We've been following the Obama transition team's change.gov site for a few weeks now and were dismayed that the change.gov site had been copyrighted -- remember, government documents, including Web sites in the .gov domain, are in the public domain according to copyright law.

I was just alerted by a tweet from John Wonderlich, that change.gov has changed their copyright statement to a Creative Commons attribution license -- meaning visitors are 1) free to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work; and 2) to Remix/adapt the work as long as they "attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor." That CC license is "approved for free cultural works."

While I applaud the change to a creative commons license as a step in the right direction, I still believe that change.gov -- and all .gov sites -- need to be explicitly in the public domain (which as you remember is a statutory requirement According to Copyright Law 17 U.S.C. § 105). If site administrators wanted the geek street cred that comes with creative commons, why didn't they choose the creative commons public domain dedication?

This is an open government issue; the public domain is critical to open and transparent government operations. If the Obama administration is serious about ethics and open government, then they will change their copyright statement on change.gov and donate the site's information to the public domain. Is that so much to ask? If you agree, please contact the change.gov administrator(s) and politely but strongly urge them to support the public domain. I just did.

--that is all.

David Barstow wrote back in April, 2008 about retired U.S. generals appearing on the major cable networks as "independent" media analysts, while they were simultaneously working for defense contractors, and repeating talking points from the Pentagon (see Military Analysts for FGI coverage). In that piece, Barstow painted a nasty picture of conflicts of interest and journalistic ethical malpractice.

In today's NY Times, Barstow has another devastating piece, this time directing his focus to Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general, prominent military analyst for NBC News, and highly-paid consultant to defense contractors. McCaffrey's duplicitousness (and by extension, the other military analysts and the networks themselves) is truly shocking.

"One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex". David Barstow. New York Times, November 30, 2008 (oddly the date is 11/29 in the online edition and 11/30 in paper!).

...On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests. But those interests are not described to NBC’s viewers. He is held out as a dispassionate expert, not someone who helps companies win contracts related to the wars he discusses on television...

...General McCaffrey used his access to further business interests, as he did during the summer of 2005, when Americans were turning against the Iraq war in droves.

Veritas had been on a shopping spree, buying military contractors deeply enmeshed in the war. Its biggest acquisition was of DynCorp International, best known for training foreign security forces for the United States government. By 2005 operations in Iraq and Afghanistan accounted for 37 percent of DynCorp’s revenues.

... What is more, some of DynCorp’s Iraq contracts were in trouble, plagued by cost overruns, inept work by subcontractors and ineffective training programs. So when DynCorp executives learned that General McCaffrey was planning to travel to Iraq that June, they asked him to sound out American commanders and reassure them of DynCorp’s determination to make things right....

Back home, General McCaffrey undertook a one-man news media blitz in which he contradicted the dire assessments of many journalists in Iraq. He bore witness to progress on all fronts, but most of all he vouched for Iraq’s security forces. A year earlier, before joining DynCorp’s board, he had described these forces as “badly equipped, badly trained, politically unreliable.” Just months before, Gary E. Luck, a retired four-star Army general sent to assess progress in Iraq, had reported to Mr. Bush that security training was going poorly. Yet General McCaffrey now emphasized his “surprising” conclusion that the training was succeeding.

After Mr. Bush gave a speech praising Iraq’s new security forces, Brian Williams asked General McCaffrey for an independent assessment. “The Iraqi security forces are real,” General McCaffrey replied, without noting the concerns about DynCorp.

James Boyle, professor at Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain(!), has a new book out called, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. There are many reasons to be excited about this new tome. Not only is it an empassioned and highly readable treatise on why it's important to protect the public domain -- which starts with the humble peanut butter and jelly sandwich (read the preface :-) ) -- but Professor Boyle has put his book out under a creative commons license so you can get a free download in addition to purchasing the book for your library or for your own bookshelves. But best of all, Boyle acknowledges the tireless work of librarians in protecting public access to knowledge (you're welcome, Professor Boyle ;-) ).

The entire community of librarians deserves our thanks for standing up for free public access to knowledge for over two hundred years. Librarians are my heroes. They should be yours, too. -- Acknowledgement p. X

Continuing with our special "Guide of the Week" series relating to Presidential Transition issues:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently identified protecting the homeland as one of 13 urgent issues facing the next President and Congress. Today on Guide of the Week, we'll talk about some librarian produced guides from the ALA GODORT Exchange Wiki that can help inform citizens, Congress and President-Elect Obama on this issue.

