Now that Dan, Jim, James and I are done with our latest skirmish – let’s get back to the future of government information. With people actually expressing interest -- with such openness – in becoming America’s Public Printer (obviously FGI’s great hope); and with a current Public Printer still actively engaged in the job -- I figure this is the best of all possible worlds -- suddenly the idea of becoming Public Printer of the United States is hip and desirable.

Setting aside any of my own thoughts about what qualifies someone for the office that may differ from FGI’s leadership -- here are a few points any sitting and potential Public Printer ought to keep in mind. It’s what I have said and would say to a Public Printer (I have spoken to a few of them over my 25 years as a federal depository librarian) – think of it as a four point elevator speech.

1. Technology is a wonderful thing. GPO is making great strides in several critical areas. One would hope these efforts will continue to embrace openness, standardization, preservation, authority and sustainability.

2. Libraries and librarians are wonderful things. If we tear our eyes from technology’s dazzle, I think there is a greater power to sustain a true engagement of civic culture through the retention, recruitment and collaboration with the over 1,200 existing depository libraries. Right now Library directors, governing boards, and librarians themselves want some sense from GPO about how it is going to act on this century and half cultural investment in their local institutions. We know, from long experience with earlier Public Printers, command and control (it comes from Washington and it shall be done) no longer works in this distributive age of power and access. We also know librarians and their institutions can be surprisingly nimble in their adaption of technological solutions to situations both unique to their community as well as beneficial to the rest of the system. Public agencies and libraries can deliver the data, indeed, and some power users can take that raw data and turn it into knowledge. But the will investment brought to the table is the ability of librarians and libraries to add there own social value to the raw public knowledge -- through organization, preservation, community outreach, and civic advocacy to involve the community in critical civic decision points. If a Public Printer's portfolio does not clearly take advantage of this long-standing local civic value to enliven a national system, then the depository library community needs to put it back at the top of his agenda.

3. The engaged civic aspects of the government’s intellectual property is a wonderful thing. Sustained by the intersection of GPO’s historic purpose to print and publish and the commitment of the library community. It is a collective bargain to keep the democratic discussion open, free, and at least interesting. If federal government is in the public domain, depository libraries are the information commons that thrive not because of the technology du jour, but because of the century long traditions of government information librarians, their home institutions, and the federal government. Any Public Printer worthy of the title would embrace this concept without reservation.

4. The civic operating system is a wonderful thing. Democracy’s “operating system” is not civic technology, it is not GPO, nor is it even the information infrastructure that supports the federal depository libraries. The civic operating system thrives on technology – but it is not of technology. This taps into my earlier blog entries about the comparability between power grids and information distribution. The operating system is really a combination of civic engagement and rhetoric unleashed by the Constitution. It is the electoral and civic conversation sustained between a community and the officials they elect to serve their individual and collective goals. This conversation is expressed through open meetings, robust exchange of information, accessible proceedings/decisions of public organizations that inform the public’s knowledge of services, security and justice. This aspect is further sustained by the constitutional values of a free press, freedom of assembly/petition, and the freedom of speech. What we are really talking about here is civic serendipity – the ability of people to engage their government on their terms and time. As the federal government develops web sites like recovery.gov to explain itself and its complicated policies, librarians must push back against displacement and they need to demonstrate how they can continue to keep people connected to their government.

As we debate, discuss, and move the depository program deeper into America’s 21st century digital age -- I hope once and future Public Printers will continue to embrace the indigenous civic culture already thriving throughout the depository library program. At the same time, I hope the depository library community can move beyond its own institutional divisions (academic, public, law, special, government) and reach some kind of national consensus on the program’s future and work with the current GPO administration to get the job done, finish the strategic plan, and start making the necessary changes any future depository librarians and public printers would welcome.

See you on Day 36.

