSc Founder and Managing Editor, Free Pint e: t: +44 (0)1784 455435 f: +44 (0)1784 455436 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = ADVERTISEMENT = = = = = = = = = = = = = = NEED MARKET INTELLIGENCE? DON'T STRUGGLE WITH LONG SEARCHES ANYMORE. MarketResearch.com gives you instant access to expert insights on global markets, industries, companies, products and trends. With 35,000 publications covering 20 broad industries, MarketResearch.com provides information professionals with the most credible and accurate market intelligence products and services available. For more information, click on the link below or call +1-212-807-2629 (USA). http://www.marketresearch.com/redirect.asp?progid=1010 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [mr832] > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> LOOKING FOR A RELIABLE LIST HOSTING PARTNER? <<< Do you send out a regular announcement or newsletter by email? Do you find it tricky to handle the subscriptions and distribution? Why not make the most of Free Pint's extensive publishing experience: http://www.freepint.co.uk/bulk/ "I'm very pleased with Free Pint's list hosting as well as the incredible customer service they offer." MEB > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES from Duncan Parry * Google Internet Explorer Search Bar - I guess most Free Pinters have heard of Google - well this freebie adds a Google search box to your browser, with some of Google's search tools including 'Page Info' and 'Ranking' quickly accessible. * Lockergnome Ezine - Got a Windows PC? Get Lockergnome! Published every week day, Lockergnome's free newsletter offers brief, quirky reviews and links to free and shareware software that really is useful, as well as tips & tricks, industry news and more. * About - About employs expert guides in a wide range of fields (70 in 20 countries apparently) ranging from web design to fashion to local travel guides. * How Stuff Works - Useful articles and diagrams on how 'stuff' like Computers, the Internet and Electronics work. If I'm miffed by a bit of kit, this is the place I start looking for an explanation. * Moreover - One for webmasters - they offer a vast range of free newsfeeds for your site or application, which can be customised to blend in to your design, with no adverts. Duncan Parry is a category editor for the directory of Lycos UK and is also developing a new site, RailFind which is a guide to UK railways online. He also undertakes web site design work , and is currently studying with the Open University. Tell us about your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at or email > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = ADVERTISEMENT = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ROI Facts For Your Marketing and Strategic Planning Did you know that the intellectual assets of a corporation are usually worth three or four times its tangible book value? You will find that and other useful facts about ROI in "Measuring and Assessing the Return-on-Investment for your Information Initiative". This and other presentations are at http://www.factiva.com/infopro under White Papers and Presentations. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [fa833] > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHO YOUR SUPPLIERS AND CUSTOMERS ARE? <<< Most business transactions are based on trust and are therefore inherently risky. You can minimise this risk by verifying that the companies you are dealing with are really who they say they are. It is free to search our database of all registered UK companies and see basic details. You can purchase more detailed financial reports as required, and there are no setup or monthly fees. Why not try it out? http://www.freepint.co.uk/icc/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT BAR In Association with Factiva a Dow Jones & Reuters Company Reviewed by Simon Collery Free Pint Bar - [Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of XXXX in the address or enter the number in the "Jump To" box on the Bar homepage] Whenever I cast an eye over the last two week's Bar postings I look out for a dominant 'flavour' or theme and there's been a notable interest in search tools recently. Not whether they find what you want quickly or not but how they look and feel (7942). Personally, I like ones that find what you want quickly and easily (8059) but this is not the first time I have been reminded of how much taste varies. Search engines are changing all the time (7907, 8085) and, in many cases, improving. Many of them are offering new features, such as streaming media (8093) and other non-textual searches. And despite being a little slow sometimes, Amnesi, a domain name search tool, is still in operation (7894). The themes of advertising, marketing and related pursuits have been equally popular too. One often hears questions about how many Web site visits are converted to sales (7879). But according to a recent edition of Clickz, which concentrated almost solely on this sort of question, there is more to the Web than instant sales (7880). At least one Free Pinter seemed to be aware of this (8050). As well as making sales through Web sites there are also the matters of building brand awareness and supporting existing customers. CRM (customer relationship management) was probably in the mind of the Free Pinter who wanted to know the provenance of the saying "Nobody wants a relationship with the phone company" (8015). There were further marketing questions from people selling stain removal products (7945), selling to the armed forces (7900) and finding startups (8075). Recommended and reviewed resources include a fascinating site about visual representations of cyberspace (8021), a collection of timelines (7991) and a site listing radio stations around the world (8099). Then there were resources on UK recruitment agencies (7929), free UK photos on the Web (7987) and women lawyers in the UK (8012). There have been library and information questions about competitive intelligence training courses in the UK and what they are like (8092), corporate information policies and information sharing (8100), what exactly knowledge management consists of (8082) and producing library documentation (7904). Quantitative data was sought on European