Ensuring Access to Government Information

Abstract

In the United States, the dominant paradigm of research libraries as content managers for printgovernment documents and access portals for digital government information and data took asubstantial turn in late 2016. With the change in Presidential administration, academics,journalists, and other constituencies whose work relies on uninterrupted access to federalinformation expressed concern about the specter of political threats to data and informationproduced and disseminated with public funding. In particular, public access to climate andenvironmental data was suddenly seen as fragile and vulnerable.The response over the past year has been, frankly, remarkable. Longstanding library work tocollect, describe, and preserve federal government information in print and digital formats, muchof it in partnership with the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) and other governmentagencies, received renewed attention, even as new energy poured into experimental andtransformative models for capturing digital content at risk for loss from trusted public sources.News outlets featured and valorized the work of library and information professionals insafeguarding the public’s right to know, even as libraries and public advocacy groups scrambledto organize hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers eager to save government information.