Author Archives: shuler

Good to be back on the grid. My unexepected time away gave me a chance to gather some more threads together and plan for a post-liberation effort -- in other words, once we reach January 20, the new President joins the new Congress, what happens next? Well, just a few days after the swearing-in ceremony on the Hill, we are going into a season of library association meetings -- ALA in Denver, ACRL in Seatlle, and the Federal Depository Library council in Tampa -- in four short months. If these aren't opportunities to discuss and debate and organize about the future of government information services and civic engagement, then what are we doing with our time? In the meantime, in a brief response to Jim Jacobs thoughtful piece in response to my koan "Can there be librarians without libraries" -- don't confuse the lack of control over information with the inability to do anything positive or proactive about how public information is distributed through a democratic society. My ideal of librarians and their institutions in this changed environment does not suggest either of Jim's arguments that we will become travel agents or proto-business managers with responsibilities to manage the content management rights for a specific set of users. My argument lies less with what we will be doing in a digital world, and more with the notion that this library activity will not spring from possession (which is the same as control in Jim's argument I think), and more from mediation, context and praxis. Why is this? Even though Jim argues otherwise, the digital production and distribution of information/knowledge has upset the traditional relationships formed and exploited by librarians, users, and producers of information. Just check out the recent stories about publishers, bookstores, and other cultural institutions that aggregate (i.e. possess) information on behalf of their communities. But more on this in subsequent posts along that road to liberation and beyond. I missed you all and can't wait to get back into the thick of things. Continue reading →

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2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. The 1990s represent some of the best and brightest efforts of advocacy, thinking and study about the future prospects of government information services in libraries -- here are some of the highlights (by no means complete; I will try to fill in more of the missing pieces in my subsequent posts) Coming on the heels of OTA's Informing the Nation report, government information librarians were ready and willing to weigh in on the future of the federal depository library program in particular, and the role of libraries in the civic machinery of federal government information. The decade began with a set of principles from the American Library Associations Governemnt Documents Roundtable -- published in Documents to the People, v.19:1 (March 1991):12, 14. Soon after, a separate group of libraries came together around the issue and formed a coalition called the Dupont Circle Group, which issued its own set of principles, hosted a national conference, and made some specific recommendations on who the depository library program might change. A year or so later, another loose affiliation of library groups came together with their own recommendations. The Coalition of Many Associations Framework debated many of the points rasied by the Dupont Circle effort, and issued its own report -- "Enhanced Library Access and Dissemination of Federal Government Information: A Framework for Future Discussion." Working Document endorsed by the American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Special Libraries Association, 1995. American Association of Law Libraries Newsletter 27, no. 1 (September 1995): 14-15. Not to be left out of the picture, the Depository Library Council issued its own statement on the challenges ahead -- Depository Library Council to the Public Printer (U.S.). "Alternatives for Restructuring the Depository Library Program: A Report to the Superintendent of Documents and the Public Printer from the Depository Library Council." September 1993. Administrative Notes 16, no. 16 (December 5, 1995): 23-59. But wait -- there's more. ALA devoted significant chunks of its 1995 midwinter and summer conference to the issues -- and issued a report: * "Model for 'New Universe' of Federal Information Access and Dissemination: Preliminary Results of Forum on Government Information Policy, July 20-21, 1995, Sponsored by American Library Association." ALAWON, ALA Washington Office Newsline 4, no. 77 (August 9, 1995). But then, the National Commission on Library and Information Science considered the problem, and issued its own set of principles, following work they did back in 1990. GPO weighed into the fray -- and issued its own considerations -- "Report to the Congress: Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program as required by Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 1996. Public Law 104-53." Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. June 1996. But wait there is more ... In 1996-7, GPO issued to other strategic documents -- "Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program" and THE ELECTRONIC FEDERAL DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM: TRANSITION PLAN, FY 1996 - FY 1998 Finally, and again -- remember I am only touching on the highlights of ten years here -- NCLIS returned to the problem and issued its own massive report on the problem of public information in a digital age following on a large-scale national effort during 1999-2000: A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION DISSEMINATION FINAL REPORT -- JANUARY 26, 2001 I am tired just thinking about how many brain cells we killed during these ten years trying to get a handle on the future of government information in a digital age. In reviewing this good work, I am reminded of the phrase -- those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Let's not close out this decade with another series of reports or studies -- lets do something about it. I will get back to this exciting decade tomorrow -- after some rest. See you Day 33 Continue reading →

