57 Days to Government Information Liberation
We are eight weeks from a new national executive regime and about five weeks from a new national legislative branch. How can government information librarians best take advantage of the teaching moments these next two months make possible? People are actually talking about how their government works! Yesterday, driving home on the Eisenhower Expressway I listened to a National Public Radio host and reporter talk about the difference between the National Economic Council and Council of Economic Advisors. This is really the the kind of stuff we do as government information librarians. I just love the part where the refer to the 1947 law that created the former, and executive order that created the latter. Let me emphasize again that I think this is the most critical time for government information librarians to ban together, bridge their policy and institutional differences, and ride this wave of civic conversation. FGI guides on transition issues is an excellent effort, but it is an effort that will shine much more brightly if we can get some national collaboration going. I have suggested book discussions around impotant government publications. Might I suggest a more coordinated response -- that librarians sponsor discussions in their libraries days before or shortly after the President's inaguration, state of the union speech, introduction of the first budget, etc. -- a national movement to sponsor at least one of these conversations in each state organize that focus on these important democratic government information sources. We can call it -- Talking Back to Democracy Night! ALA and other library associations can post the idea on the web sites, and working with government information librarian groups, quickly produce a series of talking points, list of sources, who to talk to in the local media to encourage publicity and promotion. Think about it -- the news media and citizens are making our arguments for a place in the bibliographic ecosystem for us -- some one needs to talk about how government works through the distribution of public information beyond this very limited transition period. After January 20, the news media can't (or won't) do it. Local politicians will slant it to their agendas. Special interest groups will make it special (both profits and nonproits.) Poltical parties will continue to spin the partisan webs. To speak to the special values of government information librarians, we appear to be the best group to talk about the foundational aspects of teaching and showing people how their civic lives depend on understanding and using civic information. Who will work with me on this? Can we declare the start of Talk Back to Democracy Night during the first week in December? Any brave librarians, willing to put their activism where their rhetoric might be -- who wants to take a risk and offer a session or two? Can we build on this to offer something once a month (twice a week) for the next year? Can we take advantage of the FGI guides to prime the pump? Life beyond the day of liberation? Am I in the wilderness here? See you on Day 56 -- maybe with a couple of brave pioneers ready to push the agenda and street activism forward? Continue reading
Government information: the elephant in the academic library
I find it interesting that John recently referred back to his January blog post about what future generations of government documents librarians should know, as something he discussed in that entry has been on my mind for the last few weeks:
I am going to try to teach them how to be the best librarians who can find government information, not the best government information librarians...I am convinced the next generation of government information librarians will come to professional maturity in library organizations that do not give government information services or collections any special consideration.In my experience, librarians who don't work in government documents often seem to regard government documents as an inscrutable and mysterious body of information. I will admit that, prior to working with government information, I was a member of that group. Upon reflection, this attitude doesn't make much sense. Government information seems to me to be a format of information - a publication type, like a book or a newspaper article. As an academic librarian, my responsibilities also include liaising with several of the science departments at my university. Among other duties, I am expected to purchase books and evaluate related databases to ensure that those we subscribe to best support the research of students and faculty in those areas. Why shouldn't it also be my responsibility - and that of all academic librarians in similar positions - to be aware of relevant government publications in those areas? The American Library Association (more specifically, the Association of College and Research Libraries) defines information literacy as "a set of abilities requiring individuals to 'recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.'" Surely government information is often the type of information needed. How can academic librarians effectively teach students about when to use government information when we seem to fear using it ourselves? Academic librarian involvement can go beyond reference and instruction, however - the collections would be far more robust if subject librarians worked with the depository librarian to both weed, select, and deselect items to ensure that the depository collection is best meeting the needs of the university and the community. I have not experienced any difficulties in my own work while trying to form these collaborative relationships. I frequently share relevant government resources with our subject librarians, and I've worked with our education and health sciences librarians to weed those areas of our depository collection. This kind of collaboration isn't enough, however; to confront the belief that "government documents are mysterious", we must start earlier in the librarian life cycle. We must dash the misconceptions people have about government documents in library school. As John said, the trick is not necessarily to create the best government documents or government information librarians, but to create the best librarians who can locate government information. Continue reading