"Protecting the homeland" is a broader topic than it sounds. GAO itself broke down "protecting the homeland" into five subtopics - Prevention, Preparedness and Response; Critical Infrastructure Protection; Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Radiological Threats, Homeland Security Acquisitions and Information Sharing. With these subtopics in mind, here are some guides that might better inform you on most of these issues:

• Depository Library Web Sites on Terrorism and Homeland Security (Karen Hogenboom, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 2004) (GODORT Education Clearinghouse)
• Homeland Security (University of Colorado Boulder Government Publications Library 2008)
• National Security Policy (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 2001) Last updated 3/10/2008
• Climate and Weather (University of Colorado at Boulder Government Publications Library, 2008)
• Intelligence (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 2001) Last updated 3/10/2008

I think three of the guide titles are fairly self explanatory as why I've included them. I included Climate and Weather from UCB because it links to a number of resources to major weather disasters and how to prepare for them. Statistically speaking, very few people will be object of a terrorist attack, but 90% of the country will be affected by natural disasters, including hurricanes and the like. Bert Chapman's guide on Intelligence contains links to resources that specifically address information sharing between agencies and with Congress and the public.

Since I'm not covering each guide listed here in my usual "Guide of the Week" depth, you know that there is lots more in each of the guides. So go check them out. If you find them helpful, send the guide links to your Senators and Representatives. It's their transition too! And if you're a docs librarian with a guide to some of the urgent issues listed above, then please QUICKLY post your guide to the Handout Exchange.

In addition to the government resources covered in this entry, I'd strongly recommend the book The edge of disaster : rebuilding a resilient nation by Stephen Flynn. It's a book that contains policy solutions in addition to diagnosing problems with how we handle both natural and manmade disasters. For specific information on nuclear and radiological threats, the book Physics for Future Presidents by Dr. Richard Muller would be helpful. Or you could just watch his lecture on Nukes:

Next week I'll be dealing with librarian produced guides relating to "undisciplined defense spending." So if you have any guides relating to that topic, please try and post them to the Handout Exchange this week.

This is a pirate transmission. The opposing forces have gone off shopping -- leaving me a few moments before they return.

I am very encouraged by the initial response to my earlier suggestions to get the conversation about democratic/government information mechanisms in our libraries. I also applaud Jim's "connecting the dots" about government information secrecy. He is absolutely right -- this is a powerful aspect of blogging that shares an even longer history of advocacy and education within our bibliographic institutions -- and speaks well to what I imagine the Talk back to democracy! project would do.

Uh-oh, I hear footsteps somewhere, I think the opposing forces have returned. Must end transmission. Will get back to my other points tomorrow.

See you on Day 51.

Check out the search demonstrations of GPO's FDsys (nee Future Digital System). GPO's Federal Digital System (FDsys) will "manage federal govt documents, allow them to be uploaded, accessed via the internet, included in the depository library program (italics added!), and preserved for the future." The video images are a bit fuzzy, but you can see that the basic utility of FDsys from an end-user's perspective is getting close to full functionality. I'm most interested in APIs and other tools and services for exporting large chunks of data and associated metadata for reuse, digital deposit into library repositories/LOCKSS caches etc and generally being able to expand on access, preservation and long-term sustainability. Hopefully, future video demonstrations will elaborate on those possibilities.

• part 1: simple search
• part 2: advanced search
• part 3: citation search
• part 4: boolean search
• part 5 is mentioned in part 4, but there's no video available as of 11/28/08 from GPO's youtube page.

Questions and comments should be emailed to pmo AT gpo DOT gov. Also feel free to leave comments here as well.

Change.gov continues to change. Now they seem to be hosting citizen led discussions on selected topics.

They started a discussion on health care this week. The starting point was a video briefing from the health care team followed a few starter questions. As of this writing, there were 44 pages of comments.

Comments default to be sorted by user rating. It appears to be working. The comments I saw at the top of page seemed to be thoughtful posts engaging the questions asked. Posts may also be sorted by date or "last activity." In addition, for hard core policy wonks, there is an RSS feed for new comments.

There is what seems to me personally a reasonable comments policy. The discussion itself is hosted by a commercial third party called Intense Debate.

Browsing around the first few pages, I didn't see comments back from the policy team, but that likely isn't feasible given the amount of comments. But I really appreciate them trying to have a constructive conversation among constituents. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Now if only they'd adjust their copyright policy to make it worthy of a dot gov.

When I started this conversation back in early November I failed to account for the Thanksgiving holiday. Being on the grid blogging about the liberation of government information, as my loved ones made clear to me, is not on the menu. I did point out, as a good and loyal information marine, such sacrifices must be taken into account (“there is no I in team” I say proudly, channeling my old wrestling coach’s visage.) My stoic pose met with flinty silence. Any self-respecting information marine recognizes a superior show of strength and falls back on valor of discretion and strategic repositioning.

Since I won’t be blogging until December 1, here are the next five installments in one transmission -- in the spirit of NPR’s This American Life. This is just a shameless cop out, but I think irony and deprecating self-regard are easy sacrificial lambs during these days of national reflection and thanks.

Needless to say, I am getting a jump on Christmas and New Years with this new awareness of opposition to my professional missions.

