Open States: Transparency Report Card

Earlier this month, a brand new Sunlight Foundation site called Open States, containing free legislative information from all 50 states, caught my eye (see previous post).  Just nine days later, the same folks announced a byproduct of all their work on Open States: a "Transparency Report Card" that grades the states on how online-accessible their legislative data is to the general public.  As explained here, the grades are based on six criteria: completeness, timeliness, ease of access, machine readability, use of commonly owned standards, and permanence.  Being the Hofstra Virtual Library Cat, I was happy to note that New York has been given an "A."  Check out how other states fared, and bookmark the New York legislature's public information site, a great resource for law school research and legal practice.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat