Government information of, by, and for the people The changing mission of the American Library Association's Public Documents Committee, 1876–1956

Abstract

Even before the creation of the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) in 1972, librarians had long distinguished themselves as champions of the people's right of access to government information. In particular, it was the American Library Association's Public Documents Committee, which, during its long tenure from 1876 to 1956, remained the premier organizational body through which the library profession sought to shape government information policies. While the commitment of members of the Public Documents Committee to the goal of open access to government information never wavered, the underlying sense of mission that guided the Committee's work underwent considerable evolution during its history. Whether as genteel reformers of the Gilded Age, patriotic popularizers of the 1920s, or university-oriented social engineers during the Great Depression, Public Documents Committee members crafted a government documents reform agenda that translated a recognizably modern objective into the social and intellectual idiom of the age in which they lived.