Jim, James, Dan: Dan, you are right, I should have used "fair use" rather than "public use." in my blog entry. Sorry about the confusion. However, my observations still stand. Libraries do not act on behalf of individuals in terms of "fair use." It is up to individuals to be responsible custodians of how they might use library material. Most, if not all, libraries warn their community that there are limitations on ways library material can be distributed or duplicated. And these limitations are often embraced by agreements with vendors. These limitations govern how libraries lend material through interlibrary loan, circulate material to non-primary users outside our communities, reproduce or digitize material for reserve collections in academic libraries, and libraries post clear warnings on photocopiers that certain forms of duplication and redistribution are illegal. The burden for responsible license and copyright use still rests with the individual. It is in this context that I frame my comments about the library's role.

And James, I understand the essential link between the legal and economic nature of licensing and/or copyright -- and surprisingly, we both agree libraries abandoned their role and lost an opportunity to recreate a critical public service role in the matrix when their collections began to digitize through a complicated public/private partnerships. And we both agree the future of the FDLP depends on how well we manage this collections/service responsibility.

Jim and James -- I think we can all agree that the future of libraries depends on how they deploy the dynamic between collections and services in a digital world. Where reasonable people can disagree, I hope, is the relative importance of one or the other. One faction might argue collections are still paramount; other perspectives may consider collections to be not as important (or differently important) for the future. It is clear the four of us will disagree about where this set point might rest. However, to equate the difference between our two perspectives as a measure of how the opposing perspective advocates the destruction of libraries ... well, I do not think we need to go there. My observations, speculations, and rhetoric does not advocate destruction. They are supposed encourage debate, reflection, and exhortation to action. Judging from your thoughtful responses, this goal is being achieved.

I am going to step back from this rhetorical point and get back to commenting on the future possibilities of government information in our libraries. I am sure we will join forces again over these considerations, but I think all of our perspectives have been underscored enough for the moment.

See you on Day 35.

We have a number of community action items to get people engaged in Civic discussions this week. Today, it's a summit meeting at the White House about fiscal responsibility; tomorrow it is Obama's first State of the Union address, and Thursday/Friday it is the release of the federal budget.

On another note, interesting article on a university choosing to go without textbooks. An event that has some deeper meaning for libraries I think.

See you on Day 34.

All right, all right. Readers won't let me get away with the single comment in the last blog entry I had about the article in the New York Review of Books -- and I think this feeds into the long-standing conversation I have been having with J A Jacobs. Simply put: I do not think libraries, as institutions, have any role in claiming a "public use" provision within the infrastructure of copyright. In other words, print and paper technology gave libraries a "gap" between those who owned the information and those who want to use it. While library circulation did not threaten the sale of the same material through the private market, information producers were quite comfortable in letting the libraries enjoy the "free ride" of offering their information products without any compensation for the free use. It was good public relations and a "feel good" partnership.

The mass digitization of the information changed that relationship.

I really think what the google technology does, and what the research libraries agreed to when they chose to work with google four years ago to find an "economical" way to digitize their collections, is create a private market version of "public lending right."

See you on Day 33.

An interesting editorial item from the New York Review of Books by Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard He has actually been tilling these intellectual fields for awhile for NYRB -- here is a list of submissions. Goes without saying that I disagree with some of his observations. But with more than 100 days left on the current time clock, I will address those concerns another time....

See you on Day 32.

As I was searching for some other information, I noticed that documents available from GPO are not "stamped" as authentic. Take at the blue eagle in the upper left corner on the stimulus bill. Come to think of it, this would be another version of the law (see Day 29.)

See you on Day 31.

Just about at the first full month of the Obama regime. Interesting how there is still no official version of the economic stimulus bill available yet. The best we can do, it seems, is the text in the Congressional Record of the conference report.

Looks like we are going to need to do better if this administration promises to follow-up with other blockbuster proposals. Don't get me wrong, I understand fully that the publishing of the public laws is really a joint effort between the legislative and executive branches, with GPO and NARA holding the first chairs of responsibility. And I also understand that prior to the Senate vote they were still going off hand written changes to the conference report.

I'm just saying....

See you Day 30..

I got to say -- even one steeped in the cynicism of Illinois politics gets fatigued. Revelations about Roland Burris' selective memory of when and who he talked to about fund raising for our favorite ex-Governor continues to plumb new depths of political depravity. When will the this long state-wide nightmare be over?