58 Days to Government Information Liberation
All right, I am willing to take an initial stab at trying to imagine the possible relationships between library services and those demanded by egovernment services. Is there a natural evolution of common purpose or intent? And I think Daniel's concern about liability is a fair point, and I do believe that any sustainable blending of egovernment and government librarianship is going to have to deal with the basic question: once we supply the internet connections, the computer equipment, and the technology, what do we bring into the relationship? I keep coming back to the wealth of ideas generated by Marshall McLuhan's research and insight -- as with this particular observation from a 1960 letter: "In an electronic age, all that properly moves is information. The massive overlay of antecedent and existent technology takes on a peculiar characters of simultaneity in the electronic age. All technologies become simultaneous, and the new problem becomes of relevance in stress and selection, rather than commitment to any one." In the context of government information, this might mean that the library role in the vast spectrum of e-government services is to "stress and select" options for people among the wide array of possible information choices and service possibilities. But this is a role that benefits very little from our long-standing library relationship with the textual literacy of a culture. Users will need to be "talked and walked" through the choices in a very deliberative way by a service provider. This kind of activity would share a common deliberative guidance we might find in our readers advisory services -- but little else. See you on Day 57. Continue reading
59 Days to Government Information Liberation
Ok, now that the issue of possession is in its proper perspective, I agree with Daniel -- its time to put the larger picture together. As I see it, the framework for the "next century project" -- a form of government information librarianship (and librarianship in general) that exists regardless of the format or technologies -- can be built from these planks: 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. That should be enough to keep us busy for the next 59 days. See you on Day 58 Continue reading
60 Days to Goverrnment Information Liberation
Thanks Jim and Daniel for your willingness to tear away at our longest standing point of contention -- the future need of possession to define what we do as librarians, especially government information librarians. This thoughtful and flexible intellectual exchange continues to be a booster shot of optimism that librarians will still ground their arguments not only in the rhetoric of advocacy, but also from serious intellectual foundations that frame our daily practice. This is why I enjoy the Thomas Mann articles so much.... And, no, I do not think we will convince one another to switch sides. But that is not necessarily the point. Think of it this way -- it takes at least two notes (or tones) to make accessible music. I would like to think our two points of frame a greater spectrum of possibilities for our profession. When I speak of a duality in formats, I do not see it as a zero sum proposition -- rather I see a series of librarian centric choices being made based on what librarians see as the principal purpose of their institutions. Which -- may or may not -- be the same as their community of users or other groups with different goals and interests n the same problems. The best book I read on this was written by Patrick Williams -- The American Public Library and the Problem of Purpose. 1988, New York: Greenwood Press. The world wide web -- even with all its flexibility and fragility -- enables to us to explore a new kind of government information librarianship, but not at the cost of more traditional forms. Possession remains a critical component in this, but is no longer a social good that is dominated the dominion of libraries. Yes the governments are taking back their possession of information sources through the digital media and e government services. And yes, under the Gutenberg traditions and technologies, this physical possession was more distributed among the social and economic classes because of the physical characteristics of the paper and print book. But you can also see this kind of distributed shared possession showing up in the digital world -- for instance -- with many other web sites capturing the lost or deleted pages of change.gov. What rankles us as government information librarians is that we perceive this act of preservation to be better done through rational and centralized functions of our governments. It is a public good that deserves a proactive public preservation. And it rankles us so much that for the past hundred years we have recreated thousands of smaller and localized variations of what we think the government should be doing. I have no problem with this argument, and will remain as vocal and full-throated in my rhetoric as anyone in the defense of libraries and their righteous place as critical institutions in our democracy and civic culture. What I do argue for us to seriously consider as our next century project, however, is a form of government information librarianship (and librarianship in general) that exists regardless of the format or technologies. My favorite question I love to pose for my library graduate students runs something like this -- Can doctor still be a doctor without a hospital? They usually answer -- of course. Can you be a lawyer with out a courthouse? Again -- affirmative. Now the money shot -- Can you be a librarian without a library? Dead silence. What I am trying to do here is tease out for them the critical intellectual and fundamental things we do in that wonderfully complex exchange of knowledge among individuals and their institutions of government. Possession of material might have once been central to that purpose. And in the case of some of our institutions (even depository libraries) that command and control might still be in play. But I also strongly suspect that much more intellectual effort and research will be needed in order to build a community of theory and practice that imagines a world where this idea of possession is much less exclusive or destiny for any one institution. Now we are getting somewhere… See you on Day 59 Continue reading