FGI Library

This is a list of presentations, white papers, published articles, and major commentaries and analyses by the FGI volunteers.

Papers, Articles, Presentations, White Papers

• Canadian Government Information Day Plenary Session: “Imagining a 21st Century Digital Government Information Library.” James R. Jacobs, invited keynote speaker. December 15, 2020. “This talk will call attention to the urgent need to build a digital government information library that connects the public with localities, states, provinces and countries as we face global crises. We will explore and imagine the library for which we should strive toward as well as consider the hurdles to making this a reality.”
• Depository Library Council Spring 2019 Virtual Meeting, April 16, 2019. James R. Jacobs, Stanford University Libraries, Heather Christenson, Hathitrust, jessica Tieman, GPO. Transcript of audio, handout.
• Keynote presentation at the 2018 Canadian Govinfo Day, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, April 20, 2018. slides (PDF) and presenter notes (PDF).
• Save Government Information! by James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs. Library Journal Peer to Peer Review (March 15, 2018).
• “‘Issued for Gratuitous Distribution:’ The History of Fugitive Documents and the FDLP.” James R. Jacobs. Article in special issue of Against the Grain: “Ensuring Access to Government Information”, 29(6) December 2017/January 2018.
• FGI Webinar: “Government information: everywhere and nowhere”. James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs. October 24, 2017. Invited by GPLNE – Government Publications of New England. Slides, notes, and audio available.
• Brief overview of issues around modernizing Title 44 of US Code (mp3 recording, 1 hour), James A. Jacobs, Presentation at the August meeting of the Digital Library Federation Interest Group on Government Records Transparency and Accountability (August 18, 2017). See also: Title 44 and the Uncertain Future of Free Public Access to Government Info in the US by Rachel Mattson. Digital Library Federation Blog (September 11,2017).
• Panel on End-of-term crawl and the collection of vulnerable government information. Hosted by OpenTheGovernment and the Bauman Foundation. January 12, 2017.
• Beyond LMGTFY: Access to Government Information in a Networked World, by James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs. in Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits, Edited by Miriam A. Drake and Donald T. Hawkins. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc. (2016). pages 21-32.
• Open letter to GPO regarding the implementation of the new Regional discard policy. Signed by 16 government information librarians. 12/18/2015. See also, “DLC responds to open letter regarding the new Regional discard policy.” 1/18/2016.
• Blind Spots and Broken Links: Access to Government Information. by James R. Jacobs. [PDF with speaker notes] [slides]. Presentation at program on “Open Government: Current Trends and Practices Concerning FOIA, Open Access, and Other Post-Wiki-Leaks Issues” sponsored by the Federal & Armed Forces Libraries Round Table at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Library Association.
• What are we to keep? thoughts on the National Collection by James R. Jacobs, Documents to the People (DttP), Spring 2015. Accompanying material and bibliography: “What Are We To Keep? (FAQ)”. [This is one of three DttP articles on the topic of “Thoughts on the National Collection.” The other three articles — by Shari Laster, Aimee C. Quinn, and Barbie Selby — are available here.]
• Digital preservation deserves better coverage by James R. Jacobs and James A. Jacobs. Documents to the People (Winter 2014 issue).
• Community-Based Digital Collection Development of Born-Digital Government Information by James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs. (Jan. 12, 2015). Session #43 of the series Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian Webinars hosted by the North Carolina Library Association. Notes, slides, audio and links at freegovinfo.info/fugitives.
• Webinar presentation entitled “Water, water, everywhere: Digital collection development for ‘drought prevention’.” Part of a panel on “Building Your Electronic Collection” with Daniel Cornwall and Chris Brown. Virtual Depository Library Council (DLC) Conference, December 3, 2014. , slides.
• Against the Grain: Government Information at Stanford University Libraries. 2014. Presentation by James R. Jacobs and Kris Kasianovitz to the Stanford Library Advisory Council. (May 17, 2014)
• Government Records and Information: Real Risks and Potential Losses. 2014. Presentation [slides and audio recording] by James A. Jacobs at the Center for Research Libraries Forum, Leviathan: Libraries and Government Information in the Era of Big Data (April 25, 2014). Also available: Speaker notes, additional links, examples, and accompanying material.
• Born-Digital U.S. Federal Government Information: Preservation and Access (archived PDF copy on FGI). 2014. Prepared by James A. Jacobs for Leviathan: Libraries and Government Information in the Era of Big Data.
