Implications of harmonizing the future of the federal depository library program within e-government principles and policies

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Abstract

For more than 150 years, the United States Government Printing Office (GPO), along with its Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), has supported an informed citizenry and democracy by ensuring access and preservation to a broad swath of federal government information. This collaborative national public information program between local libraries and the national government, if it is to survive beyond its second century of service, must overcome profound challenges within a rapidly evolving complex of e-government policies and principles. The FDLP can (and must) find a way to serve its traditional values – permanent and public access to government information – that allows for growth and change within the demands of a dynamic electronic environment between the governors and the governed.

Introduction

As defined by the United Nations (2004), e-government is “the use of information and communication technology (ICT), and its application, by government for the provision of information and basic public services to the people” (p. 15). Much of the e-government policy structure implemented over the last 10 years presumes a citizen-centric purpose for these digital services. This shift from institution-driven information services, the dominant production and distribution method for much of government printing over the last 150 years, leaves many of the 19th and early 20th century information programs with an uncertain future. One of the oldest, the Government Printing Office's Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), is particularly challenged. As GPO grapples with shifts in its technologies – evolving from a traditional printing plant to something else in the world of the internet – FDLP's participating libraries must deal with their own local pressures that demand rapid shifts in resources (funding, space, staff), service pressures to uplift their technological capabilities to access and disseminate authenticated digital government information, and national pressures to respond to a complicated set of societal expectations from their respective communities about whether or not electronic access to federal information is a priority in access and delivery.

At the national level, these demands mean GPO now must deal with executive and judicial agencies with the technical capacity to reach out directly to citizens without the GPO's traditional printing and distribution services. At the local level, many of the depository libraries find themselves working increasingly within a variety of privately purchased and institutional information services that supplant the traditional public services created to serve paper and print collections. These external and internal pressures push for a reassessment of the FDLP and the need to effectively plan and manage its future relevance during a period when public information networks are dominated by digital rather than print/paper. To do this, the program must become increasingly integrated within a set of e-government policies and programs that is becoming more citizen-centric, with little understanding of how traditional services of libraries might function within this civic digital framework.

This digital civic purpose found in the E-government Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-347) creates, as its primary goal, enhanced public access to government information via the internet. The FDLP, and the communities it serves, shares a comparable goal drawn from its 19th century roots and can be part of this ongoing technological revolution. Barack Obama's administration clearly declares its intention to use e-government principles and practices to foster public transparency about the ways that the public authorities make decisions and offer enhanced digital access to government information from a wide variety of official sources on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov). Obviously, the change in federal executive and legislative leadership following on the historic November 2008 national elections suggests several possibilities for renewal of the library program, especially in the ways in which it can broaden access to digital government information, increase the public use and understanding of the federal government, as well as promote effective ways many of the program's participating libraries can continue to serve in the program.

A robust FDLP, grounded in the principles of e-government, would harmonize its traditional aspects of public access to take advantage of the expansive technological capacities of digital preservation, storage, bibliographic organization, access, and dissemination of the public's record without altering its core mission to permanent public access. The integration, if done in a deliberative fashion, means the FDLP could harness further resources, both human and institutional, to improve services to all of the program's stakeholders (members of the public, librarians, lawyers, researchers, and students, among many others). Moreover, an opportunity exists to align the FDLP with user-centric information preferences, which dramatically favor accessing information electronically.

To meet the needs of participating libraries and stakeholders, and to serve its important democratic responsibilities, the FDLP will need to reconcile its legislative foundations, professional practices, and rules with the intricacies of the legislative requirements of the E-government Act, as well as other information laws and policies. Along with improved fulfillment of its democratic mission, there exists a range of opportunities to utilize technological capacities, professional advancements, and institutional collaboration to effectively – and economically – preserve, access, and disseminate government information. FDLP's primary goal is to ensure that government information is always available for public access—regardless of past or future technological choices. Seeking government information by members of the public is usually driven by life events that require the information, and indeed sometimes demand the information in the wake of economic or natural disasters (Bertot et al., 2006a, Bertot et al., 2006b). FDLP's structure should evolve over time to meet changing technological capacities and social expectations of stakeholders while maintaining the underlying service principles.

