43 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. Good of McKnelly and Hoduski to post their thoughts on the future of regional libraries in the Federal Depository Library Program. After I have had a chance to review and consider their analysis, I will offer my own thoughts on this important issue. I encourage everyone to chime in -- this topic is going to be at the top of the agenda for the Public Printer's Depository Library Council. For today's post, I want to follow-up on the theme of the enduring values shared by journalism and libraries as mediators between the community and their civic machinery. The seizure and forced federal court appearance of Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff John Harris on corruption charges represents again where librarians and other media are in a race to get "government information" sources out to the public. I first got a blip of the arrest through a Chicago Tribune email alert at around 8:30am on Tuesday. One or two people posted the information on University wide email lists shortly after. I went into the web pages for the Northern District of Illinois District Attorney, and found the 12 page news release about an hour later and posted it to email lists of the University. About an hour later, I located and posted the link to the seventy-six page complaint. By 11am central name, most of the major news sources were linking to the same sources. After 1pm central time, there was no contest -- the web and other mass media sources were swamping the internet with stories, analyses, links to relevant documents and web pages. Though a bit rushed and breathless at first, much of the reporting by early evening had begun to place the charges in the larger context of corrupt Illinois politics in general (for instance, the number of sitting Illinois governors either been charged or sent to prison in last 50 years). So, my observation that it would be most difficult for government information librarians to match the revelations unleashed in some kind of hopeless race with a reporters engaged in a feeding frenzy. Rather, they should take a step back from the "breaking news" and begin to craft web resources and links that direct users to specific sources and contexts that discuss the history of corruption in Illinois, constitutional succession in Illinois state government, impeachment processes in Illinois, who can and can not be seated in the U.S. Senate, implications of a powerful federal attorney taking on the powers (and corruptions) of local and state government.... You get the idea. I think digital government information librarians will play for the middle and long game, rather than the short chip shots of the daily media, preparing their users for greater understanding of what are, frankly, quite stunning events. See you on Day 42 Continue reading
44 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. Recent posts talk about how to render America's federal civic machinery transparent, accessible, and permanent (here, here and here). Each of these posts indicate some kind of "positive" authority either inherent or assumed by the national government in order to keep the civic machinery as open and accessible as possible. This is good -- and something I want to add to the mix is the critical role various organizations, especially library organizations, might play in shaping the future of one critical player in the mix -- the Government Printing Office. Let me be more specific. I think there is going to be more than a few opportunities to discuss and debate the future of the Government Printing Office in general -- (after all, Obama gets to nominate a Public Printer and Superintendent of Documents for Senate consideration and approval -- these two appointments alone will kick up the dust and debate in the near future) -- and the depository library program in particular. In regards to the program, the last two years have been dominated by discussions of * a strategic plan; * a draft report on the future of regional libraries in the program; * several demonstrations and rollouts of a proposed new system to replace GPOaccess ; * a growing number of innovative and positive partnerships with depositories that show how these libraries and GPO work together redefine the traditional boundaries of "depository library" obligations. Each of these partnerships represent a mutual amount of self-interest and collaboration. Included on this list, in particular, are several partnerships that capture many of the qualities sought in earlier FGI blog posts -- permanence, transparency, and distribution -- @Cybercemetery @DOSFAN @Historic Government Publications from World War Two @Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights * what's more, GPO is working with depository libraries on test beds and applications that seek to establish protocols for authenticity, digital distributive storage and preservation, and web harvesting So, while we sharpen our rhetorical arguments for an open government that is both well preserved and accessible and seek to influence the incoming powers that be with position papers and agendas, let's not forget how much progress has already been made in the last two years. We should continue to build on this efforts, with the clear recognition that same may not meet our far-reaching expectations. See you on Day 43. Continue reading
46 and 45 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. I think the toughest aspect of sustaining this kind of weeks long conversation is to try and keep all the different aspects of what we now call government information librarianship together into some kind of cohesive whole. In my last post I spoke about the underlying foundations of social capital shared by journalists and librarians that mediates between individuals or communities that want to know more about government institutions and sources of information produced by and about those institutions. In the case of librarians, the cumulative social capital comes from centuries old traditions of gathering and organizing a community's information artifacts. As an outcome of this gathering and organizing, librarians might also choose to become familiar with the substance and dynamics of how government organizations function, study or address problems, communicate with the public (and other government organizations), and eventually how the government organization might stash its information stuff over the long haul (or not, as