2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

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BEST PRACTICES 2012
with the project to date. NARA, which has been a leader in the digital movement,
announces on its web site that it has built partnerships with six companies and
universities: EMC Corporation, Fold3.com (formerly Footnote), Genealogical Society of
Utah (GSU), Ancestry.com, Google, and University of Texas. 14 All of these partners have
been involved with various digital projects. GPO has also established multiple
partnerships: working with Library of Congress on two collaborative digitization projects
(digitizing Statutes at Large from 1951-2002 and Congressional Records from 1873-
1998,) 15 and with the University of Iowa to preserve historic Government-issued posters
from pre-World War II to the 1990. 16 In addition to many partnerships, the Library of
Congress recently launched a Multi-state Government Digital Information Program to help
digitize state government information. 17 Such public digitization projects are not limited to
the more accessible agencies, either. Even though the U.S. Department of Justice is a
high-security law enforcement agency, it has launched a number of partnerships both
internally and externally. For example, the Attorney General Address Digital Project has
involved multi-level collaborations internally among the DOJ offices (such as Library
Digital Services, Reference Services, the Attorney General’s Office and Records
Management Office), and externally with Catholic University, the Library of Congress
Manuscript Division and many other libraries and associations.
It is evident that digital technologies have helped to break the walls and dividers to build
up multi-level expert collaborations to embark on digitizing government information, and
expert collaborations and partnership have helped government to accomplish faster and
more digitization projects.
3. Improving Government Efficiency
Even though it is too early to announce the victory, there is no doubt that digitization
improves efficiency because of its high speed, low cost, and high impact. Let us briefly
examine three specific examples: the President’s SAVE Award program, responding to
FOIA requests, and E-filing tax returns.
The President’s SAVE Award program has brought overwhelming electronic public
engagement. In 2009, the White House lauched the Presidential SAVE Award program to
open its digital door and invite public proposals to help the government reduce the waste
and improve on its work. This online program has bought a huge public engagement;
from 2009 to 2011 there were more than 250,000 people engaged with the White House’s
SAVE Award program, including 76,000 suggestions which surged electronically into the
White House.
14 National Archives. Digitization Partnerships. Retrieved January 4, 2012, from Archives.gov:
http://www.archives.gov/digitization/partnerships.html
15 Library of Congress. A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation. Retrieved January 10, 2012:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/
16 Historic Government Publications from WWII. Retrieved January 10, 2012, from Southern
Methodist University: http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/all/cul/hgp/
17 Library of Congress. Preserving State Government Information. Retrieved January 10, 2012:
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/states.html