DRAFT

DRAFT

DRAFT

DRAFT

DRAFT

Access To and Services for Federal Information in the Networked Environment

Outline and Introduction

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Introduction

With the increasing use and availability of information technologies, there has been a significant change in how federal agencies disseminate government information. This change is resulting in new dissemination mechanisms, as well as new and changing user needs and expectations. As a result, the responsibilities and capacities of institutions that facilitate the flow of federal information to academic and citizen communities need to be rethought in this shifting environment.

This initiative will result in a white paper that will guide higher education and other institutions, such as public and state libraries, in the development of strategies for providing access to and services for federal government information by their constituencies using the powerful, and rapidly expanding global information infrastructure.

The paper will focus primarily on issues and models for collecting, preserving, providing access to, and providing services for federal government information. It will address these issues at the enterprise-wide or institutional level. The paper will also summarize policy and technical directions to provide a framework for understanding the issues involved.

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Audience

The primary audiences for the paper will be:

• Institutional leaders

• Service providers/Program Managers

Other audiences will include:

• Associations

• Federal Information Producers

• Commercial Service Providers

• Policy Makers

• Users of Federal Information

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Overview (Draft narrative available)

This section will provide an overview of federal information, as well as define concepts, issues and parameters, thereby providing a framework for the discussion and analysis.

• Federal Information
  • what does it mean?

  • what does it include?

  • how is it used in the "access" sense?

  • how do we get it?

  • who is the user community for this type of information?

  • how have citizens been guaranteed access?

• Changing Technology
  • new patterns of dissemination

  • how does it change things?

• Policy Changes
  Are agencies being driven forward because of policy changes? What is the effect?
  • A130, etc.

  • are services rendered being constrained by such policy changes

  • Government Printing Office's (GPO) Depository Library Program (DLP)

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Analysis

This section of the paper will focus on the issues and models for collecting, preserving, providing access to, and providing services for federal government information in the networked environment. Each topic area will follow the same outline: 1) a discussion of the issues surrounding that topic area; 2) a description of the current situation; and, 3) model(s) of current or potential practice.

• Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (Detailed outline available)
  • Issues
    • mechanisms for locating information are rudimentary and less adequate than systems for other media
    • organization and indexing is chaotic making access haphazard at this time

  • Current
    • what's out there now?
    • how are people getting it?

  • Models
    • DLP (print/microform program)
    • GPO Access
    • institutional web servers

• Service Questions (Detailed outline available)
  • Issues
    • topics addressed will include:
    • types of services
    • instruction
    • the role of data/research centers in the manipulation of federal data
    • what services do people need?
    • levels and communities of users
    • institutional view of services

  • Current
    • users can access some federal information via the Net now, but what are the implications?
    • hit and miss
    • duplication of efforts
    • no centralized/authoritative effort

  • Models
    • DLP
    • Ask ERIC
    • University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) project

• Collections
  • Issues
    • who will house this information?
    • how does the institution decide what to make available and at what level?

  • Current
    • UIC project

  • Models
    • consortium arrangements like RLG and resulting implications

• Preservation
  • Issues
    • is it important to archive?
    • how will this be done?
    • can institutions house this information?
    • how long will institutions house the information and the implications?

  • Current

  • Models

• Management Questions
  • Issues
    • infrastructure
    • staffing and training
    • network access

  • Current

  • Models

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Methodology

Evidence for the above section will be gained by:

• Interviewing key players
• Convening focus groups
• Conducting a literature search
• Issuing a Call for Participation

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Scenarios

As an aid to thinking about the future with so many unknowns and variables, this section will formulate scenarios that will demonstrate a wide variety of alternative outcomes, all of which are plausible but some may be rather improbable. These models will address all aspects of the questions already defined including such management issues as funding, budget, organizational structure, and staffing.

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Conclusion

Summary and recommendations for:

• Institutional policies and practices
• Consortial or cooperative arrangements
• Applicability to the flow of state and local government information
• Further study

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	Developed & Maintained by: webmgr@cni.org	© 2008 Coalition for Networked Information ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Any comments, or feedback?		Last Update:   Wednesday, 03 July, 2002 - 04:22 PM - EDT