Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 10
The political and social mix continues to churn across our layers of government. Impeachment of a sitting governor in Illinois (the first in the land of Lincoln in over a century); budget crisis in California forcing unpaid furloughs of government workers and loss of funding for critical medical, social, and education programs. Not to mention the further widespread layoffs throughout all sectors of the economy. Library opportunities for civic engagement abound -- if we can just organize ourselves and our institutions to do so. Though, I well know from experience, the pressures bearing down outside the library are wreaking their own pressures on our own bibliographic decisions. This internal tension may suggest that we duck and cover during the storm. I would suggest that, in a profoundly contrary way, it may be the best time to reach out to our communities and engage them. I am sure there are hundreds of examples out there where special, public and academic libraries alike are reaching out to their communities in specific ways to help deal with the cascading social, economic and political turmoil. Here is one instance, from the Oak Park Library, that speaks to this -- watch the videos here and here. And this rather well designed web page about the event here. Note the emphasis on access to demographic and census information. See you on Day 11. Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 9
One of the future problems for a proactive system of depository libraries is to wrestle with the shift from a model based passive receipt of material sent from a central public authority (regardless of the format)to one where the art of collections and service are more directed and determined by a deliberative plan by the local institution. It always struck me that the model the depository library program should consider is one that uses a coordinated approach and use of the Freedom of Information Act to pry information from the federal government (or the various state governments, for that matter.) In one of my thought experiments I try to imagine a depository library program based on this mechanism of information release -- how would it be different from the century old traditions of our current depository program? The National Security Archives release of its basic FOIA handbook just might move this speculation to reality...if a few libraries are will to pull together. See you on Day 10 Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 8
With the House voting on the Obama's economic recovery today, and the Senate taking up its consideration in the coming two week, I go back to my earlier themes about Talking Back to Democracy. Somehow, someway -- if libraries want to maintain any kind of relevance in this whitewater churn of rapid economic and political change -- we are going to have to embrace some kind of proactive stance to put the importance of government information in front of our communities every day, week, month. Not enough institutions are "connecting the dots" for people out there....libraries (and especially government information librarians) do this. See you on Day 9. Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 7
There is something bracing about a Congress, or a congressional committee, that embraces its oversight and investigatory powers with a kind of constitutional "old testament" righteousness. Our constitutional founders created a divided government for very good reasons -- and even though this model of shared governance amongst three co-equal branches is messy, inefficient, and at times politically distasteful -- when the pendulum of "checks and balances" gains a particular civic rhythm, the insights and research unleashed are extremely satisfying. Exhibit A in this democratic discourse is the House Judiciary Committee report: REINING IN THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush. This 487 page report details many of the long-standing objections about how President Bush chose to exercise his authority -- often at the expense of the people and other branches of government. That is not to say, obviously, that the other branches were innocent bystanders in this constitutional encroachment. When the Congress was under the thumb of either republicans or democrats, our legislative leaders showed little constitutional backbone to push back against the presidents power grab. Only the supreme court demonstrated some sense of the limitations on Bush's treatment of the war prisoners. Of particular interest to this community is the report's Section 5: Government in the Shadows: Executive Privilege, Secrecy, and the Manipulation of Intelligence and Section 4 – Misuse of Executive Branch Authority. As we enter a new political season that attempts to walk back the cat on many of these policies and programs, I can think of no better primer that enables any engaged citizen/librarian on what went wrong and how to get back to a more reasonable constitutional ecosystem. See you on Day 8. Continue reading
Won’t Get Fooled Again: Day 6
I got to thinking about all the changes and initiatives launched by the Obama Administration during its first week in power -- which sources of information should transcend the political elections? In other words, as librarians shouldn't we argue that certain categories of federal government information should remain consistent and accessible regardless of which political party rules the White House or in the halls of Congress. For instance, shouldn't there be a standard and predictable form for a press briefing transcript? Compare how the White House handles this with the approach of the State Department. With the State Department the form of the briefing as an actual transcript remains the same from Secretary of State to another. With the Obama press briefings, we get summaries (blog posts) rather than actual transcripts (which were more common with the Bush and Clinton administrations.) Preservation of individual web sites is important. Continuity of essential civic information from one political change to another is equally important. See you on day 7. Continue reading
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