• Wait! Don’t Digitize and Discard! A White Paper on ALA COL Discussion Issue #1a. 2013. By James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs (June 2013).
• The Digital-Surrogate Seal of Approval: a Consumer-oriented Standard. 2013. James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs. D-Lib Magazine, (2013) 19(3/4).
• Gone Today, Here Tomorrow: The Future of Government Information and the Digital FDLP. 2013. James R. Jacobs. Public talk given at the University of Washington, January 24, 2013. Sponsored by the Northwest Government Information Network, University of Washington Libraries, and the UW Association of Library and Information Sciences Students (ALISS).
• Preservation for all: the future of government documents and the “digital FDLP” puzzle. March 23, 2012. James R. Jacobs. Louisiana Government Documents Round Table (LA GODORT) keynote address during the 2012 LA Library Association annual conference.
• LOCKSS-USDOCS Program (review). 2012. James R. Jacobs. Government Information Quarterly 29(3) (July, 2012). [DOI]
• The Future of the FDLP: From Conversation to Confrontation. 2011. By James A. Jacobs and Melody Kelly, Library Journal (December 13, 2011).(see also, comments and responses.)
• Letter in response to “Implications of harmonizing the future of the federal depository library program within e-government principles and policies” (Government Information Quarterly, 27:1). James R. Jacobs, James A. Jacobs, Shinjoung Yeo. Government Information Quarterly, 28(1), e1. DOI:10.1016/j.giq.2010.06.007
• From Production to Preservation to Access to Use: OAIS, TDR, and the FDLP. 2011. James A. Jacobs. Federal Depository Library Conference (Oct 2011).
• Preservation for all: LOCKSS-USDOCS and our digital future (PDF). 2010. James R. Jacobs and Victoria Reich. Documents to the People (DttP) Volume 38:3 (Fall 2010)
• Tech Watch Column: Digital Deposit Documents to the People! 2010. Sonnet Ireland and Rebecca Blakeley. DttP: Documents to the People.
• Demystifying Digital Deposit: What It Is and What It Could Do for the Future of the FDLP 2009. Rebecca Blakeley and James A. Jacobs, Fall Depository Library Council Meeting – Arlington, VA, (October 20, 2009).
• Federal Depository Library Program: Services and Collections 2009. [preprint] by James A. Jacobs, Against the Grain, 21(2) April/May 2009.
• Distributed Globally, Collected Locally: LOCKSS for Digital Government Information. 2009. Daniel Cornwall and James R. Jacobs. Against the Grain, 21(1) February, 2009. p.42-44 (p.5-7 of the PDF)
• Citizens in the Dark? Government Information in the Digital Age. 2008. Presentation at meeting of the Acquisitions and Appraisal Section of the Society of American Archivists Convention (Aug 29, 2008) [speaker-notes] James A. Jacobs.
• Delicious government documents or: how to become a social bookmarking fiend. 2008. James R. Jacobs, Documents to the People (DttP), 36(2), Spring 2008, online supplement.
• Preserving [Congressional] information. 2007, James A. Jacobs, OP-ED, The Hill, (June 05, 2007). (One of a series of Op-Eds written by contributors to the OpenHouse Project’s report on congressional information.)
• “Preserving Congressional Information.” 2007. James A. Jacobs. In Congressional Information & the Internet A Collaborative Examination of the House of Representatives and Internet Technology, (p15-19). Collaboratively Authored by The OpenHouse Project. (May 8, 2007)
• Who’s government information? Our government information. 2005. Nevada Library Association, Annual Conference. — Preservation by Daniel Cornwall, Privacy by James R. Jacobs, Access by ShinJoung Yeo.
• Capturing Electronic Documents on the Last Frontier. 2005. Daniel Cornwall, Nevada Library Association Annual Conference 2005.
• The Future of Government Information. 2005. James R. Jacobs, guest opinion piece, Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC), May, 2005.
• Government Information in the Digital Era: Free Culture or Controlled Substance?. 2005. Karrie Peterson and James A. Jacobs. Paper presented at the “Symposium on Free Culture and the Digital Library 2005” Emory University, October 2005. [summary of remarks]
• Government Information in the Digital Age: The Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program. 2005. James A. Jacobs, James R. Jacobs, and Shinjoung Yeo. Journal of Academic Librarianship, v.31 n.3 (May 2005) pp198-208 .
• Access to Government Information, pre and post 9/11. 2002. James A. Jacobs. Presentation at “Intellectual freedom in libraries post 9/11”, University of California Riverside. [speaker notes] (April 9, 2002).
• Government Documents at the Crossroads 2001. by Karrie Peterson, Elizabeth Cowell, and Jim Jacobs, American Libraries v.32 n.8 (Sept 2001) p.52-55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25646036
• The Technical is Political. 2001. James A. Jacobs and Karrie Peterson. Of Significance… 3(1) 2001, p.25-35. Association of Public Data Users.
• U.S. government computer bulletin boards: A modest proposal for reform. 1990. James A. Jacobs, Government Publications Review, 17(5), 393–396. DOI: 10.1016/0277-9390(90)90048-I