and Asian search engines (8113), customer segmentation terms such as 'silver surfer' (8052), historical prices for computer memory (7956) and the cost of accommodation to companies (8040). Free Pinters were told where to find data on investment in IT companies by banks (7976), chemical production statistics (7891) and Internet share trading statistics (7955). Technical and Web mastering questions that still require answers include ones on automatic indexing packages (8051), data organisation tools (8048) and language filtering in news tickers (7881). But suggestions have been made about link policies (7935), PDF readers for Psion 5MXs (8074), open source ebook readers (7949), enewsletter formats (8020), IE timeout settings (7882), frames (7916), Javascript (7979), transferring a database onto a Web site (7876) and converting PDF files to JPEG or GIF format (7943). Recent miscellaneous questions have been about setting up new businesses (8025), the lyrics for the Pushbike Song (7997), a list of European laboratories that specialize in amino acid analysis (7924), PR jobs in the healthcare sector (8017), working alone and telecommuting (8062), corporate Christmas card companies (8081) and the number of patients who sustain injuries in hospitals through mistakes in diagnosis or treatment (7973). And still to be answered are queries about how to license software and how much it costs (7931), online learning materials for engineering (7906) and online terminology research and products (7875). We look forward to hearing from Free Pinters who know about such things. Free Pint Student Bar - [Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of XXXX in the address ] On the Student Bar the subjects raised have been pretty diverse, ranging from Harrier AV-8B aircraft drawings (1181) and UK political constituency information (1183) to Library and Information Science Abstracts (1188) and technological change in developing countries (1201). Someone is also looking for contacts to help with research into outsourcing in corporate libraries (1199). There have also been questions about ecommerce marketing (1202), Internet use in university libraries (1224), ecommerce business to business models (1184) and engineering companies that sponsor students through university. If you think you can help with any of these, do pop into the Free Pint Student Bar. Simon Collery, Content Developer If you have a tricky research question or can help other Free Pinters then do post a message at the Bar or the Student Bar . Visit daily for "Today's Tipple" - a different Web site reviewed every working day at the Bar. Every Tuesday there is the "Pub Crawl", a look at full text articles from a range of information and Internet publications. Access the archive of Tipples and Pub Crawls at . To have the latest Free Pint Bar postings sent to you every other day, send a blank email to . For the Student Bar Digest send an email to . > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = ADVERTISEMENT = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ******HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS?****** NewsEdge is a leading provider of business-oriented eContent for websites and corporate intranets. We provide the highest quality, most cost effective and flexible solutions for serving the information needs of thousands of corporate and Internet online communities. To find out more about how to make your website stickier and your employees smarter, visit www.newsedge.com or call us now on +44 (0) 20 7448 4400 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [ne834] > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> WANT TO ADVERTISE HERE? YOU MIGHT BE TOO LATE <<< Advertising space in the Free Pint Newsletter is being snapped up earlier and earlier as advertisers report a tremendous response from the messages they place here. The page for advertisers therefore now gives advertiser testimonials and we show the amount of space remaining in future issues on the Publication Dates page. Shouldn't you be booking your advertising here sooner rather than later? http://www.freepint.co.uk/advert.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = TIPS AND TECHNIQUES "XML - the DNA of the Internet" By Neil Smith Everyone by now has probably heard about Extensible Markup Language, or XML. This is my attempt to explain what XML is and the effect I think it will have on our world. A little history is essential here. We all know Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1990 while at CERN. Not content with this enormous contribution to science, he went on to found the WWW Consortium, or W3C, hosted at MIT, with continuing support from CERN, the EC, and The Defense Advance Projects Agency, inventors of the Internet. The stated purpose of the W3C is to lead the Web to its full potential. The W3C enjoys the full support of all the major software houses, and is the acknowledged official source of leadership in all matters relating to the Web. This unusual mixture of academics, scientists and commercial giants is leading a project which is changing computing and business for ever. The significance of these developments is comparable in my opinion with the moon race or the genome project, and will have consequences as great as either. HTML, the language of the Web, describes the appearance or layout of information on the browser, but says nothing about the content of the data. Information is effectively published to the Internet and then sits there. It is a read only, one way publishing medium. Very little interactivity is possible. Something was needed to permit data to be described accurately to permit machines to process it. The answer lay in a modified version of SGML, a markup language invented by IBM thirty years ago and widely used in publishing. XML, approved by the W3C in 1998, was the result. XML is a meta language for describing markup languages. It provides a facility to define tags, which describe data, and the structural relationship between the tags. The tags are the metadata. The rules of XML permit six types of markup, including free text comment and processing instructions, and the main type of markup is the element, which can have attributes and values. The rules for the creation of these tags are precise, but note again that the meaning of what is in the tags is left up to the processing software. What XML encoded data leaves you with is pre-packaged, self describing information, ready for consumption. The metadata is in angled brackets, of which there are two pairs, opening and closing and describes the data enclosed between them. It is this combination of accurate description and structure which makes it so important. XML is completely extensible, that is, new tags can be created at any time and can be used to create an infinite variety of document types, whether from text, voice, film or a combination of these. Because XML data is completely independent of presentation, and can be read by any XML enabled system, it means that any data from any source can be processed, exchanged and delivered to any type of XML enabled application and hardware. The output of data into different formats, again infinitely flexible, takes place via stylesheets, to any XML enabled appliance. For example, a news article could be retrieved via your PC and sent to your daughter's school E-workbook, or a movie selected and paid for using your PDA and delivered to mother's TV. On top of the native coding in XML, we have a family of XML languages which are currently being finalised by the W3C. These will cover matters which are essential for the future growth and success of the Internet. XML Schemas are one of these, and are essentially shared vocabularies and rules for defining the structure, content and meaning of similar types of XML documents. Schemas are being written by interested parties in many industries to define classes of documents useful to their industry. For example, there are schemas for weather reports, news reports, and from my own industry, financial accounting (XBRML) and investment research (IRML). We might for example see future annual reports with balance sheets, video clips and graphics delivered, immediately upon publication, directly to an investor's PC, something not possible in a paper format. Data will become completely inter-operable, reusable, and available in real time. The complete extensibility of XML will permit the creation of new types of information product which combine data of different types, e.g. text and video and audio. In other words, we will see a new generation of products which do not have an earlier existence. The Semantic Web ---------------- Berners-Lee's objective is to produce a semantic Web, the purpose of which is to permit machines to help people use data. In order to accomplish this, several other elements are needed. Most are still under construction and some are briefly mentioned below. The W3C site has further details. Pretty much all these things are written in XML, the building block of the future Web. The semantic Web takes place at a level above the data level and involves adding meaning to data resources, both by people and by machine. Once this is widespread, machines will be able to exchange data and complete transactions automatically. A key aspect of this is the Resource Description Framework, RDF. This is written in XML, and is a method of coding structured metadata in the form of statements about properties and relationships of things on the Web (resources). This results in RDF descriptions. By these statements, meanings can be given to data and how to use it. Of course, there are schemas in RDF also. Schemas in RDF, as in XML itself, contain vocabularies of terms used to describe resources. The most famous is the Dublin Core . These will be widely used within communities to describe particular types of data which are common to them. A query language is required to search and retrieve this RDF metadata. XML Query is in development and will enable 'XML files to be searched as databases' (W3C at ). This means that the whole Web will become a database! URIs, a universal system of addressing Web resources, and Namespaces, identified by a URI - collections of the names and rules used to define the element types and attribute names used in XML documents - are integral elements of the semantic Web and terms which are coming into general use. XML is causing a move away from proprietary operating systems onto the Web, where data, functions and transactions will take place in a global environment. It is instructive to look at Microsoft's plans for Windows 2000, which is XML based and .NET which is based on the Web. The services and applications we are seeing being described under .NET closely parallel the development of the open standards of the W3C in which Microsoft itself participates. Gates has openly acknowledged that we are moving into an Internet world based on XML. Anyone wanting to read more about Gates's vision can do so at . The Internet will become one network, a huge database of knowledge and the place where business is conducted and knowledge exchanged. Certain prerequisites are required for the semantic Web to be complete. All the above standards and a number of others will be needed. There will, for example, have to be security, encryption and privacy safeguards to enable transactions to take place without unauthorised access to data, to prevent fraud, theft and violation of people's rights to privacy. E-commerce cannot thrive until these are complete. The W3C is working on measures to cover all these aspects of life on the Web. Anyone interested can read about this at . Also needed, and likely to reach fruition at about the same time as the completion of the standards coming out of the W3C, we should also see the arrival of true broadband data transmission, including the resolution of the local loop, or last mile, and 4GL wireless. Once these are in place we shall see true E-commerce with machines able to communicate with each other and personalisation of our own information profiles. And of course, search engines will work with extreme accuracy and speed! It should prove possible to find the exact piece of information you want first time. Because of the inherent advantages of XML, in the future almost all data will originate as native XML (legacy data can be converted to XML), and XML will become the DNA of the Internet. With self describing data being generated, the world's knowledge base will become far more user friendly, and the uses to