The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), Academic Libraries, and Access to Government Information

The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP), Academic Libraries, and Access to Government Information by Paul T. Jaeger, John Carlo Bertot and John A. Shuler Available online 22 September 2010

The electronic environment has significantly shifted library capabilities and user expectations for the delivery of government information and services. At the same time, many laws of the federal government have pushed for the creation and distribution of government information through electronic channels. However, the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) continues as though these changes will not have a large impact on the program. It is time for a meaningful reevaluation of the FDLP program and approaches to government information by academic libraries generally. Drawing upon a range of library research and policy analysis, this paper argues for changes in both concept and practice in the provision of government information by FDLP and other academic libraries and in the educational preparation of future academic librarians. Further, this paper asserts that such a discussion needs to occur beyond considerations of the current economic environment, which some libraries may view as a reason to restructure the FDLP to achieve cost reductions. Paul T. Jaeger is an Assistant Professor; Director, Center for Information Policy and Electronic Government; and Associate Director, Center for Library & Information Innovation, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA ; John Carlo Bertot is a Professor; Director, Center for Library & Information Innovation; and Associate Director, Center for Information Policy and Electronic Government, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA ;

John A. Shuler is an Associate Professor and Bibliographer for Urban Planning and Government Information/Documents Librarian, Richard J. Daley Library, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA .

INTRODUCTION The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) enjoys a long tradition of free public access to, and preservation of, federal government information. Because they make up over half of the participating institutions in the program, academic libraries represent a significant institutional investment and commitment. However, over the last 15 years, this historic partnership has been under severe strain and relentless reconsideration from academic librarians. The combination of infrastructure pressures (funding, space, staff), technological change (the ability to access and disseminate authenticated documents electronically), societal expectations that increasingly favor electronic access to federal information, economic constraints due to recession, and a new technologically-savvy presidential administration make plain the need to modernize the approaches to government information in FDLP member libraries and other academic libraries. This situation allows FDLP libraries that are part of academic institutions to take a leadership role in the ways the program might use the expanding spectrum of digital government information to enhance their public services, while strategically adapting their own government information services to the evolving digital environment. The current situation presents an opportunity to increase access to and usage of government information and promote sustainability of the provision of government information by academic libraries, if not all libraries in the program. However, this situation is slow in making changes as many academic libraries refer to their government information collections. Many still use the term “government documents” to describe related positions and departments within their organizations—and many library and information science (LIS) programs still offer “government documents” courses. This clearly demonstrates a further need adjust both the practice and teaching of government information to reflect the current realities of electronic government information and services. The primary opportunity to accomplish these goals can be found through the Government Printing Office (GPO), FDLP members, and other academic libraries working collaboratively to use electronic means to preserve print-based collections, share access, storage, and dissemination of electronic resources, and establish new public service protocols that fit the Internet age. The FDLP legislative mandate as specified in the Depository Library Act of 1962 (P.L. 85-

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579) is perhaps best viewed in the broader context of a range of legislation, regulation, and policy documents. The FDLP, for example, must also account for the mandates and principles of other laws, such as the E-government Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-347), which includes enhancing public access to government information over the Internet as one of its primary goals. The integration of e-government principles can allow the FDLP to harness its capacities to improve services to all of its stakeholders (members of the public, librarians, lawyers, researchers, and students, among others). To meet the needs of member libraries and stakeholders, the FDLP needs to reconcile and harmonize the legislative requirements of the Depository Library Act, the E-government Act, and other information laws and policies. It is important to note that, as of the writing of this paper, the Egovernment Act of 2002 has sunset and requires reauthorization. Within this harmonization process, there are a range of opportunities to utilize technological capacities, professional advancements, and institutional collaboration to more effectively and economically preserve, access, and disseminate government information. The key goal of the FDLP is to ensure that government information is always available for public access—regardless of past or future technological choices. Seeking government information by members of the public is usually driven by a life event that requires the information.1 As such, an Internet-enabled FDLP structure should evolve over time to meet changing technological capacities and social expectations of stakeholders while maintaining the underlying service principles.

