🚀 go-pugleaf

The April 15 issue of the _Chronicle of Higher Education_ (p. A23) had an
interesting data news item entitled "Agency Told to Release Data Stored on
Computer Tape" in its Information Technology Section.  The gist of it is the
Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a public agency must make information
stored on tape available on tape if that is the form requested.  A doctoral
student at Case Western Reserve University asked for records of police
activities from 1980 to present in electronic form so that she could perform a
computer analysis using these data.  The police dept. refused to provide
electronic copy and offered print copy instead -- the requestor would pay the
cost of the print-out.

The Judge's opinion stated that " a government agency
must allow the copying of the portions of computer tapes to which the
public is entitled if the person requesting the information has presented a
legitimate reason why a paper copy of the records would be insufficient or
impracticable, and if such person assumes the expense of copying."   The
opinion went on to say, "A set of public records stored in an organized
fashion on a magnetic medium also contains value that inherently is a part
of the public record...  the added value is not only the organization of
the data but also the compression of the data into a form that allows
greater ease of public access".

Diane Geraci
Binghamton