which it can be put will grow accordingly. To such an extent in fact that machines will begin to understand how to use it and we should see the gradual development of machine intelligence. By a delicious quirk of history, I think we will see the encoding of the world's information in XML taking place at the same time as Nature's information in DNA is being decoded. If I really wanted to stick my neck out and make a bold statement, I would suggest that before this century is out we shall see computing and biology converge. Sources of information on XML ----------------------------- > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Neil Smith is the Library Manager at Newton Investment Management. Newton are part of the Mellon Financial Corporation (US) and run institutional pension funds, unit trusts and private client funds. He has been there for eight years and introduced the company to the Internet. His main interest has always been electronic information systems. He worked for a time at BT Research Laboratories where he learned a great deal about online. After this came ICL where they operated an online information service using email only, i.e. no paper, which was quite novel about 15 years ago. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Related Free Pint links: * "XML : Perception to Practice" article in Free Pint No.63 * "Webmaster" links, articles and resources in the Free Pint Portal * Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks * Post a message to the author now at the Free Pint Bar * Access the entire archive of Free Pint content > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = ADVERTISEMENT = = = = = = = = = = = = = = In need of web development or database solutions? Then talk to Mike Adams for some fresh perspectives on how Global Gold can deliver database-specific solutions for your web business. Call 01992 303095 or email consultancy@globalgold.co.uk and grow your business TODAY! http://www.globalgold.co.uk/Consultancy/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [gg835] > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> FREE PINT FACT <<< Server downtime is always a major worry for online companies as it means your whole business is unavailable from the second the server crashes. We recently found this out when one of the network cards in our primary server gave up the ghost having been worked a little too hard. However, it only took seven minutes outage to fit another one, and since the server had managed a total of 201 days without needing rebooting we weren't too upset. Shame we're not now going to join the top of the pops William Hann, Managing Editor > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT BOOKSHELF "How to survive the eBusiness downturn" "Executive's Guide to eBusiness" "eBusiness and ERP" "How to write a .com business plan" Reviewed by Charles Oppenheim These four books are typical of a spate of books that have appeared in the last 12 months on setting up and running a dot com company and/or creating an eBusiness. As someone who has been the non-executive director of a start-up dot com company and who has seen the turmoil involved at first hand, I was particularly interested to see how helpful these books might have been to me, and my fellow directors, had I had a chance to read them earlier. Would they have offered a clear strategic vision and would they have shown the things to do and the things not to do? Overall, it must be said that the quality of the books was somewhat disappointing. One was good, two were badly written and one was dreadful. So let's go through them in that order. "How to survive the eBusiness downturn" C. Barrow. ISBN 0471498319 The good one is Colin Barrow's, and ironically, it has a misleading title. It isn't actually anything to do with surviving a downturn and everything about how to set up a successful dot com company. It contains a nice mixture of UK and US case studies, all pretty up to date, to highlight the points it makes. It's a 220-page paperback written in a fluent style by an academic at the Cranfield School of Management. It's in five parts, entitled "One step forward, two steps back", "Upgrading marketing", "Management", "Real money for virtual firms" and "Abandon ship". The advice is sensible and reassuring, and includes action checklists and tests to be done by the reader. It includes a fairly basic index and some guidance for further reading. Someone setting up, or running a dot com company would not go far wrong by starting with this book, and then going on to the further reading as needed. It covers all the major issues that need to be taken into account. "Executive's Guide to eBusiness" M.V. Deise et al. ISBN 0471376396 "eBusiness and ERP" G. Norris et al. ISBN 0471392081 The two badly written books are those by Deise et al. and Norris et al., curiously enough both by a group of authors from PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Perhaps it is something about PWC and its house style, but they clearly believe that long sentences, silly words and heavy reliance on the language of systems is what sells books. Having in a previous incarnation worked as a middle manager for 12 years in large international companies, I know that middle and senior managers in those companies have little or no time for this style of work, and I doubt it is appropriate for those in smaller companies either. In addition, the Deise et al. book has a misleading title, as it does not cover all the issues to do with eBusiness (hardly touching at all on personnel issues or legal issues, for example). It has the redeeming feature of a useful Appendix on the eBusiness value chain and a good index. The book may well be excellent for MBA students, but managers will simply get frustrated by its approach and dense language. The Norris et al. book is a plug for a proprietary software apparently promoted by PWC. This software is designed to enhance the company's ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), a concept that is clearly explained in the book as a method of optimising a company's internal value chain. Unfortunately, the book is based entirely on the premise that you accept ERP is a good thing and that you accept that software is necessary to achieve this ERP. Because of the lack