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Daniel’s Take: Library Roles in the Non-Exclusive Environment
The comments below reference the Library Roles in the Non-Exclusive Environment of the September 2005 Depository Library Council publication The Federal Government Information Environment of the 21st Century: Towards a Vision Statement and Plan of Action for Federal Depository Libraries. Discussion Paper My general comments on this paper appeared in another blog posting. As I work through each section of the discussion paper, I'll start out with positive aspects and then move onto what I view are problems with the DLC paper. I strongly believe in finding common ground whenever possible. We shouldn't turn this discussion into a "us vs. them" dynamic. The DLC rightly points out that the government information environment is much more diverse than in the past. They also point out correctly in my view that most people's first approach to locating government information is trying the web. The authors also sensibly ask what it means to be a depository library when so much government information is available on the web. Continue reading
Daniel’s take on DLC Vision – General Comments
Today the Depository Library Council (DLC) released this discussion paper: The Federal Government Information Environment of the 21st Century: Towards a Vision Statement and Plan of Action for Federal Depository Libraries. Discussion Paper Prepared by the Depository Library Council September 2005 This paper is an effort to provide a guiding vision for the access, description and preservation of government information and how libraries might fit into this process. I'm sure it was hard work for the DLC, because they had to listen and integrate a chorus of disjointed voices from the depository community. They deserve some praise simply for coming up with anything at all! Whether or not you work in a library, this paper is worth reading. Today I'd like to offer some general comments on this paper. In the coming days, I'll have some comments focused on the main sections of the discussion paper: 1) Library roles in the non-exclusive environment; 2) Adding value; 3)Managing collections and delivering content ; and 4) Deploying expertise. Continue reading
GPO refuses to guarantee no-fee access
Last week, GPO had the opportunity to assure the library community that free public access is a GPO priority and it failed to do so.
Instead, in response to two questions that directly address the vague commitments to public access in its strategic vision for the 21st century, GPO chose to avoid the questions entirely and assure the library community that it is designing a system that will not be "constrained" by policies -- such as access without fees.
The two questions were posted to the Future Digital System (FDsys) Blog, "Question and Answer" page on August 21 ("Policy neutral" does not mean "neutral policies"):
- Will GPO guarantee that it will provide information products for free to the public and that those products will be fully-functional and not encumbered, disabled, controlled or otherwise non-optimal or locked-down versions?
- Will GPO guarantee that it will make available for deposit, without fee, into FDLP libraries that wish to receive them, all fully functional digital government information products within its purview?
Here is the complete text of the response:
Continue readingWill GPO guarantee user privacy? Can it?
Will GPO guarantee the privacy of users? Will any guarantees it does make be implemented carefully and accurately? It is important to ask these questions if libraries do not have copies of digital government information and all users must retrieve copies from government managed web servers. If libraries had copies of digital government information, users could retrieve that information from libraries (which have a long tradition and policies of protecting privacy of users) rather than from the government.
I was thinking about these issues and GPO's commitment to data mining in its "Future Digital System" when I read a story this morning that sheds some light on current implementation of data mining in federal government agencies:
- GAO: Privacy issues remain in data mining programs By Patience Wait, Government Computer News (08/30/05).
The story quotes a new GAO report and says that "implementing privacy and security measures is haphazard.... Of five data mining programs at five different agencies, 'none followed all key procedures' for privacy and security measures." The GAO report:
- Data Mining: Agencies Have Taken Key Steps to Protect Privacy in Selected Efforts, but Significant Compliance Issues Remain, Government Accountability Office, "Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate." (GAO-05-866) August 2005.
GPO's commitment to data mining is spelled out in its Future Digital System requirements document in section 3.2.14.7, pages 92-95. This section specifies that the FDsys will log transactions and be able to extract, analyze and present data from Business Process Information, perform cross tabulations and "clusterization" and categorization, and perform association and link analyses. It will be able to "expose" sequential and temporal relationships and patterns and filter data at different levels of granularity and will have ability to create customizable reports for analysis of search terms. It will be able to send alerts or notifications to GPO users based on defined criteria.
Each of those functions could be used in ways that improved system performance and did not violate privacy. Indeed the system specifies that it must "provide the capability conform to GPO's privacy policy and Federal privacy laws and regulations."
Unfortunately, there are two problems with this. First, since the new system is "policy neutral" (see Policy, by Magan Fleetwood, August 29, 2005, Future Digital System (FDsys) Blog, and comments to that blog including: "Policy neutral" does not mean "neutral policies" by James A. Jacobs, 8/21/2005 or FGI copy of that comment), GPO provides no guarantee of user privacy. Instead, it only guarantees that it will conform to whatever policy is in place at any given point in time. And, it is developing a system flexible enough to conform to changing policies. Its system guarantees that it can implement a no-privacy policy. So, even though the system will, for example, be designed so that it has "the capability of maintaining Access privacy (e.g., Search, Request)," there is nothing that says it must implement that capability.
Second there is nothing in the system specification to prevent the kinds of problems found by the GAO. Having procedures and policies in place doesn't help if the agency doesn't follow them.
What is to be done? FDLP librarians and others should be demanding that GPO has a strong privacy policy, of course. But even more importantly, we should be insisting that GPO guarantee the availability of fully-functional digital content to the public and to libraries. To restate questions I've asked before:
- Will GPO guarantee that it will provide information products for free to the public and that those products will be fully-functional and not encumbered, disabled, controlled or otherwise non-optimal or locked-down versions?
- Will GPO guarantee that it will make available for deposit, without fee, into FDLP libraries that wish to receive them, all fully functional digital government information products within its purview?
Daniel’s Take: Adding Value
September 8, 2005 / Leave a comment
The comments below reference the Adding Value section of the September 2005 Depository Library Council publication The Federal Government Information Environment of the 21st Century: Towards a Vision Statement and Plan of Action for Federal Depository Libraries. Discussion Paper Prior Comments on this discussion paper:
- General comments
- Library Roles in the Non-Exclusive Environment
I find "Adding Value" to be the strongest part of this paper. The Depository Library Council (DLC) recognizes that all government information professionals and institutions have an obligation to serve people where they are. They offer suggestions about where our users are including: popular web sites (Google, Yahoo, other search engines); FirstGov, agency web sites, etc. The authors of the paper also point to the promotion of the virtual reference Government Information Online project as an example of the value that we can add. No argument there. Continue reading →Continue Reading →