Commentary and Analysis

2024

• PEGI charts a FAIR direction for the US government information ecosystem

2023

2022

• FGI’s comments and recommendations for the GPO draft report of the task force on an “all-digital” FDLP
• FGI’s recommendations for creating the “all-digital FDLP”
• Some facts about the born-digital “National Collection”

2021

• Government recommendations to preserve government information not preserved by government
• FGI comment on GPO RFC re Regional Online Selections Draft Policy
• FGI’s guide to “unreported” FDLP publications
• Analysis of GPO’s proposed Title 44 changes to FDLP and FGI’s suggestions

2020

• GPO’s Collection Development Plan falls short of the “National Collection”
• Threshold Concepts for Government Information
• New year’s resolutions for 2020: setting a new agenda for a new FDLP

2019

• PEGI submits comments for phase III of the draft Federal Data Strategy, says preservation is key
• Digital Deposit, Good for All: Vision, Myths, Reality
• Reject GPO’s proposal to drop metadata from CGP
• Government shutdown causing information access problems
• Agenda for 2019: Exploring Digital Deposit

2018

• Patrice McDermott posts Draft letter re DOI records disposition request to NARA. Requests comments
• Stanford UL’s letter to AOTUS Ferriero re Dept of Interior draft records schedule
• Holes in History: The Dept of Interior request to destroy records
• Preserving What’s Gone — The Healthcare Guidelines Case
• Modernizing the FDLP Modernization Act
• FDLP Modernization Act of 2018 introduced. Take action now to improve the bill!
• Suggestions for Revisions to Chapter 5 of the Title 44 Bill
• Title 44 “reform”: Privatization of printing and erosion of GPO functions mean less public access

2017

• The Congressional Joint Committee On Printing (JCP) Should Be Kept
• FGI’s analysis of the draft Title 44 “reform” bill
• Tune in Weds 9:30 am PST to KCSB FM Santa Barbara to hear FGI talk about all things Title 44!
• Digital Deposit And The Biennial Survey: context and actions
• FGI Webinar “Disappearing govt information” to GPLNE tomorrow 10/24 @ 2pm EST
• Discussing DLC’s Title 44 Recommendations. Thoughts and questions
• Strengthening Title 44, part 4: Preservation
• Strengthening Title 44 part 3: Privacy
• Strengthening Title 44 part 2: Free Access
• Strengthening Title 44 part 1: Modernize definition of “publications.”
• Reading between the tea leaves: more about revising Title 44
• This is not a drill. The future of Title 44 and the depository library program hang in the balance.
• Here we go again: GPO wants to change Title 44
• A rare opportunity to make a long-term difference
• A Long-Term Goal For Creating A Digital Government-Information Library Infrastructure
• Rescuing Government Information: The Long View
• Vigilance and Action in Uncertain Times
• Panel on End-of-term crawl and the collection of vulnerable government information
• Review of 2016 in anticipation of 2017
• The Shame of Bad Digitizations

2016

• “Flexibility” and the collaborative FDLP
• Analysis of the Regional Discard Policy: What you need to know about implementation
• Update on Questions about GPO’s Regional Discard Policy
• Strategic Planning Part III: Building a Collaborative FDLP
• Strategic Planning part II: SWOT analysis for the FDLP
• Strategic Planning, Part I: A Workable Plan for GPO and FDLP
• GPO’s National Plan for Access to U.S. Government Information: an overview
• Looking Backward, Looking Forward