of balance, it can only be recommended to those who have already been sold this particular management concept. As readers of this review may have realised, the authors failed to sell the idea to me. "How to write a .com business plan" J. Eglash. ISBN 007135753X At least it can be argued that the Deise et al. and Norris et al. are clearly heavyweight books intended for a limited audience, and are simply not appropriate for those starting up a dot com company. Not so Eglash's book, which is aimed at those setting up a dot com company for the first time and needing advice on writing a business plan. It is a typical book in its genre - written in a gee-whizz style, and covering the USA only. It pretty much ignores what is surely THE key part of a business plan, namely the financials. It tells you how to write an Executive Summary, a Mission Statement and discusses how to write about competitors, the marketplace and the customers. It tells you how to describe your products and services, marketing and operations plans. And then we come to the chapter on financials - nine pages long out of a 190 page book. It tells you what items you should have in your financials, but then stops. It gives you not the slightest idea what figures to put in, how to present them in the best light, what predictions to make, how they should be calculated. No advice whatsoever on the nitty gritty of preparing the financial data. The author provides a model business plan from an imaginary company, called turnips.com. Guess what - it doesn't include a financial section. That's bad enough, but the author also believes you can find everything you need about your market and the competition using a small number of Web search engines. She clearly knows little about competitor intelligence searching, has no idea how bad Web search engines are and has never heard of online or CDRom databases. The best that can be said for this book is that it provides a bare bones introduction to the art of business plans, and that having read it, one should get some professional advice from a qualified information professional regarding the marketplace and competitive position; and talk to accountants about creating the financial side of the business plan. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Charles Oppenheim is Professor of Information Science at Loughborough University. He's had a varied career in both academia and the electronic publishing industry. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists and the Library Association, and is a frequent contributor to conferences and journals in the library and information science area. His main professional interests are in legal aspects of information. He's on a lot of committees and editorial boards, and in his spare time, he enjoys doing book reviews. He is the owner of an identical twin brother. Most of his hobbies are unpublishable. Tel +44 (0)1509-223065. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Related Free Pint links: * Find out more about these books online at the Free Pint Bookshelf * Read about other Internet strategy books on the Free Pint Bookshelf * Publisher and ISBN details for these four books can be found at * Search for and purchase any book from Amazon via the Bookshelf To propose an information-related book for review, send details to . > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> DO YOU READ ALL THE INDUSTRY PRESS? WE DO <<< Wouldn't it be handy if someone watched out for interesting free full text articles in the trade press on your behalf? Well, we do. Every week Free Pinters have access to the "Pub Crawl" where we review the latest editions of a wide range of publications and tell you about interesting articles they contain. The Pub Crawl is published every Thursday at the Free Pint Bar and you can access it by following the link from the homepage to the "Weekly: Pub Crawl" in the Bar section. This week's is at > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FEATURE ARTICLE "Freedom of Information" By Richard Wakeford The Freedom of Information Act ------------------------------ "Freedom of Information will signal a new relationship between government and people: a relationship which sees the public as legitimate stakeholders in the running of the country ..." Tony Blair, 1996. Labour arrived in government in May 1997 with a manifesto commitment to introduce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It kept the idealism bred of opposition long enough to publish a widely welcomed and radical White Paper "Your Right to Know" in December 1997 . The legislation set out here would for the first time establish people's right in law to have access to a wide variety of official records and information. Central to its message were proposals that: * All government departments, public bodies and private organisations carrying out statutory functions would be covered; * There would a very limited number of specific exemptions; * Strict tests would be applied to ensure that information would be released except where disclosure would cause substantial harm to a limited number of specific "interests" or would be against the public interest; * There would be an independent Information Commissioner with the powers to order the disclosure of information. David Clark, the Minister responsible, travelled and consulted widely and produced proposals that were dubbed a "second generation" freedom of information (FOI) approach, drawing on the experience of countries such as USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Sweden. An independent website supported by the Government was set up to allow the public an additional means of providing the Government with feedback on the proposals within the White Paper. The site is no longer regularly updated, but you can still read submissions and David Clark's responses to site users at . However the whiff of radicalism on the air was enough to stir Sir Humphrey to action and Ministers were soon brought to their senses. David Clarke returned to the back benches and the task of steering the FOI Bill through Parliament passed to the Home Office. The Act finally emerged in December 2000 - the full text is at . However key proposals had been watered down so that: * Broad umbrella exemptions were incorporated. For