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

[Rufus Pollock]

@Rowan: really good question and one relevant to the Italian data
that's just been supplied [1] (thanks to Silvio and Alessio).

I think your inclination here is spot on: let's focus on the more
"governmental" bodies for the moment and leave out each school etc.

Rufus

[1]: https://github.com/okfn/publicbodies/issues/16

On 2 May 2013 22:21, Rowan Crawford <wombleton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a list of NZ public bodies. I have the larger list of everything
> which is subject to the Official Information Act, which includes schools and
> so forth. My gut says I'd want to strip those out and just get the purely
> governmental bodies. Does that sound right?
>
> Rowan
>
>
>
> On 3 May 2013 01:36, todd.d.robbins at gmail.com <todd.d.robbins at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>
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