Day 56
On this day I still argue for some kind of coordinated national campaign to get libraries of all types to Talk Back To Democracy! (I know, it is kind of lame, but if any other enthusiasts out there want to pitch in, we can build a better slogan.) All the media buzz and pundit profundity about the recent historic electoral events offers government information librarians a chance to interact with their communities in very direct and deliberative ways. Here are few suggestions:
• Obama’s picks for his staff and political appointees and the wonderful opportunity this creates to talk about how our government works;
• daily revelations of how the Federal government will save us from the unfolding economic failure; who is going to keep track of the billions of dollars?
• countless stories of how local and state authorities are wallowing in these rough economic waters; no end of opportunity to talk to communities about impending state and local issues that will come up during the hundreds of discussions about budgets for the next two or three years;
• the possibility of engaging foreign countries and cultures through the lens of cooperation rather than declarations of war;
• global warming and other impending environmental issues that are literally life threatening;
• education, health care, retirement and social security; explaining current programs, talking about future changes
• national security and constitutional protections of civil rights; instead of just talking about banned books once year, why not a weekly conversation about freedom of information and the importance of transparency in government deliberations.
• 2010 Census (my favorite)
• Getting ready for the congressional 2010 elections (never to early to start thinking)
Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney musicals are great ways to imagine how we can pull this off (or my favorite, which even has a government element to it – White Christmas). We can compose the music, write the lyrics, build the stage, put on the show, and reap the rewards.

Day 55
On this day, overloaded with too much food and too many memories – I understand why a family might scatter itself across the globe (the line from the country song – “how can I miss you if you won’t go away?” brings a poignant edge to the conversations around a food laden table) – I imagine getting back to institutional purposes as I courageously outline how various library associations might pull together during these days before information liberation (and after.) I call out to them in my mind … rally around some kind of common vision, or agreed on set of principles, on behalf of the Federal Depository Library Program. Don’t fight over which vision of the program is better; agree to disagree on some of the legislative or organizational aspects, but join hands and support the program before new executive and legislative powers. To the library directors, I send out a mental plea to talk to your staff responsible for government information, try to grasp how they struggle to serve your community in a world where the distribution and access to government information is at least democratizing, if not in a very organized fashion. To the government information librarians, I say take your library director out for a coffee, tell him or her how excited you are by all the opportunities delivering government information services now abound, but express sympathy that it is lonely at the top, and how you understand difficult economic choices must be made. Emphasize how approaching government information in innovative and surprising ways (did someone shout out Talk back to Democracy?) can meet the mission of the library, but not cost much money in the long run.

Day 54
Slog day one. Black Friday is gone. We are reminded of how much money we don’t have to enjoy shopping. Notes from other librarians trickle in, admonishing me that they have neither the time nor resources to participate in a Talk Back to Democracy event. I roll my eyes, channel Judy and Andy, and look these wavering librarians square in the eye (metaphorically speaking) and say -- Yes you can.

Day 53
Slog day two. Running out of things to talk about with the loved ones; suddenly -- the importance of government information strikes me as the most important thing to give thanks for. I contemplate a stealth run at the computer, get back on the grid, but my beloveds realize my impending surrender and launch an intervention. We go out to see a movie – about animated animals on some kind of slap-stick journey of return and renewal, not a lick of public policy or government information associated with the tale.
But it does give me ideas – forget the library action figure – we need and slick and cute creature to champion Talk Back to Democracy!

Day 52
Work looms over tomorrow’s horizon. As the holiday leftovers calcify or liquefy into new food groups -- suddenly, the likely playoff fates of several professional football teams matter more than if we ever get to Talk Back to Democracy! Even if we do use cute animals! I know the other librarians will be there on December 1, ready to take up the cause again. Let’s put them off one more day. Go Brett Go! Let’s cheer of the power of brotherly skill found in the Mannings! Yes we can! Let us root for the home team (as if they deserve it!) Go Bears!

See you on Day 51

The thing I like about blogging is being able to connect the dots, to provide a context in order to expand on or prove a point. Sometimes, it takes work and a good deal of brain power. Other times, those dots just connect themselves.

This is one of those latter times. I probably could have simply given links to the following 2 articles and nothing more. It's *that* clear that these 2 articles are proof positive that government secrecy is deep-rooted, pervasive and far-reaching and happen as a matter of course from the insignificant to the fundamental. Of course, some secrecy is justified (like some lobbying is justified; after all, ALA is a lobbyist!), but these 2 articles show that there's an information war going on and the losers will be the American public, historians, researchers, libraries etc. It's also clear reason for getting digital govt information off of govt servers as quickly as possible, getting it onto public FTP sites like public.resource.org, into LOCKSS caches like the U.S. Government Documents Private LOCKSS Network, and into public, non-profit digital archives like the Internet Archive. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant," and it can only shine in public.