example, the Security and Intelligence Services are entirely exempt. This means that although no-one would ever expect access to operational information there is also no public scrutiny of administrative affairs such as the costs of the expensive new headquarters buildings for MI5 and MI6. * The test of "substantial harm" has been replaced by one of "harm" - only one word has been lost but it is a critical one in guiding judges when assessing where the balance of public interest should lie. * The Information Commissioner can make recommendations but has no powers to enforce disclosure. In the opinion of many commentators these changes have thwarted the original thrust of the White paper and left the FOIA a weakened instrument - see the Campaign for Freedom of Information . The Act may even in places be weaker than the voluntary Code of Practice on Access to Government Information that was introduced by John Major in 1993 - see . The course of the debates surrounding FOIA can be followed in the Guardian's Freedom of Information archive at . The process of implementation of the Act is now underway and is due to be completed within the next 5 years. The responsibility of the Office of the Information Commissioner has been assumed by the Data Protection Commissioner - see and each department and body affected will be putting FOI mechanisms in place. A full list of the relevant organisations can be found in Annex 1 of the Act. The FOIA applies within England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Proposals for separate legislation will be forthcoming from the Scottish Executive . The signs are that the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament may take a more open approach. If Scottish and English FOI law does conflict then some interesting situations should in time arise. Currently there is little guidance available on how the FOIA will operate. The Office of the Information Commissioner has published a short booklet in plain English but has not yet posted it on its web site. The text of the FOIA itself is not the easiest of reading, written as it is in that peculiar convoluted hypertext beloved by Parliamentary draftsmen and comprehensible only to lawyers. One issue that received little attention in the debate leading up to the Act is that of information retrieval - how in practice will the public know what to claim? Will information be indexed and how far will civil servants act as intermediaries to interpret enquiries and search out information? Disclosure through the Public Records Office -------------------------------------------- Official documents are subject to the 30 year rule under Public Records Acts and retention and release is administered by the national archives. The Public Record Office (PRO) is the national archive for England, Wales and the United Kingdom, housing records from across UK central government and, in smaller numbers, from the central courts. The National Archives of Scotland at and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland at play this role in the devolved administrations. Records held by the PRO may be closed for periods longer than 30 years ("extended closure"), or retained by the government department concerned. There are various reasons for this; some records may contain distressing personal information about people and events; or release may damage national security or international relations, or records may have been supplied subject to certain confidential undertakings. The release of other types of information may be barred under legislation which overrides the provisions of the Public Records Acts. Typical extended closure periods are 50 years, 75 years and 100 years. An example of an extended closure record is census returns, which are closed for 100 years. In recent years it has been the policy to accelerate release and the PRO's February 2001 list has files extending back to 1910 (on capital punishment) and to World War II (on signals decrypts and Tito). Release of Treasury files relating to decimalisation has also been brought forward to coincide with the 30th anniversary of "D Day". The Wider Legal Framework ------------------------- Since 1911 the Official Secrets Act has been the primary instrument restricting freedom of information (although non-disclosure clauses are present in some 400 other statutes) but in recent years prosecutions have been rare. The law on confidentiality and on copyright is increasingly used by government to deal with publications written by ex-employees as shown by actions taken against the recent swathe of books written by SAS soldiers and intelligence officers. The case of Richard Tomlinson, the ex MI6 agent, can be followed on his publisher's site at . The ex- MI5 agent David Shayler's site at now evokes an "Error 403 - Access forbidden" network response. Is this significant, and who would know why? Recent legislation that will make a significant change in the ability of individuals to go public in the public interest are: * The Human Rights Act 1998 - full text at which has yet to be tested in court but provides a defence on the grounds of freedom of expression (Article 10 of the Convention on Human Rights); and * The Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 - full text at , which gives legal protection to whistleblowers. The Freedom to Care campaign site has an extensive list of references to whistleblowing cases at . Only environmental matters have benefited from a UK statutory freedom of information regime in recent years - an example of the beneficial effects of EC Directives. Access to environmental information is now formalised in an international convention, known briefly as the Arhus Convention, or more lengthily as the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters. The Convention was drawn up by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and signed by 39 states and the European Union in 1998. The full text of the Convention and associated resources are at . A Change in the UK Culture on Openness ------------------------------------- The FOIA may be a catalyst for changing government and the public sector towards working in a more open way. In time as the official culture adapts, the natural response will be to make information available