Policy implications of a model public information service: the DOSFAN experience

Abstract

The unique three-way partnership formed by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s federal depository library, the U.S. State Department, and the Government Printing Office (GPO) to deliver and preserve foreign policy information through servers housed at the University’s library offers some critical insights into the assumptions and policies of the GPO’s Federal Depository Library Program. Ultimately, the Internet’s explosive growth, combined with powerful graphical interfaces of the major Web browsers, undermines several recently enacted laws that attempt to standardize (or centralize) effective information resource management within the federal government. Not only has GPO steadily lost political and economic support over the last decade from both legislative and executive leaders for its production and distribution programs, many agencies now consider their “.gov Webspaces” the natural successors to the GPO and its depository library program. As a result, a new model of government information distribution is being forged within the highly decentralized and interactive environment of the World Wide Web.