New technological capacities not only allow for the preservation and provision of access to information electronically, but also create the ability for the program's participants to rethink their service models. Digital dissemination can occur automatically across great distances and the range of information can be expanded to include local and state government resources. Collaboration and professional training can occur over the internet, among other enhancements to the traditional FDLP approach to be geographically isolated. A more internet-enabled FDLP could provide a combination of government information access, dissemination, collaboration, and service that would increase usage of FDLP information and promote sustainability.

This article will examine the need for FDLP harmonization within an e-government context. The article discusses the historical evolution of access to government information, followed by an exploration of the foundations and history of the FDLP. After detailing current usage of the FDLP, the article discusses the challenges and opportunities raised by e-government for the FDLP, including the conceptual and legal harmonization of the FDLP and e-government. Finally, the paper discusses key issues that will frame the process of harmonizing the FDLP and the age of e-government.

Section snippets

The evolution of access to government information

Throughout periods of human history that saw the creation of great city states and the establishment of agriculture, governments generally directed the focus of their people through public information released and emphasized by authorities, along with the ways in which they released it (Sunstein, 2005). However, any government's level of control and success varied by types of organization and historical epochs. From the middle ages through the 1950s, few questioned the notion of the

Access to government information in the United States

Building on these basic documents created by the constitutional founders, the first law that ensured at least some dissemination of printed legislative and executive information was enacted in 1813—offering printed materials to a small number of state offices, universities, and historical societies. In the early days of the republic, public printing was handled by private contractors. Corruption, political bribery, and general dissatisfaction with their work led to the creation of the GPO in

Harmonizing e-government and government information

Since the enactment of the first freedom of information laws in the mid-1960s, deliberative public policy assumes a series of collaborative information activities organized (and directed by) the federal government. To be effective, these policies ought to possess coherence (the pieces are part of an organized, interrelated, whole); hierarchy (it has an organized system of management and enjoys the power of authority); and instrumentality (it pursues a particular and clearly articulated purpose)

The future of the FDLP and e-government

The availability of most government information online, combined with the power of private search engines such as Google, ultimately allows every library to serve as an effective access point for government information. This dramatically increases the possible number of libraries that can fulfill FDLP's overall mission, as well as more people who can access government information from home or work (Farrell, 2005, Seavey, 2005, Selby, 2008), and the expansive capabilities of technology that

John A. Shuler is Associate Professor and the Bibliographer for Urban Planning/Government Information in the University Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His research focuses on government information librarianship, information policy, and the literature of urban planning. Prof. Shuler is the author of more than twenty journal articles and book chapters, as well as being a coauthor/contributor of five books. He is the Assistant Editor of Government Information Quarterly. His

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    John A. Shuler is Associate Professor and the Bibliographer for Urban Planning/Government Information in the University Library at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His research focuses on government information librarianship, information policy, and the literature of urban planning. Prof. Shuler is the author of more than twenty journal articles and book chapters, as well as being a coauthor/contributor of five books. He is the Assistant Editor of Government Information Quarterly. His research has been funded by the Department of State, Department of Energy the Institute of Museum & Library Services, the American Library Association, and the University of Illinois. He is the 2009/2010 Chair of the U.S. Public Printer's Federal Depository Library Program Council.

    Paul T. Jaeger, Ph.D., J.D. is Assistant Professor and Director of Center for Information Policy and Electronic Government in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on the ways in which law and policy shape information behavior. Dr. Jaeger is the author of more than eighty journal articles and book chapters, along with six books. He is the Associate Editor of Library Quarterly. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, the American Library Association, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

    John Carlo Bertot is Professor and Director of the Center for Library & Information Innovation at the University of Maryland College Park (http://www.liicenter.org). His research spans e-government, information and telecommunications policy, and library technology planning and evaluation. He serves as editor of Government Information Quarterly and Library Quarterly and is on the board of the Digital Government Society of North America. Over the years, his research has been funded by the Institute of Museum & Library Services, the American Library Association, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and a number of federal and state agencies. More information regarding Bertot is available at http://terpconnect.umd.edu/∼jbertot/.

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