rather than retaining it. Openness perhaps comes more readily to scientists and Sir Robert May, when Chief Scientist, embedded the open approach in "The Use of Scientific Advice in Policy Making" . The Phillips Inquiry into the BSE crisis made a number of forceful comments and recommendations concerning the government's handling of information. The Food Standards Agency which was established following the Inquiry is starting life with a clean and open slate, deliberately distancing itself from the secretive attitudes of MAFF. The FSA is publishing full details of its advisory committees together with their papers and minutes and publication of a Code of Practice on Openness has been announced. Europe ------ Freedom of information in the European Union is in danger of going into reverse. A Code of Access to Documents has been in place since 1993 and has been subject only to very specific exemptions. However an initiative started in Amsterdam in 1997 to enshrine this code in European law has been taken as an opportunity by the Commission, the Council and the Parliament to introduce a series of blanket exemptions. These will cover any discussion documents, any documents relating to third parties and any documents about military or foreign policy or "non-military crisis management". A watching brief on the European situation is maintained by the magazine Statewatch at . Quoted here is the ineffable comment of a European official who refused to release documents on the grounds that they "could fuel public discussion on the subject". Freedom of Information Elsewhere -------------------------------- Freedom of Information legislation has been established for the last 30-40 years in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Sweden is a special case having had a Freedom of the Press Act since the eighteenth century. Chapter 2 - On the Public Nature of Official Documents can be read at the International Constitutional Law Project at . Even summarising the working of FOI world wide would provide material for a substantial book but examples of procedures in practice can be seen at sites such as the State of Tasmania's public access FOI page at or the Queensland Information Commissioner's decisions at . It is perhaps in the USA where freedom of information has most claim to be part of the national culture but statistics of claims made under the FOIA show that it is business and the press rather than the public who make most use of their rights. Government department and public agency commonly maintain a FOI area on their web home pages: a list of Federal agency FOI sites can be found at . As in so many areas FOI practice in the USA is characterised by an active public interest sector. One of the most sophisticated resources is that provided by the National Security Archive which was founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars who, obtaining documentation from the U.S. government under the FOIA, sought a centralised repository for these materials. Over the past decade, the Archive has become the world's largest non-governmental library of declassified documents at . In debates on FOI in Britain the USA is often held up as the land of free access. However the US government, state governments and federal agencies receive heavy criticism at home for their failures of openness. See, for example, the project on government secrecy run by the Federation of American Scientists at . Several bulk declassification programmes have been launched by Federal Agencies in recent years. One collection holding politically contentious documents is that relating to US operations in South and Central America in the 70's and 80's and made available by the State Department at . The .pdf files, however, show extensive use of black marker pen and the reader is left wondering what real progress in freeing information has in fact been made. The material has a role to play in the truth and reconciliation process but the inadequacies of FOIA are made poignantly apparent in an account by a torture victim of her unsuccessful attempts to get at the truth behind her suffering . On a less serious note US experience shows how impossible it is for governments to prove that they have released all that they do hold. The National Security Agency maintains a page at on "Frequently Requested UFO Related FOIA Information" which baldly states that "No Records Exist. The following terms have been searched in response to requests for information on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and Paranormal Events, but no responsive material has been located". Nevertheless "X File" conspiracy theories continue to thrive. And finally - although governments are seen by the public to be the guardians of secrets, few people appreciate how much information really is at loose in the public domain. A recent exercise to demonstrate this point was undertaken by the US Air Force and its wonderfully named Space Aggressor Squadron which found everything needed to build a backyard satellite jamming system on the Internet. A summary is at but unfortunately there are no construction details! Freedom of Information Resources in the UK ------------------------------------------ Campaign for Freedom of Information Charter 88 Democratic Audit UK Guardian Freedom of Information archive Freedom to Care Home Office Freedom of Information Unit Index on Censorship Lobster (the journal of parapolitics) Statewatch Resources Outside the UK ------------------------ Freedom of Information Review Freedom of Information Sites on the Internet (University of Tasmania) Human Rights Library (University Minnesota) Resources on Freedom of Information Issues (Syracuse University) Riley Report (Riley Information Services) Secrecy News (Federation of American Scientists) US State and Local Freedom of Information Issues Further Reading --------------- Article 19 and Liberty. "Secrets, Spies and Whistleblowers: Freedom of Expression and National Security in the United Kingdom". 2000 Tony Bunyan "Access to documents could fuel public discussion" (also Deirdre Curtin "Authoritarian temptation seduces EU decision- makers" and Aidan White "How Journalists Have Spiked NATO's Secrecy Guns") Essays for an Open Europe. 