Federal Register XML format will increase usability, accessibility and save money

The Federal Register is now available in XML, which many analysts say will make it much easier to use.

Carl Malamund is a technologist, author, and an advocate of making public data publicly available. He runs a non-profit foundation called Public.Resource.org.

On Tuesday's Daily Debrief, he talked more about the fact that the new XML format saves the federal government money and improves the public's access to government data.

"by making the data available in bulk, it means we're going to get a lot of grad students and small businesses and others working with the Federal Register and all our other legal materials and making them easier to use."

This, he added, is good for government, because it will lead to more efficiency and will get the information out to a wider audience.

Malamud hypothesized that the look will morph, as well, which will make the Register overall easier to read.

"it is going to change because, for many years, it was constrained to that three-column, very dense way of saving paper, because there was so much information and they had to print it. So they wrung every single scrap of white space they could out of that page. Now that it's in an online format, you're going to be able to spread out a little bit and make it more readable."

As for why the change is being made now, Malamud said this has to do with the history of the Federal Register.

"for a long time, the only people who cared about things like the Federal Register were a few insiders. The theory was -- why should the government subsidize the needs of these fat cat lawyers and other folks -- lobbyists -- that are reading the Federal Register -- government should recover its cost. It cost a lot of money to print the stuff; it costs a lot of money to put it online. What's change over the last 20 years is {that} it's gotten a lot cheaper and easier. The other thing that's changed is a lot more people are interested in the workings of government."

Malamud said he gives both the Government Printing Office and the Office of the Federal Register a lot of credit for working hard to make the Register itself more accessible.

Since the Federal Register is more accessible now, Malamud said he's seeing all sorts of interesting projects popping up across the country.

"some grad students at Princeton put together a system that lets anybody annotate the Federal Register now. I know other people are working on {things} like notification mechanisms that update your calendar with all hearings and departments that you care about that get announced."

That's not all. Malamud said these kinds of features will also help those who use the Federal Register for a living, especially the federal workforce.

The new online format isn't perfect, however. Malamud said that his group was, unfortunately, able to create a dummy Federal Register without much work.

The GPO is aware of this and has added a unique feature to hopefully prevent tricksters.

"the Government Printing Office is digitally signing these things. So, if you want to make sure you really are reading the version that came out of the government, you can now verify that."

Overall, Malmund and his group feel that the XML move is a good thing.

He did add, however, that Public.Resource.org is continuing to work to get all legal materials in the United States online.

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On the Web:

White House -- Federal Register 2.0: Opening a Window onto the Inner Workings of Government

GPO -- Federal Register

WebChick.org -- Mock Federal Register page

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