36 Days to Government Information Liberation
2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. I said yesterday I would get to the 1990's and reflect on the substantial policy and research analysis created during those ten critical years. But, first, we must step back into the 1980s for a moment and set the stage. I paid homage to Hernon and McClure body of work yesterday -- but I want to put some other national efforts into perspective as well. First, the Association of Research Libraries created something they called the "Task Force on Government Information in Electronic Formats." in the mid-1980s. Following on a report, ARL held several town hall style meetings that helped frame much of the discussion about how and why libraries should incorporate digital government information into their collections and services. This became one of the first set of "principles" produced by libraries about "government information." Here is one version of those principles -- 1. Open exchange of government information should be protected. 2. Federal policy should support the integrity and preservation of government electronic databases. 3. Copyright should not be applied to U.S. Government information. 4. Diversity of sources of access...is in the public interest and entrepreneurship should be encouraged. 5. Government information should be available at low cost. 6. A system to provide equitable, no-fee access to basic public information is a requirement of a democratic society. I have to point out that this effort was also linked to another ARL goal to confront the growing evidence of how the Regan administration was using claims of secrecy and national security to restrict otherwise open and freely available information. In a report called Access to Information it issued in 1985, which followed on a statement from the Council on Library Resources called "Scholarship, Research, and Access to Information." And not to put to fine a point on it -- it is amazing how all of this rushes back into one's memory with a little prompting from the web -- it was also the time when the FBI was conducting an extensive investigation of libraries and their users -- hoping to curtail and arrest the use of sensitive (but not secret) technical information found in many research libraries open collections. The argument was simply this -- taken separately, the technical reports (often government reports) were not classified or secret. But knitted together by a clever foreign agent doing good library research, a string of reports could reveal sensitive (even classified) information. One of the better books on this FBI program is "Surveillance in the Stacks The FBI's Library Awareness Program" by Herbert N. Foerstel. The whole other subtext going on during the 1980s (again anticipating the arguments of the 1990s and early 2000s) centered on the ownership of the public's information. Another set of Regan policies sought to "privatize" as much government work as possible (and this include the privatization of government information.) Years of library debate, rancor, standing in professional meetings with hands on hips and yelling at each other, accusations of selling out, accolades for standing up to the "the man" to protect the public's right to know ... oy vey, those were days when government information librarianship and brawling in the streets were close cousins. I mean, we would get seriously worked up about it ... it is not an exaggeration to say that decades-long friendships broke up over the issue. At the international level, the struggle was framed in terms of something called the "New World Information Order." Based on a report issued by the United Nations, it was a very strong argument that private media companies in first world nations held unfair monopolies around the globe that drowned out different or indigenous information cultures. But, if you think the Depository Library community was asleep or somewhere else during these crazy days -- they were busy hatching plans to include digital information in the depository library system. The culmination of that effort was something called "Informing the Nation". And, yes, Hernon and McClure had their hands in this effort as well as contractors. Prior to this epic, the community was also involved in another effort to get digital information into the depository library system -- in the early 1980s -- the GPO and the Joint Committee on Printing created something called "Ad HocCommittee on Depository Library Access to Federal Automated Databases." Hoduski, by the way, was the chair of this effort. So, again, by the end of the 1980s we have a wealth of policy, research, and experience within the government information library community that deeply considered all of the implications of digital government information. And the web was still five or six years a way from bursting on the scene. See you on Day 35. Continue reading
37 Days to Government Information Liberation
2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. Since one refers to Hoduski/McKnelly and Malamud as bookends, let's take a look at some of the vast literature written about federal government printing and the depository library system over the last 40 years or so. Think of this a primer for those library school students who plan on taking a government information course next spring. The past is but a prologue, as they say over in the Smithsonian..... First up, let's go back to the 1980s -- when three of the most comprehensive studies of the federal depository library system were completed -- Charles McClure and Peter Hernon, Users of Academic and Public GPO Depository Libraries. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989. p ix. (GP 3.2:US 2). GPO's depository library program : a descriptive analysis / Peter Hernon, Charles R. McClure, Gary R. Purcell. Norwood, N.J. : Ablex Pub. Corp., 1985; Improving the quality of reference service for government publications By Charles R. McClure, Peter Hernon, American Library Association American Library Association, 1983 and this general assessment of information policies -- Public access to government information : issues, trends, and strategies / Peter Hernon, Charles R. McClure. Norwood, N.J. : Ablex Pub. Corp., c1984 I would submit that many of the issues we currently debate over the future and purpose of the depository library system were framed best by these studies. They hit upon the essential problems of purpose that plague the program to this day; problems only slightly changed by the barriers and opportunities of today's technology. We do not need to reinvent this research -- It's there waiting for us return to its home truths. The next stop will be those crazy years in the 1990s. Much policy and purpose to be rediscovered during this time as well. See you on Day 36. Continue reading