• Last Secrets of the Bush Administration: How to find out what we still don't know. By Charles Homans. Washington Monthly, November/December 2008.
• Airbrushing History, American Style. Scott Althaus and Kalev Leetaru. Cline Center for Democracy, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. (NYT article provides more background: "Iraq Ally Lists Were Altered, Study Shows". Thom Shanker. NY Times, November 24, 2008)

(Homans) Gonzales’s March 2001 memo was the opening salvo in a war over information, one that began in the earliest days of the Bush administration and will continue beyond its end. The stakes, which no one could have predicted when the letter crossed Carlin’s desk, are now self-evidently enormous: when Bush hands over the keys to the White House in January, he will leave behind more unanswered questions of sweeping national importance than any modern president. We still do not know how intelligence operatives, acting in the name of the United States, have interrogated suspected terrorists, and how they are interrogating them now. We do not know how many Americans’ phone calls and e-mails were scanned by the National Security Agency. We do not know—although we can guess—who ordered the firings of the U.S. attorneys who didn’t comply with the Bush administration’s political agenda, and we do not know who may have been wrongly prosecuted by those who did. There are large gaps in our understanding of the backstories to everything from pre-war intelligence in Iraq to the censoring of scientific opinion at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior. And those are the things we know we don’t know—there are also what Donald Rumsfeld might call the unknown unknowns.

(Althaus and Leetaru)

• There are at least five documents taking the form of White House press releases that detail the number and names of countries in the "Coalition of the Willing" that publicly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At one time, all five of these documents were archived on the White House web site.
• Today, only three of these five documents can still be accessed in the White House archives. One of the missing lists was removed from the White House web site at some point in late 2004, and the other was removed between late 2005 and early 2006. These two "missing" lists represent earlier and smaller lists of coalition members.
• The text of three of these five documents was altered at some point after their initial release, even though in most cases the documents still retained their original release dates and were presented as unaltered originals. These alterations to the public record changed the apparent number of countries making up the coalition, as well as the names of countries in the coalition. Some of these alterations appear to have been made as long as two years after the document's purported release date.
• Of the five documents, only two appear to have remained unaltered after the date of their initial release. These are the only two of the five that could be authentic originals. However, we find no evidence that either of these press releases was distributed broadly to the media through normal electronic channels.
• Two versions of the coalition list dated March 27, 2003 can be currently accessed on the White House web site. Both claim that there were 49 countries in the coalition, but one lists only 48 by name, omitting Costa Rica. The revision history of this document shows that Costa Rica's name was removed retroactively at some point in late 2004, after the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled that continued use of its name on the list was a violation of Costa Rica's constitution.
• Taken together, these findings suggest a pattern of revision and removal from the public record that spans several years, from 2003 through at least 2005. Instead of issuing a series of revised lists with new dates, or maintaining an updated master list while preserving copies of the old ones, the White House removed original documents, altered them, and replaced them with backdated modifications that only appear to be originals.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

The Government Accountability Office recently identified our efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as one of 13 urgent issues facing the next President and Congress. Today on Guide of the Week, we'll talk about some librarian produced guides from the ALA GODORT Exchange Wiki that can help inform citizens, Congress and President-Elect Obama on these countries.

Your first stop should be these three excellent country guides produced by the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB):

• Afghanistan: Country Guide (University of Colorado at Boulder Government Publications Library, 2008)
• Iraq: Country Guide (University of Colorado at Boulder Government Publications Library, 2008)
• Pakistan: Country Guide (University of Colorado at Boulder Government Publications Library, 2008)

Each of the country guides above is divided into the following sections: Government Information, Country Profiles, Articles & Databases, Diplomatic Relations, Health, Peacekeeping & Military Information, Resources in the UCB Catalog and Related Topics. The "Government Information" section contains links to information direct from that country's government. This can be useful if you are looking for an unfiltered view of a country. One thing I really like about the "Country Profiles" section of UCB's country guides is that they don't stop with the CIA World Factbook or the State Department's Background Notes. These sources, while good, are just one perspective. The UCB guides adds profiles from a number of countries plus international organizations. So have a look at how Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are viewed by Australia, Human Rights Watch, the European Commission and the BBC, among others.

Once you're done with the country-specific guides, check out the guides below if you need more background (historical, social, etc) on these regions of the world.

• U.S. State Department Microform Collections on Middle East and North Africa Last (Univ. of California--Berkeley) updated 9/11/2006
• Intelligence (Bert Chapman, Purdue University, 2001) Last updated 3/10/2008
• Middle East Conflicts (Grace York, Univ. of Michigan, 1997) Last updated 7/26/2006
• Depository Library Web Sites on Terrorism and Homeland Security (Karen Hogenboom, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 2004) (GODORT Education Clearinghouse)

The microform collection at Berkeley provides historical background on America's activities in the Middle East going back into the 19th Century. This information is not online, but knowing about these collections might help you order materials through Interlibrary Loan.

Bert Chapman's guide on Intelligence contains some links to reports on Iraq as well as information about the intelligence communities role in our current wars.

Grace York's guide reminds us that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are not the only conflicts going on in the world and provides materials on the various conflicts going on in the Middle East.

Finally, since both Afghanistan and Iraq were portrayed as being part of the "War on Terror", it seemed appropriate to include Karen Hogenboom's guide to terrorism resources from Federal Depository Libraries. Karen's guide has a link to Kathy Amen's War in Iraq/Afghanistan page that I think you will also find helpful.

