What a Difference a Year Makes
By Margaret M. Jobe -- Library Journal, 5/15/2002
Last year the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) recommended that the U.S. government formally recognize and affirm the concept of public information as a strategic national resource. Since the events of September 11, 2001, however, agencies of the federal government have gone to great lengths to restrict access to some government information in the name of national security. The phrase "strategic national resource" has taken a new meaning as the United States shifts from an open, information-based economy to a more closed, defensive posture.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, Federal Aviation Administration, and others shut down or removed information from their web sites. Despite vigorous and immediate protests from the American Library Association (ALA), American Association of Law Libraries, and other groups, much of the material formerly on the Internet remains inaccessible to the public. Since the decisions were made on a case-by-case basis, there is no centralized listing of deleted materials. According to ALA's Washington Office, the "situation is fluid and evolving…so it is difficult to know what is no longer publicly available." In addition, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) took an unusual step when it asked depository libraries to destroy a CD-ROM report on water resources. Although many libraries were reluctant to destroy the report, a memorandum commissioned by the Association of Research Libraries confirmed that the Federal Depository Library Program had the authority and obligation to honor the request from the USGS. More troubling to many were surprise visits to depository libraries made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to make sure that the order was obeyed.
A group effortThe government was not alone in suppressing access to information. Google, the Federation of American Scientists, and the Internet Archive voluntarily removed cached or copied government materials from their respective sites.
Many fear that information is being withdrawn or withheld without careful consideration of the issues involved—including the need to balance the information needs of citizens against potential harm from the release of that information.
The next assault on public access to information came in the form of a court order issued in early December. After an investigation into the security of information in Indian trust accounts, a U.S. district court ordered the Interior Department to disconnect all computers that have "access to Indian trust data."
Interior is a large and diverse department offering interconnected information resources. The order temporarily cut off access to earthquake and streamflow data from the USGS used to monitor and predict emergency situations. In addition, seemingly innocuous information from the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and other agencies was unavailable. Although Interior is working to restore access on an agency-by-agency basis, the event served to highlight both the importance and the vulnerability of the Internet as a dissemination tool for government information. For agencies accustomed to e-mail communication and provision of services, the cutoff transported them back in time.
Times like these remind us that government information is a critical resource. Depository libraries fill a vital need—to preserve information imperative to historians for the analysis of our troubled times. Many of these notable U.S. documents are available at federal depository libraries. Find those near you at the Locate Federal Depository Libraries page (www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/locators/findlibs/index.html).
Many of these government documents or related materials are available on the Internet, usually hosted by the various agencies and departments that created them. In order to preserve access to these documents even if the hosting agency moves them, the GPO is creating Persistent Uniform Resource Locators (PURLs) so that libraries, and others, can create more permanent links to these resources. When available, the PURL is included in the bibliographic headers for the following materials.
| Chair | Margaret M. Jobe, University of Colorado at Boulder |
| Federal Selector | William Olbrich, Washington University, St. Louis |
| Federal Judges | Mark Anderson, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley Charmaine Henriques, University of Iowa, Iowa City |
| State and Local Selector | Janet Justis, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA |
| State and Local Judges | Janet Monk, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison Bill Richardson, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort |
| International Selector | Catherine Shreve, Duke University, Durham, NC |
| International Judges | Angela Bonnell, Illinois State University, Normal, Margaret Renton, University of California–Irvine |
| TO SUBMIT NOMINATIONS: Please include availability information and brief annotation with a nomination form available from the chair of the Notable Documents Panel or on the web at www.library.ucsb.edu/forms/godort-form.html. If possible, submit copies of state documents. Nominations for the next list should be sent by December 31, 2002 to: | |
| Margaret M. Jobe University Libraries UCB 184 University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO 80309-0184 303-492-3885; FAX 303-492-1881 Margaret.jobe@Colorado.edu | |
| Author Information |
| Margaret M. Jobe, Chair, Notable Documents Panel, American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table (GODORT), has worked at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1995. She previously served as International Selector for GODORT |
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