Many thanks to those of you who referred me to AALL’s definitive document on digital authentication.
Here’s what I don’t understand:
AALL’s “working” definition of legally official is:
An official version of regulatory materials, statutes, session laws, or court opinions is one that has been governmentally mandated or approved by statute or rule. It might be produced by the government, but does not have to be.
GPO’s definition of “official content” is:
Content that is approved by, contributed by, or harvested from an official source in accordance with accepted program specifications.
I see the obvious differences, but here’s where I’m confused:
In GPO’s “Authentication” document, one of the Key Assumptions states:
“Documents residing on GPO Access are official...”
with a footnote that:
“All GPO Access documents are official in the sense that they are published by the Federal Government, at Government expense, or as required by law. GPO recognizes that there are connotations of the term “Official”, especially in the legal community, that differ from this definition. GPO is currently working on language to address this discrepancy.”
**Doesn’t the first sentence of this footnote imply that all GPO Access documents are already legally official? Or am I missing something in that statement or how it's being applied to GPO documents?
---------------------------------
Ready for the edge of your seat? Check out tonight's top picks on Yahoo! TV.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:47:01 PST