Since I'm not covering each guide listed here in my usual "Guide of the Week" depth, you know that there is lots more in each of the guides. So go check them out. If you find them helpful, send the guide links to your Senators and Representatives. It's their transition too! And if you're a docs librarian with a guide to some of the urgent issues listed above, then please QUICKLY post your guide to the Handout Exchange.

Next week I'll be dealing with librarian produced guides relating to "protecting the homeland." So if you have any guides relating to that topic, please try and post them to the Handout Exchange this week.

Just got finish reading an article from the upcoming Sunday edition of the New York Times -- "If You Liked This, Sure to Love That" which talks about the public contest Netflix is running to improve the accuracy of the search engines that recommend movies to their users. Here is a section from the story that describes the problem and the prize --

"THE “NAPOLEON DYNAMITE” problem is driving Len Bertoni crazy. Bertoni is a 51-year-old “semiretired” computer scientist who lives an hour outside Pittsburgh. In the spring of 2007, his sister-in-law e-mailed him an intriguing bit of news: Netflix, the Web-based DVD-rental company, was holding a contest to try to improve Cinematch, its “recommendation engine.” The prize: $1 million. Cinematch is the bit of software embedded in the Netflix Web site that analyzes each customer’s movie-viewing habits and recommends other movies that the customer might enjoy. (Did you like the legal thriller “The Firm”? Well, maybe you’d like “Michael Clayton.” Or perhaps “A Few Good Men.”) The Netflix Prize goes to anyone who can make Cinematch’s predictions 10 percent more accurate."

Deeper in the story is this tidbit --

"IT USED TO BE THAT if you wanted to buy a book, rent a movie or shop for some music, you had to rely on flesh-and-blood judgment — yours, or that of someone you trusted. You’d go to your local store and look for new stuff, or you might just wander the aisles in what librarians call a stack search, to see if anything jumped out at you. You might check out newspaper reviews or consult your friends; if you were lucky, your local video store employed one of those young cinéastes who could size you up in a glance and suggest something suitable."

And then this --

"Cinematch has, in fact, become a video-store roboclerk: its suggestions now drive a surprising 60 percent of Netflix’s rentals. It also often steers a customer’s attention away from big-grossing hits toward smaller, independent movies. Traditional video stores depend on hits; just-out-of-the-theaters blockbusters account for 80 percent of what they rent. At Netflix, by contrast, 70 percent of what it sends out is from the backlist — older movies or small, independent ones. A good recommendation system, in other words, does not merely help people find new stuff. As Netflix has discovered, it also spurs them to consume more stuff."

The implications for government information library service seem, to me, profound. Automated trust? Where could we go with this when it comes to that sense of trust the informs the best part of librarianship and the community of users that rely on our institutions. I know some libraries are using aspects of this kind of recommendation automation ... but I love the notion of using the social software tools in such a way to help people find more stuff they might in which they might be interested. I know there is a huge gap between selecting movies and TV shows based on likes and dislikes and what we do as government information librarians when we explain large or small complex policy/legal connections. But just as Jim points out about the inherent necessity of collaboration embedded in librarian practice and theory (and we will continue to agree to disagree about the centrality of possession in that mix) -- I can only dream of an government information search algorithm that picks and chooses its way among the complex of relationships embedded in government information.

If you like this regulation on natural gas, then you might want to consider this one.

I know this happens at a very "structural" level in the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations that link the regulations through citations and their foundational public laws. And I know that, in a very real sense, subject headings and other authority records do this at a kind 19th century linear approach. But it seems to me that I spend most of my flesh and blood library time explaining these connections to our users rather than seeing any evidence that they grasp these library connections intuitively.

How can we make our library intuition more transparent? In some ways we are flesh and blood alogrithims -- which gets to another part of the story that delights me, when the contest participants sharpen their mathematical tools --

"As the teams have grown better at predicting human preferences, the more incomprehensible their computer programs have become, even to their creators. Each team has lined up a gantlet of scores of algorithms, each one analyzing a slightly different correlation between movies and users. The upshot is that while the teams are producing ever-more-accurate recommendations, they cannot precisely explain how they’re doing this. Chris Volinsky admits that his team’s program has become a black box, its internal logic unknowable."

Which has always been the challenge of teaching student librarians about the art of reference work -- there is this black box quality to how we know what we know and where to search for relevant information.

See you on Day 60.

I am at another slog point in the conversation. I am thinking about a couple of things -- the future of education and government information librarians; and what aspects of government information access should transcend all levels of government.

To the first, I am pondering one of the first blogs I posted back in January here. 10 months later I think my mind has shifted on a few points -- particularly when it comes to the issue of formats. Jim's responses to my earlier 75 day posts have got me reconsidering my positions.

It is somewhat amazing that we started this conversation three and half years ago with dueling articles in the Journal of Academic Librarianship about the future of the federal depository library system....

Which brings me to my second musing -- the future of government information service in libraries -- especially as framed by century long traditions of formal depository libraries. Here, I think the creation and distribution mechanisms recast the traditional library approaches radically. I think we should be working towards some kind of overarching standards, protocols, expectations for all library-based government information services -- regardless of which level of government it comes from, or in seeming contradiction to my statement above, format.