On another front -- a couple of political science professors have put together an excellent report on Illinois corruption -- find it here.
What's more, the Illinois Attorney General is recommending legislative changes in the state's Freedom of Information of Information laws -- all because of you know who -- check it out here.

And, I am pulling together a list of state libraries that are under threat of being shut down or service curtailed because of state budget crunches. If you know what is happening in your state -- drop me a line and I will report the results in a near future segment of "Won't Get Fooled Again"

See you on Day 29.

Interesting articles in this month's Atlantic Monthly that talk about how the economic collapse represents a time for creation and reallocation in a knowledge economy. More to the point, the interview reveals some provocative thoughts about the distributive nature of the web and eternal attraction of living in dense places. Another term, Creative destruction, as it is called by some of the economists from the University of Chicago, is another way of looking at this evolutionary relationship between the social and economic forces of a community and the institutions they create to foster their individual and mutual purposes. I guess, in a very real sense, the combination of the Obama's election and our deepening economic failure suggests we are in for some serious dislocation. The articles also have some visuals that relate how the recent economic activity over the last few years is "reshaping America."

Evidence of this already appearing on various listservs as librarians from state governments on the verge of bankruptcy (in an economic sense because they can't balance their budgets; or in a political sense because the constitutional officers can't agree on how balance the budget) and the various state libraries are on the target list for serious staff reductions and/or closures.

As our earlier discussion about "raw power" indicated -- information distribution relies just on the reach of distribution grid, but more significantly on the value added by a series of institutional players and knowledgeable individuals.

See you on Day 28.

Interesting article yesterday in NYT -- much of the success mentioned emphasized the relationship and literacy points raised in earlier posts.

See you on Day 27.

With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 now on its way to Obama for his signature, the question remains about what happens next. Word is Obama will be setting the stage for his next initiative -- a global fix on broken mortgages. Again, this demonstrates a clear set of scheduled (and unscheduled) events libraries of all types might use to promote a greater awareness about the implications of the soon to be enacted law (and subsequent policies and initiatives) for their communities. Recovery.gov is still aborning, profit and non-profit groups will offer, or do so now, there own web-enabled looks at the massive spending bill.

But, what strikes me as missing from these techno-centric transparency efforts is the inability to explain the politics (or the policy implications) behind the numbers. One small example -- when people look at Thomas' links to H.R. 1, they will find seven different versions of the bill (soon to be eight when the President makes it a public law on Tuesday.) No where in the Thomas web site is any of this explained. I am fully aware there are links to selected published guides produced by the House Clerk and Senate Secretary that explain the legislative process -- but how many times have seen the thousand yard stare displace interest in the eyes of users as you attempt to explain the treasure hunt in locating relevant information sources. I think the basic operating program of American civic engagement is not the information technology. It's these fundamental government information sources (laws, regulations, rules, court decisions, reports, studies, etc.) And the technology still can not deepen the necessary political and social contexts of how all these information sources relate to each other.

This one is for Daniel Cornwell --Imagine the possibilities if -- somehow, someway -- our several library associations were able to coordinate a national civic literacy program to enable trained and interested government information librarians to engage citizens in workshops, discussion groups, classes, and events that discuss and outline sources of information about the government's efforts to recover from the economic crises. This is the context building (and deepening) often missing from purely technological approaches.

See you Day 26.

Happy Valentines Day! Happy Stimulus Day! Late last night, the U.S. Senate signed off on the stimulus deal. Far from an object of attraction between political partisans (only three republicans (all Senators) voted in favor of the legislation) -- a significant victory for Obama and his plans to "reboot" our national political/social perspective nonetheless.

So, what will the various open government/civic information partisans do with this milestone? Perhaps it will give some hope that in spite of the lack of bipartisanship, it demonstrates a certain strength among democrats to hold their focus in face of strong republican push back. For the last fifty years, the democratic/liberal forces always seemed more receptive to the devices and desires of the free government information coalition. And the legislation itself represents a funding opportunity of a different kind, what with its millions of dollars slated for improvement in schools, universities, public libraries, and broadband infrastructure. Of course, who and when will get this federal bounty still remains to be seen.