2015

• FDLP biennial survey due tomorrow. Here’s my comments. What are yours?
• What You Need to Know about the New Discard Policy
• FGI submits OMB A-130 comments. Help us raise OMB awareness of library issues
• Information sharing and the National Plan
• One year later…what’s happening with Regionals and discards?
• Government information and #critlib
• The FDLP Historical Collections
• Dodging the memory hole
• What Are We To Keep? (FAQ)
• Focusing on the essentials at DLC
• Is cataloging government information obsolete? FGI says NO!
• “An alarmingly casual indifference to accuracy and authenticity.” What we know about digital surrogates

2014

• PACER and EDGAR
• PACER Removes Court Case Documents
• Why GPO’s proposed policy to allow Regionals to discard is a bad idea
• The value in being a depository library
• Analysis of COL FDLP task force final report #alaac14
• 2 upcoming events for docs librarians: CRL’s Leviathan & GODORT panel @ #GPODLC14
• Re-Imagining Government: Affordable Banking
• Information is not a Service, Service is not Information
• Writer’s Guide to Government Information: Creative Promotion
• COL’s FDLP Task Force Survey and FGI’s responses
• Government Link Rot
• Reflections on the end of a year and the beginning of a new year

2013

• What’s love got to do with it? further thoughts on libraries and collections #lovegate
• Can’t buy libraries love: FGI responds to Anderson’s Ithaka S+R issue brief “‘Can’t Buy Us Love'”
• Letter of concern to Congressman Duncan re the horrendously bad HR1638 “Census Reform Act of 2013”
• When we depend on pointing instead of collecting
• CASSANDRA writes letter to Public Printer regarding the NAPA report

2012

• Fear, uncertainty, or doubt? Why the Census and ACS are critical to a well-functioning democracy
• FDLP CRS Report: Useful with Reservations #FDLP

2011

• Achieving a collaborative FDLP future (#FDLP)
• The Future of the FDLP: From Conversation to Confrontation. link and comments
• Back from the brink! Recent discussions and the future of the #FDLP
• Privatization of GPO, Defunding of FDsys, and the Future of the FDLP
• E-Gov: are we citizens or customers?
• Disintermediation
• FGI response to Ithaka draft values proposition for the FDLP
• Public comments and response to Ithaka S+R Models draft report
• A librarian reacts to “A librarian reacts to wikileaks”
• Public comments on Ithaka S+R draft findings document
• Public comments on Ithaka FDLP Modeling Project draft documents (II)
• Comments on FDLP Modeling Project draft documents
• Public comments on Ithaka S+R FDLP Modeling draft documents

2010

• GPO and FDLP Must Not Go
• Questions and answers about the future of FDLP
• Who Do You Serve and What Do You Do?: Defining Your Role to Ensure the Future of Our FDLP
• LOCKSS-USDOCS at Best Practices Exchange
• Letter to Deputy CTO Noveck: “Open Government Publications”
• The State of FDsys and the Future of the FDLP
• 2010 iConference: “The future of government Information”

2009

• In response to the “Economic case against homosexuality”
• Digital Deposit
• FGI Glossary
• Critical GPO systems and the FDLP cloud
• Response to Public Printer

2008

• Librarians without Libraries?
• Comment on Government Information Liberation
• GPO’s draft regional libraries report and FGI comments
• A comment on government contracts and harvesting

2007

• What really happened with Google Premium Video — Part Two: Why Google Video story should scare you
• What really happened with Google Premium Video — Part one: DRM killed the files
• GPO, LOCKSS, IP Authentication, and the future of FDLP — more clarification needed
• GPO LOCKSS Report: Why does GPO want to use IP Authentication?
• GPO LOCKSS Report: Mistakes and Irrelevancies

2006

• Selective-deposit and the technical requirements of a digital-deposit FDLP
• Toward a definition of “virtual depository”
• Nonlawyer’s Journey through Title 44: Collected Postings

2005

• Authenticity
• Digital library technologies
• Depository Library Council Vision
• Comments on DLC Vision Draft
• “Policy neutral” does not mean “neutral policies”
• Not a “myth” — an unanswered question
• FGI Bibliography on Issues Related to Government Information
• Official Documents by and about GPO and FDLP
• Privacy
• Preservation
• Access

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