In other words,the pressures of e-government services delivered in library settings set new expectations for our users and how we are trained as professionals. It is a shift from a world of government information organized by static bibliographic standards to one driven by a dynamic information liquidity/exchange where users' particular needs combine with available government information resources/services to create a continuum of knowledge possibilities.

To be continued...

See you on Day 61

We've been following the growth of twitter, the social networking and microblogging service, in the govt info arena. Evidently, twitter use is growing at an amazing rate (422% in the past 12 months!). And now there's the GovTwit directory of Twitter IDs and links to official government blogs and URLs noted in Twitter bios! You can even follow GovTwit on twitter to get immediate updates on new govt entities joining the phenomenon.

If you're not sure what the heck twitter is, go to the Twitter FAQ or Twitter wikipedia article. Several of us used twitter to good effect during DLC last month to carry on a back-channel discussion of the presentations and council meetings.

Today, thanks to subscribing to the "fdlp" tag on del.icio.us, I was introduced to the first video that GPO produced as part of it's "Easy as FDL" campaign:

Since GPO is allowing ratings and comments on this video, I really want you to go and watch, rate and comment. You need to have a YouTube account to rate and comment, but it's easy to set up. If you'd prefer not to set up a YouTube account, please leave your name and comment and I'll post it for you.

I rated the video a 3 out of 5. It's a great video for people already interested in the Federal Depository Library program. If I weren't a former depository librarian, I don't think I would have hung out until 3 minutes in when they started talking about what the program could do for me.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciated all the librarians and GPO staff who appeared in the video. Plus the production values were excellent and light years beyond what *I'll* ever come up with. It just didn't feel user oriented until the middle. And today's potential users won't wait that long.

Here are the suggestions I left at YouTube:

I'd strongly recommend flipping the content of this video and lead off with Cindy Elkins talking about the types of questions that can be answered at an FDL, then Mary Alice and the others highlighting material (Adventures of Echo the Bat, etc) that's available. Then end with background on the program. Hook people first, then explain. Finally, the end URL should be to the Depository Directory and not GPO Access. Though you should make videos about GPO Access!

GPO also posted several versions of the video and more background information at http://www.fdlp.gov/promotion/easyasfdlvideo.html.

Watch the video for yourself and let us know what you think, preferably at YouTube, but here will do.

Finally, despite the comments above, it is a GREAT THING that GPO is producing videos and other promotional content. Let us, the librarians who work with users every day, help them tweak what are decent products into real user creation machines. But bless them for giving us something to work with!

What interests me most about the current and future roles of libraries (and what draws the distinction between Jim and myself) are the possible ways libraries can transform within a dynamic information world driven more by decentralized creation, distribution and a heavy focus on users. Fair point, Stehle did not directly refer to a digital world library in so many words, but I would argue the article's descriptions of successful public-interest organizations can only exist if there is such a beast.

My tendency to push this point is not as a zero sum proposition (though the rhetoric can be a bit thick at times) -- libraries can only thrive at the expense of the digital world (or vice versa) -- is simply not true. Jim and I are agreement that libraries and their social purpose are a righteous thing, and deserve a place of honor in the private and public markets. I agree with Jim, as well, a blended library of both paper and digital sources -- as a transitional organization -- will survive best in the near future as the digital/paper scales recalibrate constantly. The forces driving this balancing act are energized through the competing commercial and public interests for the right to digitize the paper universe and organize the evolving digital one into something more along the lines of that other digital holy grail, the semantic web. The roles libraries played in the late 19th century with private publishing empires of mass circulation books and periodicals (first set of standardized cataloging rules, periodical indexes, etc.) or the federal and state governments (creation of the modern Government Printing Office in mid-1890s)were as full partners in the best cases, useful allies in others. Those days are long over. Our roles with the information industry today (if I can use that retro designation) is much more as a customer or competitor. Further complicating the issue is how the web has unleashed a greater role for the user to assume their own information destiny (witness the power of social software, self-publishing, blogs, etc.)

But the biggest difference, I think, between the two perspectives rests not on technology -- but on the library's social purpose. We government documents librarians of old were borne into a culture steeped in the lore of collections/possession and selfless local public service (primarily through the model of a depository library) Gutenberg's Government Information Librarians. Librarians seeking a career path in government information must deal with the fact that collections are being digitized, public services are now a blend between specialized subject and generalists, government services and information sources are now tightly bound together, leaving little room for the traditional roles libraries used to intervene -- except on behalf of economically dislocated or those unable to reach the web through their own means. More and more users over the last decade, with the ability and resources, can now access much of the material distributed through and unique to depository libraries. Does that threaten depository library system? Only if we imagine it terms of a Gutenberg Galaxy of information technology and mass media.

