Looking Back, Moving On: 2008 Best Notable Government Documents

If nothing else, 2008 was an eventful year for government information. We witnessed one of the most dramatic Presidential elections in U.S. history, the largest global economic meltdown since the Great Depression, and fundamental changes in the role of the federal government. As always, government information reflects the times we live in. Interest in the environment continues unabated (this year's list includes 13 documents on the subject), along with attention to foreign relations, e-government, global development, and more. Yet the most striking trend this year was a surge of interest in U.S. history. Out of the 41 documents selected, 12 focus on our past. This year's events might make us more reflective as we look to the lessons of yesterday to avoid the same mistakes tomorrow. With promising new developments in the struggle to make government information more widely available, we may be able to move on.

Most of us know about the rich store of materials (e.g., hearings, debates) published by the U.S. Congress. But there is a good deal of congressional data that is not on the web or sent to depository libraries. Does that come as a surprise? Actually, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the nonpartisan research arm of Congress, has never systematically made its reports available to the public. This institute, funded annually by $100 million of taxpayer money, writes well-researched and informative studies for members of Congress to assist in the making of our laws. Yet despite the heroic efforts of libraries and other nonprofits (like the University of North Texas and National Council for Science and the Environment), CRS reports have long been scattered and difficult to obtain—until recently.

Last February, WikiLeaks released a total of 6780 CRS reports going back to 1990, the majority of them in digital format (wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Congressional_Research_Service). The list has also been merged with the OpenCRS site (opencrs.com) and represents a breakthrough in the struggle to make government information more widely accessible. Yet there remains no commitment on the part of the CRS to make upcoming reports widely available. Is there hope for a better future? This depends on the paths that the Obama administration and the Senate Rules Committee decide to take.

At the time of this writing, Carl Malamud was campaigning online for the position of Public Printer of the United States, or head of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). Among other things, Malamud is noted for shaming the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into creating the EDGAR database of corporate filings (www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml) and for working since the dawn of the Internet to advance public access to government information.

Malamud is particularly noted for “ripping” information from clunky government servers, which either charge users for downloads or make the information so difficult to find as to be virtually unworkable. He then posts it freely on his web site. Government agencies accustomed to making money off taxpayer-funded data have naturally been displeased, but librarians have been delighted. Malamud has posted over 80 million pages of legal documents on the site Public.Resource.Org, including federal appeals court decisions, navy papers, and building codes from all 50 states (some states claim copyright over state legal material).

Even more fun is Malamud's “FedFlix,” a project run jointly by Public.Resource.Org and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). FedFlix distributes online versions of some of the best U.S. government films. Public.Resource.Org digitizes them and posts them on the Internet Archive and YouTube, noting that “all of these fine flix are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever.” If a government information hero like Malamud were to become the next head of the GPO, it might be the dawn of a new era of open government. For more information, please see Malamud's campaign web site YesWeScan.org, where he writes, “Librarians are the bedrock of the public domain and the defenders of our fundamental right to access knowledge. GPO should work even more closely with our libraries and reform the Federal Depository Library Program to support them better.” Hear, hear!

In truth, U.S. citizens enjoy a glut of government materials compared with people living in many parts of the world. Statistical data created by U.S. government agencies are often freely accessible online, via the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other sites. The main Indian and Chinese statistical web portals are subscription based, as are many international government organization (IGO) statistical databases, such as the World Bank's World Development Indicators and the International Monetary Fund's International Financial Statistics.

Yet there is a possibility of change here as well. IGOs like the International Labour Organization and the UN Development Programme have long published statistical data freely on the web, and now the UN has decided to follow suit. The free database in the list below (UNdata) is the latest example of an IGO statistical database previously available at a cost; others include the statistical portal from the European Union (Eurostat) and the statistical database of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAOStat). While we have perhaps less right to demand free access to this intelligence than our own government's, the trend is encouraging, and the publishing model workable. Perhaps new ways of thinking will spur IGOs to make their data more widely available as well.

This year's list includes documents on the environment, U.S. and state government history, and a fascinating array of international publications on Africa, global development, and climate change. The selection of federal historical documents is particularly strong, with stories of the CIA, U.S. Army Nurse Corps, and black Americans in Congress, among others. The following publications can be found on the web or at depositories and other libraries. Many are also available for purchase from the originating agency, the U.S. GPO, IGOs, and commercial publishers. The complete list of distributors and full panel info is available with the online version of this article at www.libraryjournal.com. The Notable Documents panel extends its heartfelt thanks to those who submitted nominations.

Jim Church (jchurch@library.berkeley.edu) is Chair, Government Documents Panel, American Library Association’s Government Documents Round Table (GODORT), and Librarian for International & Foreign Government Information and Economics, University of California, Berkeley