40 to 38 Days to Government Information Liberation
2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. Repeating cycles (sometimes called feedback loops)are important to any professional group or institution. Based on standards and protocols, these cycles often sustain efficiency and predictability. As Daniel Cornwell points out in an earlier comment -- loops keep the machinery going at some level. When we have to reinvent the wheel everytime -- that is where it becomes more curse than cure. For the next couple of weeks, among other points I want to raise, I will point out where the Hoduski and McKnelly argument for a full fledge study of the depository system is not a feedback loop. I will document just how many times the depository system in particular, and GPO in general, has been studied, analyzed, investigated, and heaped with recommendations. For instance, many of Carl Malamud's recommendations stand on the shoulders of earlier policy iniatives -- especially something called the Government Information Locator Service -- an early world wide web initiative to establish some kind of standardized descriptions of federal information resources. For another ancient link (1994) to this effort from (how many of us remember this group?) Taxpayer Assests Project -- desribes some of the rich policy history of GILS. In this case, the feedback loop shared by GILS and Malamud's recommendations is one that tries to come up with a form of government information organization, classification and accessibility that is clear and open to any and all systems. See you on Day 37. Continue reading
41 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. I was looking through an ancient artifact this afternoon called "An information agenda for the 1980s: a summary report". All this blog chatter about flickr projects in the Library of Congress, and innovative proposals from Carl Malamud, kind of made me nostalgic for "library big thinking" before the rise of the computing machine. This report is one of those dreadnoughts of library research that went on to frame much of the policy and research challenges of the early 1990s. It describes 101 specific projects that can help frame the research and understanding of how libraries must change in the crazy days of technological and economic revolution of the early 1980s. It is very interesting reading, especially when reads the summary of the research topics with the eye of how far we have come, and how little we haven't. Throughout the report there is an aching need to understand how and why our communities use our bibliographic institutions. There are early stabs at trying to frame the potential impacts of multimedia and digital transmissions on what the authors term the "knowledge gap" in society (which they define through education mostly, and not the income lens of today's (information have and have nots".) Many of the proposed research topics also examine the economic implications of a "knowledge economy" and possible future roles libraries might play in economic and social contexts where they might compete with other community information distributors. Just the post card from the past to remind us how much the technology has changed, but how little the fundamental human aspects of our business remain as elusive as they were 25 years ago. Perhaps we should ask those who participated in the research to come back to the table and reflect on what remains of their effort -- much like the Miller Center of Public Affairs does for important public policy and legal issues -- such as climate change, the American President, and the National War Powers Commission. Perhaps they could do it digitally? The point being, I suppose, that if we don't remember, as a profession, what we suggest or recommend from one decade to another, than we are doomed to repetitive cycles that cover the same ground again and again. See you Day 40. Continue reading
42 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. One simple question to pose tonight -- is it possible for federal depository libraries to tap into the critical relationship they share with either their designated congressional districts or senate sponsors? Much of our tradition and practice aims to serve the communities defined by our depository's host institutions -- academic, public, special or law libraries. But, in this time of digital democratic transition and transparency, what if a major new goal for the federal depository library program was to shift the depository library obligation from our bibliographic institutions? What if we were to focus our energies on the civic and democratic communities represented by the districts and states they serve? For instance, imagine all the depositories in the Chicago metropolitan area collaborating with each other and through their respective House of Representative districts. This could involve using not only physical collections, but innovative digital tools to reach out to the constituents and local neighborhoods through the congressional district offices. Imagine reference tools designed to meet the particular social, economic, and cultural needs of these communities. In the case of the Seventh Congressional District in Illinois, these communities could be as varied as part of Chicago's Gold Coast along Lake Michigan through the impoverished streets of the Austin neighborhood to the west, and along the inner suburbs of both the upper and middle classes found in River Forest and Oak Park. In rural areas, where many of the congressional districts must somehow overcome both geography and infrastructure issues, imagine how the designated depository libraries might work together, hand in hand, with the congressional district offices to assure that the citizens and communities are kept informed in an affirmative fashion through technology and inter-library cooperation. This kind of civic renewal, I think, is a better way to strike at the "digital divide" issue. If our discussions about the program's future began from these kinds of assumptions, rather than focusing on how much paper and how digital we should keep, I think the community of government information librarians will be in a much better place to take advantage of the civic possibilities made apparent during these days of liberation. After all, its about documents to the people, not documents to the libraries. Something to think about. See you on Day 41. Continue reading
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