2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

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BEST PRACTICES 2012
The move toward greater transparency has even included law enforcement agencies,
which are often considered to be closed and restrictive. One example of this is the
Department of Homeland Security’s website. Like many other government agencies, it has
opened its “digital channels” to communicate with the public.
Figure 5: Blog of the Department of Homeland Security
(Retrieved January 6, 2012 from http://blog.dhs.gov/)
During the years of the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense was often accused of
keeping important material from the public. Many people tried to break into this wall of
silence, with various amounts of success. According to the report of The Washington Post
from June 10, 2011, “The disclosure of the Pentagon Papers four decades ago stands as
one of the most significant leaks of classified material in American history. Ever since, in
the eyes of the government, the voluminous record of U.S. involvement in Vietnam has
remained something else: classified.” 10 The article goes onto explain that now, in this
new era of openness, the government is working to modify this image. “National Archives
and Records Administration will change that, as it officially declassifies the papers 40
years to the day after portions were first disclosed by the New York Times. In doing so,
and in making the papers available online, the Archives could provide researchers with a
more holistic way of understanding a remarkable chapter of U.S. history.” 11
In August of 2011 the U.S. Department of Justice began to open their digitized legislative
histories to the public based on the public requests via the DOJ Open Government blog.
10 Ukman, J. and Jaffe, G. Pentagon Papers to be declassified at last. Washington Post, June 10,
2011. Retrieved January 12, 2012: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nationalsecurity/pentagon-papers-to-be-declassified-at-last/2011/06/08/AGA0VuOH_story.html
11 Id.