Regarding the public availability of Congressional Research Service reports…maybe the situation will be different in the new administration. Maybe these valuable, taxpayer-funded documents will finally be posted online by the Congressional Research Serviceas they are issued. In our opinion, there is no logical reason for the hoop-jumping necessary to pry these things loose from the CRS.
Granted, access is a lot better than it used to be, thanks to the tireless efforts of various academic and nonprofit organizations to corral as many of these reports as possible and make them freely available online. ...
The sheer volume of government information now available online is amazing, and has made life infinitely easier not only for researchers, but for the average citizen. We have not yet heard a compelling reason why the Congressional Research Service — a division of the Library of Congress — remains a black hole. This Washington Post story, from February 2007, blames “a wall erected by lawmakers” who regard the agency “as an extension of” their own staff.
We’re not buying that excuse. Equivalent agencies in other countries routinely place their reports online: [links to reports by various parliamentary research services from around the world] ...
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