But, again, it just one more indication that we live in a time beset by both dislocation and opportunity. And in the fog of economic turmoil it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. I go back to my call for some kind of professional unity among the library associations and groups on this important issue. At the risk of sounding like some old testament prophet wandering in from a desert to harangue a community -- a time of reckoning is upon us. The principal institutional arrangement for national access to government information -- the federal depository library system -- is in a period of strategic planning and reconsideration of its core mission. Governments are either rushing blindly, or deliberately, into the next stages of digital government. Special interest groups and other organizations are well down the road towards the articulation of an evolved new civic information structure that does not necessarily assume the necessity of libraries in the same way these ancient institutions served in earlier epochs of technology.

Participate in person, or virtually, in the upcoming Federal Depository Library council meeting in April. Note, especially, that the Public Printer is specifically asking library directors of depository institutions to come to Florida and participate. With many of these directors contemplating their future involvement in the depository program, and many more reorganizing stand-alone government information departments into mergers with other units, or out of existence all together -- you just have to know we are well past the tipping point. Change is going to come. It is just a question of how much we want to shape that change.

The Association of Research Libraries has launched a major study to consider the future structure of the federal depository library program. As the study's prospectus points out --

There is a need and opportunity to identify a sustainable framework that will provide access to and preservation of government information in the years ahead. A new framework will address financial sustainability as well as the essential components of infrastructure for collaboration among federal depository libraries and with other stakeholders. Working with consultants, ARL will identify and explore such a framework that permits flexibility in the future while ensuring enduring access and providing for the efficient management of the legacy collections to insure the broadest public access to government information. Such access has been the hallmark of the FDLP. The framework approach is proposed as an opportunity to specify one or more models for configuring collection resources, access infrastructure, and expertise that would optimally support the the interests of an informed public and the capacity of our Nation’s libraries.

When nearly 66 percent of the depository libraries are house in academic institutions, such an examination will have no small influence on many of those library directors being invited to Florida by the Public Printer.

And at this summer's annual ALA conference, the Council on Legislation will host a special session among all participating ALA chapters, divisions, and roundtables with a specific interest in the depository library program's future.

Just as Congress and the President struggle to work together in very difficult circumstances that challenge their constitutional prerogatives, especially steeped in the partisan bitterness that lingers from the last several national elections, so to will librarians and their allies need to come to terms and work together to build next century's civic information infrastructure. As a librarian with twenty-five years experience I really, really want my beloved institution to be part of that great project. As a student of our country's long running political and social conflicts, I know that what I want and what will happen is often determined by how much I am willing to join the discussion and the struggle in an effort to make that crucial difference. These next five months offer any number of opportunities to contribute. As I said in yesterday's blog -- a vibrant civic exchange of public information depends more on the sustainability of critical relationships between citizens and their government, and less on the methods/technology of civic information distribution.

And just as St. Valentine represents both the romantic notion of love and faithfulness, there is a much more complicated side to this particular martyr's faith -- a defiance of authority to honor relationships. As one account puts it --

... Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men — his crop of potential soldiers. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

One doesn't need to be a martyr. Just get involved.

See you on Day 25.

Tapping back into the "raw power" theme, I just read the New York Times article on Carl Malamud mentioned here by Jim Jacobs. I found the article curious for the simple reason that it equates "free" access to massive amounts of court records with power, and a good form of power, or what he calls the "operating system for democracy." Though this kind of rhetoric sparks the necessary energy to get people to leave their couches and join the open government brigade at the barricade, I think it also paints a too simplistic picture of the complex arrangement of constitutional and legal traditions that favor a highly evolved civic engagement.

Missing from the newspaper article's description of what happened to the PACER pilot project and its sudden suspension is the more messy aspects of democracy that try to balance privacy with open access, free access with the necessary infrastructure (that requires money and personnel to function) to sustain long-term availability of "raw data." This balancing act depends on a series of relationships between the courts, users, the GPO and its depository libraries. Simply downloading millions of pages, as one person did in California is not a relationship, it is simply a power surge that may or may not be made useful by people on the information grid.

