[okfn-labs] Update on PublicBodies.org - a URL for every part of Government

[todd.d.robbins at gmail.com]

I'll get on the US side ASAP.


On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 4:17 AM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> This is an update on PublicBodies.org - a Labs project whose aim is to
> provide a "URL for every part of Government":
> <http://publicbodies.org/>
>
> Full post here:
> <http://okfnlabs.org/blog/2013/05/01/publicbodies.org-an-update.html>
>
> PublicBodies.org is a database and website of "Public Bodies" -- that
> is Government-run or controlled organizations (which may or may not
> have distinct corporate existence). Examples would include government
> ministries or departments, state-run organizations such as libraries,
> police and fire departments and more.
>
> You run into public bodies all the time in projects like OpenSpending
> (either as spenders or recipients). Back in 2011 as part of the
> "Organizations" data workshop at OGD Camp 2011, Labs member Friedrich
> Lindenberg scraped together a first database and site of "public
> bodies" from various sources (primarily FoI sites like WhatDoTheyKnow,
> FragDenStaat and AskTheEU).
>
> I and Friedrich have recently re-done the site converting the sqlite
> DB to simple flat CSV files:
>
> - Main github repo: <https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies>
> - Example raw CSV: <
> https://raw.github.com/okfn/publicbodies/master/data/gb.csv>
>
> The site itself is now super-simple flat-files hosted on s3 (build
> code [1]). Here's an example of the output:
>
> - European Parliament: <
> http://publicbodies.org/eu/european-parliament.html>
> - Associated JSON API (with CORS!)
> <http://publicbodies.org/eu/european-parliament.json>
>
> The simplicity of CSV for data plus simple templating to flat-files is
> very attractive. There are some drawbacks such as changes to primary
> template resulting in a full rebuild and upload of ~6k files so,
> especially as the data grows, we may want to look into something a bit
> nicer but for the time being I think this works well.
>
> Thoughts and suggestions very welcome!
>
> [1]: https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/tree/master/site
>
> ## Next Steps
>
> There's plenty that could be improved e.g.
>
> * More data - other jurisdictions (we only cover EU, UK and Germany) +
> descriptions for the bodies (this could be a nice crowdcrafting app)
> * Search and Reconciliation (via nomenklatura)
> * Making it easier to submit corrections or additions
>
> The full list of issues is on github here:
> <https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/issues>
>
> Help on these most definitely wanted! Just grab one of the issues or
> get in touch ...
>
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-- 
Tod Robbins
Digital Collections Librarian, MLIS
todrobbins.com | @todrobbins <http://www.twitter.com/#!/todrobbins>
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