“The key goal of the FDLP is to ensure that government information is always available for public access – regardless of past or future technological choices.”

New technological capacities not only allow for the preservation and provision of access to information electronically, but also create the ability for the program's participants to rethink their service models. This digital dissemination can occur automatically across great distances, the range of information can be expanded to include local and state government information, and collaboration and training can occur over the Internet, among other enhancements to the traditional FDLP approach. A more Internet-enabled FDLP could provide a combination of government information access, dissemination, collaboration, and service that would increase access and usage of government information and promote sustainability of the FDLP.

ACCESS

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GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

The importance of widely distributed and accessible government information in a democratic society, along with an informed citizenry which can actively participate in their civic obligations, remains the foundation of the American constitutional republic. The Declaration of Independence specifically notes the separation of public records and legislative bodies as one of the reasons for the revolution, while the Constitution established a national postal system for distribution of information and the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights focuses on information access and exchange through freedoms of exchange, assembly, and press. In fact, Elbridge Gerry–future member of Congress, governor, vice president, and namesake of gerrymandering–signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, but refused to sign the Constitution because it did not include enough specific guarantees of public access to government information.2 As Quinn notes, “The idea of public information was a radical concept at the time of the American revolution.”3 However, they clearly considered this issue to be a genuine priority.

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Many of the constitutional founders of the United States, including Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason, placed great value on the necessity of the new government to foster a culture of open official publishing and information by the government, distributing these publications for easy duplication in regional newspapers, along with their collection in other public institutions at the local level.4 These values of access and exchange served the development of a participatory democracy well, as the key underlying concept of these democratic rights is necessity of access to meaningful social and political information.5 Without access to important information, it is possible to have free expression yet not have a democratic government.6 In 1813, the first act of Congress was passed to ensure the dissemination of printed legislative and executive materials to selected state and university libraries, as well as some historical societies. Over the next 150 years, the FDLP grew to include more than 1200 libraries that receive both digital and printed sources produced for the public by the federal government. In the early days of the republic, public printing was handled by private contractors. Corruption, political bribery, and general dissatisfaction with their work led to the creation of the Government Printing Office (GPO) in 1860, and, at its peak, there were more than 200 government printing facilities.7 Since 1962, the FDLP has been guided by the requirements detailed in the Depository Library Act of 1962. While the FDLP dates back to the mid-19th century, the environment surrounding it remained relatively stable over much of that time period. FDLP libraries collected, cataloged, and ensured access to some portion of the print documents created by the GPO on behalf of government agencies. Prior to the Internet, they “were the primary means of access available to citizens for government information at no fee.”8 However, the advent of the age of electronic information in the mid-1990s, and the rise of the World Wide Web, forced a reevaluation of the FDLP that has been taking place for the last decade and half, creating a pitched struggle between “the pervasiveness of the Internet and the largely unchanged ‘print and paper’ world of Title 44.”9 Although many decades of bibliographic practice and tradition helped generations of government information librarians to include these vital civic information sources in their collections, significant new challenges emerged when government information librarians chose to build their own set of civic traditions in a digital world. These challenges demand that 21st century librarians find new ways to resolve the inherent conflicts of preservation, public access, authenticity, integrity, and privatization. With a wide range of laws affecting the publication of government information it is not often clear where, when and how library organizations can best play an effective role.10

FROM GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS TO ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT INFORMATION Changes in the law governing the operation of the GPO in 1993–found in the Government Printing Office Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-40)–were a clear sign that the FDLP would have to adapt to the electronic environment. Further, changes in the policy environment during the successive Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations encouraged agencies to rely less on the FDLP to make information available.11 In 1995, agencies began publishing government documents exclusively on their own websites, while in 1996 documents were made available through GPO Access.12 In reaction to these developments, FDLP libraries began to rethink their activities, with responses from member libraries ranging from developing electronic gateways to government information to working to establish regional strategies for information delivery.13 Suggestions also began to appear to refocus the program on access and service rather than collection and retention,14 while other

