2012 Best Practices for Government Libraries

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BEST PRACTICES 2012
government apps, 236 citizen-developed apps and 85 mobile apps to date, 24 and
continues to grow as more information is released.
Individual agencies are also making a concerted effort to share more information publicly.
Each agency’s website is now required to offer a great deal of government information
based on the public concerns such as new release, forms, statistical data, etc. Each
agency must have an open government webpage at the domain name www.[agency
domain].gov/open which provides information about the agency’s current practices and
outlines future steps toward increased openness. 25
Next, take a look at digital libraries. Two major government digital libraries, GPO Federal
Digital System and Thomas from the Library of Congress, have been around for a while
and continue to provide government information. However, the last few years have seen
an explosion in both the number and finesse of other websites making use of government
information. For example, the Homeland Security Digital Library contains over 49,000
federal government documents for open access (public use), as well as more than 95,000
government documents related to Homeland Security which are available through
registered access.
Figure 11: Homeland Security Digital Library. (Retrieved January 6, 2012 from
http://www.hsdl.org/)
24 Data.gov. Retrieved January 10, 2012, http://www.data.gov/
25 See National Action Plan, Reference [3], p. 2.