2000 Peter Hennessy. "Accelerated History? Whitehall & the Press since 1945". James Cameron Lecture 2000. George Kennedy. "How Americans got their right to know:" 1996. Andrew Neil. "Britain's Free Press: Does it have One?" Andersen Lecture. 1988. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Richard Wakeford is Head of Science and Technology Information Services at the British Library . > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Related Free Pint links: * "Intellectual Property" articles in the Free Pint Portal * "Politics and Government" articles and link in the Free Pint Portal * Respond to this article and chat to the author now at the Bar * Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks * Access the entire archive of Free Pint content > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> ARE YOU STUDYING FOR AN INFORMATION-RELATED DEGREE? <<< The Free Pint Student Bar is there for you. Get help with your dissertations, projects, funding, placements, recruitment, or simply meet students from other universities around the world. It's your resource and it's free: > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FORTHCOMING EVENTS Upcoming European events include Internet Content Europe in Monaco, the EUSIDIC Spring Meeting in Lille, France and the Spring Symposium/ITxpo in Florence, Italy. In London there's the E-CRM Summit, the New Media Marketing event, E-Books 2001 and the Internet Librarian International conference. In Washington, Computers in Libraries will be taking place in DC and the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems will be in Seattle. The Association of College and Research Libraries 10th National Conference will take place in Denver, Colorado and the ASIDIC Spring Meeting will be held in Charleston, South Carolina. Both the Search Engine Strategies meeting and the Web Marketing Nuts & Bolts events will be in Massachusetts, the first in Boston, the second in Cambridge. Toronto, Canada, will host the Information Highways Conference and Exhibition and the Strategic e-Marketer event will be taking place in Sydney, Australia. Simon Collery, Content Developer > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT GOLD This time last year we had an article on researching and building portals and vortals and another on the Oxford English Dictionary as it launched its online version. * Free Pint No.58, 16th March 2000 "Portals" and "WWW.OED.COM - A New Home for the Dictionary". Two years ago, our Tips article reviewed pharmaceutical and health resources online, while the Feature article covered access control issues for online information sources. * Free Pint No.34, 4th March 1999. "Pharmaceutical/health information on the Web" and "Who goes there...? - Access Control Issues for Internet-based information services". Networking online for business or pleasure was the subject of an article this time three years ago. We also ran an article on business and accounting resources on the Web. * Free Pint No.10, 5th March 1998 "Working the Net" and "Business and Accounting Resources on the Web". Simon Collery, Content Developer > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT FORTHCOMING ARTICLES [Provisional] * Legal Sources * Dyslexia * Problem Solving * * American History * Foreign Language Search Engines * * Tracing Missing Persons * B2B * Free Software * Innovation * * Privacy in Medicine * Middle Eastern Sources * Photo Sources * * Female Detective Fiction * Getting Connected in a Rural Area * * Broadband Content * Political Websites * Women in Business * * Further Voluntary Sector Resources * Investment Funds * If you have a suggestion for an article topic or would like to write for Free Pint then please contact me or sign up for the monthly Author Update on the Web site at . Rex Cooke, Editor > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = GOODBYE Thanks for reading today's Free Pint and I really hope you enjoyed it. If you feel it would be of value to your colleagues or friends then please don't hesitate to forward this edition to them. If you respond to an advert then do please let the advertiser know where you saw their message. Your support is appreciated as always. See you in two weeks! William Hann, Founder and Managing Editor (c) Free Pint Limited 1997-2000 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = CONTACT INFORMATION William Hann BSc MIInfSc, Founder and Managing Editor e: t:+44 (0)1784 455435 f:+44 (0)1784 455436 Rex Cooke FIInfSc FRSA, Editor e: t: +44 (0)1342 316027 f: +44 (0)1342 316027 Simon Collery BA, Content Developer e: t: +44 (0)1865 434143 f: +44 (0)1784 455436 Find out about the background to Free Pint and the team at . Address Free Pint Limited, FREEPOST (SEA3901), Staines Middlesex, TW18 3BR, United Kingdom (Please add a stamp if you would like to pay for postage) Web Subscriptions Letters & Comments Authors Latest Issue Autoresponder Advertising > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Free Pint (ISSN 1460-7239) is a free newsletter written by information professionals who share how they find quality and reliable information on the Internet. Useful to anyone who uses the Web for their work, it is published every two weeks by email. To subscribe, unsubscribe, find details about contributing, advertising or to see past issues, please visit the Web site at or email . Your registered email address is listed at the bottom of this message. Please note: Free Pint is a trademark of, and published by, Free Pint Limited . The publishers will NEVER make the subscriber list available to any other company or organisation. The opinions, advice, products and services offered herein are the sole responsibility of the contributors. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the publication, the publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. This publication may be freely copied and/or distributed in its entirety. However, individual sections MAY NOT be copied and/or distributed without the prior written agreement of the publishers. Write to Rex Cooke, Editor for more details. Product names used in Free Pint are for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Free Pint disclaims any and all rights in those marks. All rights reserved. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = This edition has been sent to <{EMAIL}>.