libraries began to consider leaving the program if resources became increasingly available only in electronic format.15 The rapid rise of the Internet as a primary means of accessing and disseminating information quickly began to erode the inherent value of the paper and print deposits of FDLP member libraries. In 1996, 21 million print documents were sent to member libraries.16 However, by the late 1990s users with ready access to the web began to choose electronic versions of government documents over paper—it has been suggested that the watershed moment occurred with the electronic release of the Starr Report online in 1999.17 Shortly thereafter, the first day the 2000 budget was available, it sold fewer than 4,500 print copies (a 40% drop from 1998 print sales), but was accessed more than 115,000 times online.18 From 1992 to 2000, the number of print documents available to FDLP libraries dropped from 70,468 to 26,994, though more than three-quarters of libraries were accepting fewer than 40% of the titles in 2000.19 By 2003, 24,251 electronic titles were made available in GPO Access, but only 14,045 print titles were shipped to FDLP libraries.20 Of the titles that were being sent to FDLP libraries at that time, two-thirds were soon after made available online through other government agencies.21 By 2005, 90% of the titles being sent to FDLP libraries were available electronically.22

“The rapid rise of the Internet as a primary means of accessing and disseminating information quickly began to erode the inherent value of the paper and print deposits of FDLP member libraries”

As a result of these significant changes surrounding the FDLP, strong disagreements arose within the library community. Some argued that the principles and activities of the program could not change for fear that doing so would open the enabling legislation to unwarranted alterations and political manipulation from various political interests. Others questioned the growing reliance on electronic access for any number of reasons, including fears that” government servers will fail; agencies will stop making materials available electronically; and there will be a lack of focus on preservation and disinterest in tailoring materials to meet local needs.23 As a middle ground, some believe libraries in the program must equally consider their responsibilities to both patrons and print documents.24 The growing availability of federal government information online, along with democratization possible through search engines like Google, now allow every library to serve as an access point for government information and a great number of people to access government information from home or work without a depository library's mediation. This combination dramatically expands the potential of the number of libraries that can fulfill the FDLP's overall mission of providing free and permanent access.25 And, the forward movement of technology allows access from across a range of webenabled devices. From this perspective, government information librarians need to be trained to function more as civic guides to finding and thinking critically about government information, as well as to think about access and dissemination approaches that extend beyond print and computers.26 “We still have to explain intrinsic connections shared among government process, organization, and their associated information objects.”27 In the electronic environment, new approaches to framing the collection of government documents seem to be appearing, with the active or passive materials selection by libraries and control of such selection resting with the library, with a liaison, or with the creators.28 Some libraries have become engaged in preserving government information by capturing the materials directly from government websites, like the National Digital Information Infra-

structure and Preservation Program.29 However, many FDLP libraries still focus on government information as an act of collection building rather than as a primary public service.30

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ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT INFORMATION ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

IN

With the creation of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, along with the programmatic changes in the 1993 revision to the depository library laws, the FDLP's model of service and collections began to be transformed. The local culture of the hundreds of individual depositories, along with the tradition of best practices fostered by the GPO's command and control national structure, began to crumble as more users gained access to tools and information previously found only depository library collections. For instance, GPO's access tools to printed material–its Monthly Catalog of Government Publications–became much more widely available through the web and allowed a comparable level of access to the non-depository library community. When Congress launched in 1995 its first web interface to its legislative proceedings and documentation–THOMAS–this became the first serious challenge to the depository library program's exclusivity to provide access to the critical documents (information sources) of the legislative process. By the year 2000, the rest of the federal government shifted its information procurement to the digital realm, and the GPO began to report a severe drop in the number of paper and print titles it produced and, consequently, the number it shipped to its depository libraries. As Selby has noted, “gone are the days of the GPO being the sole, or even primary, supplier of government information to libraries or to the public.”31 But, even as the web transformed the GPO's distribution mechanisms between the federal government and the depository library communities it served, government information librarians still retained a significant role in explaining and making transparent the underlying complex of legal, social, statistical, or policy structures. In other words, THOMAS and GPO Access provided much the same access to legislative and executive information sources that are the building blocks to understanding any federal program or policy. Government agencies within the three branches of the federal government (e.g., Executive, Judiciary, and Legislative) now deploy a wide range of Web-based services to provide access to digital government resources and services.32 The vast majority of government information is now born digital,33 and users want electronic access to it. A 2008 study of FLDP patrons found 77.4% regularly used Google or another commercial search engine to find government information, while only 9.3% used GPO Access, and only 5.5% used the print collection.34 Of the people who use the FDLP print collections, most access information online first and then use the print collection for supplemental research.35 Further, users–particularly young people–more often seek a range of information online before using paper and print sources, and often invest time and effort in a range of online communities, social networks, and other digital cultures.36 In addition, hundreds of digitization projects initiated by libraries abound. Much of the paper and print material digitized–either by libraries in partnership with others or independently–is made available to users in digital form, often free of charge regardless whether the user has an official relationship with the digitizing organization.37 Simultaneously, non-library entities such as Google (also independently, though sometimes in partnership with libraries) provide free access to vast amounts of digitized content for the public.38 Google also has established partnerships with state governments to provide access to digital government information, and it even has a separate U.S. government information site.39 In late 2009, Google launched a search tool that provided public access to laws, regulations, court cases, law review articles, patents, and other key legal

