On 12 September 2008, Maura Kennedy, SLA's Strategic Communications Director, and I attended “Tinker, Scholar, Librarian, Spy” the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC) Forum on Federal Information Policies held at the Library of Congress. We found the event well attended with many SLA members.
The program, divided into seven sections, explored how, in the wake of September 11, many government agencies changed Web sites, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) practices, physical premises access, and publishing practices to improve information security, all the while acknowledging that information sharing within the government, among the various agencies, is of vital importance to the national security. As the Web continues to evolve as an integrated and shared work environment, government and individuals are feverishly collaborating to create and make more information available digitally. Factors of security, access and preservation complicate endeavors for information professionals to provide and protect government agency resources while encouraging the free flow of information.
The program commenced with a YouTube video, exploring the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and “works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.”
Check out the video.
Morning Keynote, James Billington, Librarian of the Library of Congress, touched upon the challenges of today’s librarians – “as navigators and guides working through an overload of semi-investigated facts.” (He mentioned that he likes the term “knowledge navigator.) He noted that “books provoke questions—and provide some unwelcome answers.” However, putting information online has been a boon for the Library. For example, visitors to their online photo archives have helped them identify many people and places in those photos, including identifying one photo as the spot from which Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.
Mollie O’Neill from EPA’s Office of Environmental Info spoke of the future of government info (Gov 2.0), the challenges of being transparent as well as the goal of improving public info services. As CIO, she strives to find ways in which to collaborate with other “environmentals” outside of the EPA. She noted that expectations have changed; people demand immediate answers. She said that libraries cannot afford to remain passive about distributing information and recommended adopting “push” techniques such as widgets that get relevant information to people immediately.
SLA members/leaders Cindy Hill and Jill Hurst-Wahl led a panel on 3D and Virtual Worlds. Cindy commenced with a brief explanation of SLA’s “23 Things” and the tools that our members are exploring. The discussions centered upon government organizations in virtual worlds and the possibilities that exist for serving constituents in a new and active way, creating new views of services and holding in-world and dual-world events.
Former principal advisor to the Department of Homeland security on matters of post-9/11 info policy, Daniel Metcalfe, discussed access to government information – of special interest, on the classifications of information by administrations.
Virginia’s Technology secretary, Aneesh Chopra, shared his current work in collaboration with Google to assist with the dissemination of government information. He measures success in terms of 1) the value you create for citizens in terms of societal outcomes, 2) the cost of information procured, and 3) whether information is set up in a way that can be “crawled” by search engines. They remapped their websites to capture information on dropdown menus that is typically overlooked by search engines.
The day concluded with technical discussions of Government Records Management and preservation of Electronic Info and the Marking of Government Info.
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