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2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. Ah, the 1990s....the last decade of the 20th century began with the collapse of the cold war and closed with first hints of the next global struggle (i.e. the war on terrorism.) In between we had political revolutions at home and abroad; economic boom and bust; technological upheavals; and the beginning of the end of what I call Gutenberg Librarianship. If there were just three themes that bound the decade's narrative together, they would have to be -- 1. Political shifts: the last bastions of the Lyndon Johnson inspired "Great Society" finally disappeared after nearly fifteen years of "government is the problem, not the solution" drumbeat by conservative pundits and elected officials. By mid-decade, with the Republican take over of the congress, the last years of the Clinton administration would reinvent this mantra into something called "reinventing government" -- better technology will deliver public programs and services more efficiently and smaller government will be "ok". Librarians and their associations would spend much of this decade debating how their bibliographic institutions will fit into the rapidly evolving "national information infrastructure." Unlike the comparable discussions of the late 1970s which led to enactment of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (primarily fostered by the many reports of the Commission on Federal Paperwork) -- the government reform efforts of the 1990s had the technology readily at had to match their ambitions -- the early grid of what was called the "information superhighway". 2. Technological and regulatory shifts: for the first time in nearly a century the old public service monopoly that bound the telecommunications industry would be overturned by, first, technology and then by changes in public oversight. Just as reinventing government imagined a leaner and more agile public administration culture, so to did the possibilities of a more interactive and consumer-driven model of telecommunication began to take shape -- largely because of the growing world wide web, the rapidly falling prices of expensive computing power, and the interoperability of certain software tools that shifted the communication from textual to graphical interfaces. The late 1990's federal laws governing telecommunications were rewritten and the "public monopoly" granted the telephone and telegraph companies almost 90 years before was lifted. Note too, with two years of these major rewrites, Congress and the President rewrote the laws governing public welfare... 3. Social and economic shifts -- at some point during the decade everyone suddenly felt much less poor, and more able to access, if not demand, many material goods and services once only available to the most affluent just a few short decades ago. Less regulation and government oversight translated into more consumer choices -- in bigger cars, bigger homes, more opportunities to participate in the digital economy through a robust information infrastructure. Public institutions such as libraries, universities, transportation authorities, health care providers, etc. now "had" to compete with an organizational model that presumed the best approach was one that relied on two purposes: it must be driven by the user and must make money or it must be the most cost-effective approach. Against this backdrop of larger social, political and economic developments government information librarians came out of the 1980s talking, debating, thinking, pontificating about how public electronic data products were going to change the way they do business. Rhetorical focus would shift from the culture wars fought over secrecy and privatization of government information to cybercommunities, digital democracy, "keeping the information superhighway free and open to all, and not digital toll roads." One of my favorite conference themes during this time was one that focused on how to keep libraries from being road kill on the information superhighway. Remember -- between the early and late 1990s digital problems for most libraries revolved around the capacity and speed of computers used in their institutions, the used of new fangled media such as CD-ROMs, and how to perform increasingly sophisticated mediated searches using expensive databases such as DIALOG. I many ways, government information librarians were at the bleeding edge of innovation when the Clinton administration decided to embrace the graphical interfaces of the world wide web in late 1995. How the government information librarians reacted to all this change we will leave for tomorrow. See you on Day 34. Continue reading →

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