the case might be.) In an open and democratic society these librarians also take on the express purpose to proactively work with other organizations, groups, and interested individuals to keep the civic machinery of government as transparent and accessible as possible. The term civic machinery is not widely used in the library traditions, but is a term that constantly pops in the professional and popular press. example, see here, here, here and here. I like the phrase "civic machinery" -- once used by Jane Addams to describe the critical role certain institutions might play in connecting a community to the democratic structures of their governments. Here is what Addams said specifically -- "As the policeman who makes terms with vice, and almost inevitably slides into making gain from vice, merely represents the type of politician who is living off the weakness of his fellows, so the over-zealous reformer who exaggerates vice until the public is scared and awestruck, represents the type of politician who is living off the timidity of his fellows. With the lack of civic machinery for simple democratic expression, for a direct dealing with human nature as it is, we seem doomed to one type or the other--corruptionists or anti-crime committees" What the civic expansion of public digital information over the last 15 years now demands of librarians and their professional associations is simply this -- take advantage of the technology to preserve our traditions of sustainability and transparency. See you on Day 44. Continue reading
47 Days to Government Information Liberation
1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. I know the challenges of getting back online, Jim, and thanks for your linkage between my ideas of civic librarianship and journalism. You are right, there are similarities because I think they both share a purpose of mediation between a government and its community. They both share a common ground of making sense of complicated topics (with journalists, its through narrative; with librarians, through organized and structured knowledge.) Where I think the two worlds are coming together is along the narrative frontier. Let me explain -- it use to be enough to have well organized (and accessible) collections of government information. Librarians' public service skills remained sharp by the constant interaction of explaining and guiding the public through these collections, and if what they want can't be found there, where they might find collections that might have what they seek. This still happens on a daily basis, but to fewer librarians than ten years ago because of the migration to a largely digital/e-government environment. Now we roam between our paper collections and what the governments now do on the web. So we still mediate -- just another format shift, much as we did when disks, DVDs, microforms were alternatives to paper. But where we shift closer to journalists (and they to us, because I believe they are tapping into our traditions of organization and structure) is how we talk about what we are doing with our community. We are telling a story, writting a narrative, building a nuanced description of all the complexities and connections that bind together a particular -- or set of -- public policy or program. The best government information librarianship, I believe, is the act that links the variety of government information sources into a coherent narrative. The FGI guides to the presidential transisition take very much from this approach... I commented about this connection when I wrote the an article back in 1996 -- "Civic Librarianship: Possible New Role for Depository Librarians in the next Century?" Journal of Government Information, vol. 23, no. 4. July/August 1996, 419-426. I draw a direct connection between the future of government informaiton librarianship and a movement called public journalism. In this fashion, we are become "journalists" of government information, much in the same way FGI and other blogs connect the dots for the readers when certain sources of information are read, digested, linked, and discussed. Here are some recent expamples -- here, here and here. See you on Day 46. Continue reading
48 and 49 Days to Government Information Liberation
It's been a rough couple days, sorry about not transmitting yesterday. For the next three weeks I want to try and sum up what I believe are the critical issues the government/civic information librarian community must confront and resolve to remain viable in the evolving government information infrastructure. For the past month we have talked about many of these, and other FGI bloggers opened the conversation in other directions.When the next 48 days are behind us, a new federal executive and legislative leadership assumes responsibility in late January, we will need to keep the pressure going. This will mean some consensus among the various interest groups who try to influence the library policy agenda. It means individual librarians will need to work at the institutional, regional, and state levels to assure some kind of coordinated and collaborative response to the challenges ahead of us for the next few years. So, starting tomorrow, here are the eight points I am going to emphasize till the end of the year. 1. Recognize the importance of librarians and their institutions in the sustainability of a dynamic civic culture. 2. Seek to establish the most effective techniques individual bibliographic institutions can contribute to a national system of government information access, preservation and organization. 3. Create standards/protocols to inform best practices on how to integrate the impact of e-government services into our institutions. 4. Develop a model graduate curriculum/studies to prepare the next generation of government information librarians. 5. Build effective rhetoric of advocacy for open, free and permanent access to government information that binds the shared interests of our various professional associations. This shared rhetoric should come from consensus and not assent. 7. Deliver various programs of public education and outreach about government information policy structure that takes into account the cyclical nature of partisan election, but is not dependent on it. 8. Fashion new models of management and public service for government information resources in our institutions. See you on Day 47. Continue reading
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