Preserving Government Information Past, Present, and Future by James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs The book examines how preservation practices of the past affect the preservation of digitally published government information today, analyzes publishing and preservation data to characterize the current gaps in preservation, and looks to the future by charting a path to a distributed Digital Preservation Infrastructure for government information. The book addresses technical issues without unnecessarily technical jargon. It is designed to be used by LIS students, front-line librarians and archivists, managers of libraries and archives, government workers who publish and preserve government information, and policy makers who design laws and regulations that affect the production, dissemination and preservation of government information.

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Early praise for Preserving Government Information:

If you want to understand the breadth of published government information, this book explains it. If you would like a deeper understanding about why it is important to preserve government information, this book convinces you. If you’re considering helping to preserve government information, this book will motivate you and show you the ways. If you’re working to preserve government information, this book will help you become more effective. Written by two of the nation’s leading and well-respected government documents experts, this thorough work is uncannily timely. Preserve Government information, preserve the record of government actions.

• David Rosenthal and Victoria Reich, co-founders of LOCKSS

Our times practically scream for this crucial book from Jacobs and Jacobs. Long respected for their expertise with data, government information, and libraries, the authors apply their considerable skills toward the conundrum of preserving digital government information before we watch it disappear. In artfully critiquing many projects, studies, ad hoc groups, and agencies that have gone before, the authors provide a non-technical introduction to what is needed right away: an open digital preservation infrastructure.

Jacobs and Jacobs offer a well-researched distillation of our collective wisdom and our digital and tangible pasts, a mind-opening theoretical review, and thank goodness, a path forward. Their careful, well researched, always critical insights will find an eager readership. Concluding with a principled call to arms, Preserving Government Information stands to become a core reading in many professional settings and in library/information studies.

• Cass Hartnett, U.S. Documents Librarian, University of Washington

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Book talks and podcasts about Preserving Government Information:

• Preserving Government Information podcast at New Books Network

• FGI book talk now available as a podcast episode on Future Knowledge This conversation was recorded on 8/28/2025. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/preserving-government-information-book-talk

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Table of Contents

PART ONE: Context

1. Why preserve government information?
2. What is information?
3. What is government information?
4. What is preservation?

PART TWO: Where are we and how did we get here?

5. The laws of preservation
6. Federal Government Public Information on the Web
7. GPO’s GOVINFO
8. Web Harvesting
9. GPO web harvesting
10. NARA web harvesting
11. LC web harvesting
12. Comparing two harvests
13. Gaps in Preservation

PART THREE: Preservation Infrastructures

14. Infrastructures
15. OAIS
16. Characteristics of digital information
17. Assumptions

PART FOUR: A Digital Preservation Infrastructure

18. Barriers and opportunities
19. Elements of an infrastructure
20. An open framework for digital preservation
21. A Distributed OAIS
22. Many Roles
23. Transition
24. Conclusions

APPENDICES

Appendix A: Certification and sustainability
Appendix B: Depository Policy
Appendix C: Selection
Appendix D: Significant Properties
Appendix E: Metadata

Bibliography

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