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information.40 These efforts encourage many users of government information to view Google as a trusted provider of information.41 All of these types of projects and resources simultaneously increase the number and range of sources of government information and challenge FDLP member libraries and other academic libraries to redefine their roles with government information. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics show a steady decline in reference transactions reported. ARL libraries reported 11,155,266 reference transactions in 2004–2005. That number declined to 9,372,217 in 2006–2007.42 ARL statistics also show a decline in total circulation, from 70,281,764 in 2004–2005 to 68,402,494 in 2006–2007, while demonstrating an increase of electronic materials expenditures as a percentage of total materials expenditures, from a median of 37.5% in 2005 to 47.7% in 2007.43 FDLP member libraries and other academic libraries are not alone in this situation, however, as many government agencies and programs are struggling to reconcile approaches to government information in the print and electronic worlds.44 Part of the challenges faced by academic libraries in providing government information relate to the trouble competing with less refined but easier-to-use interfaces like Google. Only 5% of academic libraries consider their Web services to be “very successful,”45 meaning that most libraries have a long way to go in matching the ease of use of Google. Many libraries are also challenged by “large legacy collections” and patrons “in areas without easy access to the Internet.46 As a result of such issues, academic libraries often find their patrons turning to Google products to reach government information. In vision statements for the FDLP, the GPO and Depository Library Council (DLC) attempted to articulate approaches that account for the current situation. In 2004, the GPO issued a strategic vision document recognizing the need to focus more on digital content management and dissemination.47 In 2006, the DLC offered a vision statement for the FDLP that included goals of: providing multiple access points; providing access in appropriate formats; ensuring access to digital materials; expanding training; creating descriptive tools; enhancing collaborations; and expanding awareness of the FDLP.48 This report concluded by acknowledging that libraries must “realign to meet the needs and habits of their 21st century clientele—a clientele whose information-seeking behavior increasingly bypasses libraries and their services as well as the collections they provide via the depository program.”49 However, the changes in government practice, user expectations, and library practice are not the only issues to which FDLP libraries need to adapt. A 2008 survey of Regional Depositories found more than three-quarters of the 52 libraries were facing decreasing budgets, and 10 Regionals (nearly 20% of the libraries) were considering dropping their status as a Regional due to budgetary issues.50 Following that 2008 study, ARL and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) undertook a 2009 study of the FDLP through the nonprofit academic digital technologies research center Ithaka.51 It recommends a number of possible structural and/or strategic changes to the program, arguing for the flexibility and innovative possibilities the current and near future digital environment offer for access to and dissemination of government information. A clear driving force of the study, however, is cost containment for participants: “The Ithaka S+R framework for the FDLP presented in this report would rebalance the incentives affecting federal depository libraries, allowing libraries to realize costs savings by reducing expenditures on less valuable activities while also redirecting resources to purposes and functions that have high value to their user communities.”52