My argument is not to fight this change, or ignore it; rather, simply, to adapt to it. Jim and I are in agreement that much that is digitally available out there, and properly considered to be government information, is chaotic, episodic, subject to bad policy and technological applications -- or simple corrupt politics. Among the few institutions trying to knit a narrative from this confusion of public knowledge are special interest organizations (profit and non-profit), news media, educational institutions, and, the best of the lot, libraries. Of course there are government organizations working towards the same goal of order from the chaos (Government Printing Office, Library of Congress, Government Accountability Office, National Science Foundation, to name but a few.)

And here, again, Jim and I perhaps share a common ethic and credo of what might be called information marines. This is an image I sometimes use with my library students -- picture strong and robust individuals, armed with a certain attitude and knowledge that allows them to storm the rocky shores of ignorance, ready to take on even the must obscure question or problem. And then preserve how they did it in their long term memories. Tattooed on their arms (or chest) -- DEATH BEFORE DISINFORMATION!

I like this version alot better than the library action figure often promoted over the last few years. In fact, I am willing, with proper attribution of course, to offer the image and phrase to FGI to start their own action figure to compete with Nancy Pearls conceptual dominance ... my people can call your people ....

But this eagerness to challenge the impossible is less Walter Mitty and more of a real attempt to get back to the public purpose of our institutions. And that is what I always like about librarians, for the most part, we are all optimists .... which will best serve us through our long slog along the borderlands of ignorance. Hooah!

See you Day 62

The Caucus Blog at the New York Times online just published a blog entry about the recent return and changed Agenda pages at change.gov:

Changes at Change.gov: Return of the ‘Agenda’

The section of the Obama-Biden transition homepage detailing the president-elect’s policy proposals that was recently stripped from the site with little explanation, reappeared with some tweaks.

Call it the kinder, gentler Change.gov.

Gone are references needling the Bush administration for refusing to “tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class” or for being “one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history.”

Some pages in the “Agenda” portion of the site have been pared down, while others have been expanded. But the most obvious changes focus on weeding out the fiery campaign-style rhetoric of Mr. Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden that initially appeared on the transition Web site.

And I especially like this portion of the article:

There was an almost instantaneous outcry from bloggers and other advocates of transparency in government who noticed disappearance.

Perhaps they stumbled upon our blog?

And apparently, this website notatypewriter.com contains the original agenda pages in PDF and HTML format.

Do you ever worry about funding for your library? Have you ever thought about how to get a grant to help your library? Do you wonder about how you might attract grant funding to a library in the age of Google and the Web?

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, I recommend the article Digital Infrastructure and Public Interest by Vince Stehle, in Grantmakers in the Arts Reader, Fall 2008.

(I posted a link to this article a few days ago but, after John referred to it in his 66 Days to Government Information Liberation post, I wanted to follow up a bit and mention why I think the Stehle article is important for libraries. This also gives me an opportunity to contribute some more to the excellent discussion that John is facilitating about Government Information Liberation.)

Stehle is a program director at the Surdna Foundation, which makes grants in the areas of environment, community revitalization, effective citizenry, the arts, and the nonprofit sector, and he was writing for Grantmakers in the Arts Reader. In addressing his audience of grantmakers, foundations, and people who support non-profits he says that there is an opportunity and even "an imperative" for foundations to support non-commercial work and help build "a public interest infrastructure" that will "promote the free exchange of knowledge over the Internet."

In specifically emphasizing the need for non-commercial support he says that we cannot rely on the private sector to operate in the broad public interest except as that interest translates into profit:

"While there are billions of dollars in Silicon Valley venture firms seeking to invest in the next Google, Facebook, or YouTube, there is no equivalent capital pool available for investment in the expansion of social enterprises operating in the public interest."

We often make that point here at FGI and extend it to those in government who see their information content as an "asset" and a source of needed dollars and not as a public good that should be in the public domain, freely and openly available for use and reuse. As Stehle says:

"So the real challenge is for grantmakers to figure out how to effectively identify, vet, and support promising new media and information services that put the public interest before commercial profits." [emphasis added]

I believe we in libraries should listen to Stehle's message and think about what it means for grant support for libraries. After all, most (all?) libraries are non-profits, and so many of our best libraries (and certainly our FDLP libraries) explicitly support the public interest, and libraries need funding to do their work.

To put this in a library context, I think we need to think about what libraries have to offer that other institutions and grant seekers do not. As I mentioned in an earlier post, libraries -- because of their values of free, equitable, open public access to information -- are better positioned than anyone else to seek and get funding for those very kinds of activities that Stehle describes.

But, how do we differentiate libraries from others? What are our unique roles? Many libraries are struggling to define their roles and purposes in society. John picks up on this and says that Stehle is one of those who "argue from the perspective, the library/web morphing together into some kind of global resource is a done deal." (I disagree with John on this; I don't see where Stehle says this or anything like it.)

John seems to be saying (correct me if I am wrong) that the center of libraries' responsibilities has shifted because there are new distribution mechanisms and because we have new abilities to make better use of information. He says that it (the role of libraries?) "is something no longer centered on possession and/or control...."