However, as the article points out, Malamud does demand some level of privacy protection in these court documents, he puts that responsibility squarely back on the shoulders of the courts by pointing out that is the court's duty, and heavy lifting, to make sure this private information is not made publicly available.

What I would expect to see, if indeed Malamud is interested in becoming a future Public Printer is less focus on the power aspects of the information grid, and more focus on the redistribution stations necessary to make government information understandable, accessible, and sustainable over long periods of time. Libraries have done this for several millennium, and they will continue to do so with the different technologies now being deployed. It isn't a race to see who can make the most government information available. It should be a long engaged relationship between those in power and those the power serves to assure that the knowledge, information and necessary data are understood and usable by the citizen. Power without breakers or distribution centers only overwhelms, it does not inform.

The thing that strikes me as I look through the hundreds of pages of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" is simply this -- how is any normal human being going to deal with this mishmash of legalese, policy descriptions, and billions upon billions of dollars in budget figures?

When we speak of the power of "raw data" the positive and pragmatic benefit of government information distribution rests primarily on the ability of people to do something with it. This action can not be determined by the power's distribution mechanism (much in the same way ComEd here in Illinois can't tell me which devices in my home I can and can not turn on -- they just charge me for the overall electricity I use.) Traditional libraries (paper and print universe) functioned much the same way -- people picked and chose information or media depending on what their particular needs might be. Librarians may intervene by limiting who can use the services, how many items can be used, or help users sort out what they might want to use.

The power of text clouding, or the ability to pull out different stands of information from a large and complicated information object -- such as what ProPublica did for the stimulus bill -- moves the power relationship from one of passive distribution dominated by personal choices to passive distribution influenced by deliberative contextualizing by a third party. In other words, this third party takes the "raw data" and refines it into another kind of information by-product that might be more significant or meaningful to users. In fact, I would argue many traditional government information sources (i.e. Public Papers of the Presidents, congressional committee reports, Foreign Relations of the United States, Federal Register, or the Code of Federal Regulations) are of this type. What the web offers is the opportunity to make and distribute a wider variety of public information by-products.

See you Day 23.

The new regimes in the White House and Capitol Hill continue their complicated policy waltz to seriously address the ongoing financial failures. Waiting for the turn on the dance card, advocates for free government information must surely grasp that the revelations and revolutions so hotly anticipated after last year's elections remain just that -- anticipations. We are still in tactical mode with our federal government (and state governments) when it comes to information technology and proactive and deliberative civic information policy. Yes -- agencies use social networking tools, cloud-computing and liberation of CRS reports by non-profit groups make more information easily accessible, and the use of twitter, blogs and otheer "push technologies" by elected officials deepen the connection betwen the elected and those who sent them into public service.

But is there a strategy? Has the Obama team, or the democratic leadership in Congress for that matter, revealed any long-term plans that take advantage of technology's democratic possibilities? Not really. If free government information advocates believe it is only a matter of time, the struggle for restoring confidence in the economy is necessarily taking precedence, then one would hope to see indications of the promised innovation and strategy. But that didn't happen. The stimulus legislation is mired in political horse trading, with much of the money supposed to address information infrastructure issues gutted from the Senate version. Other commentators reflect on just how much the the president's current efforts fall far short of the electoral promise in education or the treasury proposals to shore up the banking industry.

That is not to say Obama is little better than Bush. Not at all. What I am saying is that if any progressive or deliberative effort to strategically improve the country's vastly complicated civic information infrastructure through better institutions and use of technology is going to have to come from the grassroots.

So here again is one more reason to get involved at at the local, state and national level to shape and proposed the variety of proposals from government groups, library groups and citizen groups. In November the revolution won might be characterized in this way -- we are now able to talk about government as a POSITIVE force in our society. The revolution we wage now is to move beyond the rhetoric and put into something "shovel ready" into motion.

It won't happen any other way.

See you on day 22.