2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

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BEST PRACTICES 2012
We can see from this table that government agencies have declassified more than half
(55%) of the documents reviewed in FY 2010. This is just the beginning. As the Action
Plan indicates [3], the government will continue further declassification. According to the
Seattle Times, “David Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said the federal
government had reached ‘a watershed moment’ in records declassification.” 4 Now, we are
seeing vast amounts of government information declassified which will then be open to
the public.
How can the government open this massive amount of information to the public?
Essentially, the American people want information online. The massive disclosure of
declassified information has not only created challenges to government agencies for
information dissemination and retrieval, but also opened new opportunities for digital
technologies. Agencies need to use modern technologies to digitize the information: first
converting information into the digital format, then processing that information online and
preserving it in a digital database. In the Open Government Directive 2009, “publish
government information online,” is listed as the first requirement [5]. Responding to this
great challenge, the NARA Open Government Plan also indicates that “because the
American public expects online access to records, digitization has become a fundamental
part of our business.” 5 More declassification means more disclosure, more disclosure
means more digitization. We can see that massive disclosure is just the first strategy:
leading government agencies to “open” the information through disclosure, then digitize
the information, and make the documents open to the public online.
REENGINEERING THE GOVERNMENT INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
The second strategy of the Open Government Policy is to focus on government
information infrastructure. When driving massive government information disclosure and
converting into digital format, the government needs a modern digital information
infrastructure to automatically collect, process, share, retrieve, store, archive, and
preserve information. Over the past three years, the government has worked on a series
of initiatives focusing on three major tasks: (1) develop a three dimensional and multiinterface
modern information communication system (including telecommunication cloud
computing, reforming government agency web sites), (2) establish a modern digital
government information storage and retrieve information/data center and (3) modernize
government records management.
1. Enhancing Government Communication Systems
One of the purposes of developing a three dimensional and multi-interface digital
information network system is to fully open and enhance communication between the
government and public entities and individuals. According to the Action Plan and Status
Report, the Obama Administration has instructed the agencies to reform their agency
websites as well and to develop a new platform to improve digital communication. Using
websites to communicate with the public has been a very popular practice in government
4 Effort to Declassify Old U.S. Secrets a Huge Job. Seattle times December 30, 2011. Retrieved
January 12, 2012: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2016928022.html
5 National Archives and Records Administration. Open Government Plan. June 25, 2010. Page 12.
Retrieved January 4, 2012: http://www.archives.gov/open/Open%20Government%20Plan%20-
%20Version%201.1.pdf