I think this is a grave mistake. While I agree strongly with John that libraries can and should use technology to "knit together the medium of governance (politics, policy, law, and programs) with how our communities use the civic message to inform their daily lives," I also believe that possession and control of information is an essential, primary role for libraries. If we do not possess copies of information and control where it is and control its very existence (keep it from disappearing or being altered or lost), we cannot do the exciting mashups that we want to do.

I also think that, while libraries can and should use technology to "knit" and "weave" information from a lot of different sources (see: collections, services, and "mini-libarians"), I don't think that this is a unique role for libraries -- nor should it be. What libraries can do that is unique, though, is select, acquire, organize, and preserve information and ensure that our services for that information make it possible for others to do their own "knitting and weaving."

In short, libraries can make the case that one of their roles in society is to maintain digital collections that others can use and reuse and mix and mashup. We can make the case that society will lose information if it relies only on information-producers to preserve information for the long term and we can argue that society will lose free, open access if we rely on those who see their "content" as an "asset." We can make the case that libraries are non-profit, public-interest organizations that will guarantee long term preservation and free access to information. We can argue that if the information is not preserved, there will be nothing to share and knit and mash-up. We can argue that libraries facilitate information use and reuse.

But, don't take my word for it. Re-read the excellent article Managing Digital Assets in Higher Education: An Overview of Strategic Issues by Donald J. Waters from 2005 (or my brief summary and comment of it). Or read the paper that Stehle refers to, Sustainable Public Media Infrastructure which describes non-profit organizations that are creating permanent, sustainable public knowledge and communications infrastructure that is designed for public benefit. Then reflect on the primary, central importance of permanent digital collections in libraries.

Another day of transition, spending most of it talking about the future of government information and the federal depository library system. Now waiting to go home and think about everything -- again.

One note of interest -- this is the first time in years (and I am talking about the time before 2001) -- that I felt there was an edge of hope to the future of a robust, accessible, permanent and freely available system of government information distribution. It isn't just the technology -- its the people I met that reminded me again of why we do this. We might disagree on the details of structure and purpose, but the goals are astoundingly similar.

Jet lag strikes.

See you on Day 63

In September, I had the good fortune to attend a most interesting panel discussion held at UC Berkeley's Free Movement Speech Cafe (which just so happens to be in the UCB's Moffitt Library!) called Archives of Dissent. The panel was part of a week-long series of Bay Area events called The Great Rehearsal commemorating the 40th anniversary of the uprisings and worldwide upheavals of 1968, their impacts and legacies. Archives of Dissent brought together librarians, curators, oral historians, conservators, publishers, academics, and others working to prevent the loss and erasure of radical voices, events and movements of both the past and the present.

The panel included:

• Lincoln Cushing (19:35), independent librarian and Docs Populi archivist. The first 10 minutes of the presentation are images from Lincoln's collection of radical posters.
• Julie Herrada (28:20), Labadie Collection Librarian, University of Michigan, curator of a “1968? special exhibit, and good radical reference buddy. The Labadie Collection is an internationally renowned archive of social protest materials.
• Kalim Smith (41:25), UC Berkeley doctoral student in anthropology and folklore, researching the preservation of Native American languages threatened with extinction.
• Megan Shaw Prelinger & Rick Prelinger (50:08), Co-founders of the appropriation-friendly Prelinger Library in San Francisco

What does this have to do with government information you say? in many aspects, govt documents collections fall within the context of cultural archives, govt documents librarians by and large have the same radical political passion about govt information as professional and lay archivists, and the myriad issues and opportunities of digitization and the transformation of physical collections discussed in terms of archives parallel (and in many respects are predated by) those same opportunities and issues of govt information collections.

What were the main themes of the panel? (I'm in full Rumsfeld mode :-) ). All of the speakers had great things to say about needing willpower to build collections -- especially those of social movements that aren't necessarily well-funded -- building archives that are situated within and expound on cultural contexts, the importance of preservation, the politicization of access, DIY archivism, information ecologies, archives as battlegrounds, etc.

The most challenging for me (and therefore the most interesting) was Kalim Smith's talk. Kalim is an Anthropology PhD student at UCB. He talked passionately about extinction, loss and erasure of native languages. He surmised that the efforts to revitalize/preserve native languages might have the effect of re-colonizing them; that writing down, or archiving those languages, takes them out of the very context in which they grew and thrived. To think about this in terms of archives and libraries, the very act of preservation outside of context in which the materials were created, is potentially damaging. That's certainly a thought bomb that has reverberated in my mind.

Please take some time to watch this panel of most engaging folks. You'll be glad you did!

This morning, I checked my friends' Twitter updates, as I often do. I was intrigued by the discovery that my friend and colleague Michael Sauers would be attending (and Twittering about) the Nebraska Digital Government Summit today. The description of the event makes me think this summit might be of interest to government documents librarians:

As citizens increasingly use technology in the workplace and in their personal lives, they expect government information and services to be readily accessible through technology. The Nebraska Digital Government Summit will provide an opportunity to learn how new and emerging technologies can be used to expand access to services, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve public safety.

A quick look at the site reveals that there are similar events in most states. Have any FGI readers ever attended one of these summits? What did you think?