In short, the study argues that full, partial, and regional depositories depart from the FDLP due to 1) a lack of incentives to remain in the program due to an inflexible framework of rules

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and regulations, and 2) cost factors associated with maintaining large collections, experienced staff, and space often valued for other purposes. The report extends concerns regarding the FDLP expressed in an earlier white paper released by ARL.53 The primary problem with these arguments is, unlike earlier studies and reports about the program's need for reform in the digital age, there is little recognition of the program's larger public mission. Communities served by the depositories, even those housed in public and private academic institutions, are represented by either congressional districts (nearly all the selective depositories); states (primarily the responsibilities of regional depositories); and communities served by specialized communities of law/justice or other public agencies. In some of its language, the report considers these depository obligations as something meant only to serve the library or the immediate academic community it serves. However, the strength of the system relies on the expectation that the institutions agree to serve all members of the community that determines their designation. Granted, over 60% of the program's libraries are in academic libraries, but the reasons for this stem more from over all trends in library public development over the past century, and less from any inherent differences among the different types of libraries that participate. If one examines the program's historic evolution of how and when libraries joined the system, one discovers that the inclusion of academic libraries happened very often because they were the largest libraries serving the public, not because the destiny of the depository program was largely driven by academic purposes. When the 1895 law54 established the current framework of the program, the minimum number of volumes any library was required to hold before becoming a depository was set at 1,000 volumes, which had to be titles or volumes that did not include federal government publications. For much of the late 19th century through the early 20th century the only institutions, outside of large urban or county public libraries, that could meet this benchmark were academic ones. Another influx of academic libraries flooded the system with the 1909 changes in the 1895 law that allowed nearly all existing landgrant universities to be included in the system. To put it simply: academic libraries and public libraries shared a common civic purpose in assuring the widespread availability of federal information sources.

“...the FDLP clearly needs to adapt to changes in technology and user expectations, allowing libraries to alter the program’s vital civic mission as a simple response to accommodate a time of economic difficulty does not seem the most strategic approach.”

So, while the FDLP clearly needs to adapt to changes in technology and user expectations, allowing libraries to alter the program's vital civic mission as a simple response to accommodate a time of economic difficulty does not seem the most strategic approach. A key finding from previous research about the success of information partnerships is that “one size does not fit all libraries”– the traditional depository model–when it comes to the provision of e-government services.55 There are numerous factors that determine the degree to which a library can successfully continue to play a role within the expanding range of e-government services—such as staff skills and knowledge, staff time commitments, resource constraints, availability of workstations, and broadband (both at the workstation and for remote users).56 Thus, a significant aspect of this problem is to clearly identify the different levels of egovernment service provisions necessary for libraries, and the

level of skills expected from their staffs, to enable their user community to become full participants in this vital aspect of representative and deliberative government. Some libraries, for example, simply offer public access to the Internet and workstations; others, such as Alachua County Public Library in Florida, have created a combined library/government agency service center that integrates library and e-government services. Indeed, experience drawn from several long standing “information partnerships” between governments and libraries–general depositories at the state and federal level, Patent and Trademark Libraries, and (in some cases) county and local law libraries open to the general public–underscores the vital link shared by government agencies and libraries to support a vibrant civic and political culture. This dynamic depends on freely accessible public information that enables members of a community to take full of advantage of social, economic, or political opportunities. Library history and tradition considers academic libraries, whether private or public, to be a necessary part of this civic culture. Furthermore, regardless of the format or distribution mechanism, a depository library provides critical access to this vital civic purpose. However, the provision of government services and information about government policies through libraries remains independent of the technologies deployed by individuals or organizations. The current spectrum of digital technologies (and the opportunities created for more direct citizen-to-government interactions) forces libraries to seriously contemplate how their contributions to a more digital civic life will alter the future arrangements of a depository's traditional paper and print relationship with the GPO. For academic libraries to achieve a consistent sustainable arrangement within the depository partnership as it evolves within the greater e-government policy and program framework, some points of flexibility and emphasis will be need to be reached about what it means to access digital information in a distributive fashion. Indeed, this is something academic libraries have already learned over the last ten years: their purchasing arrangements with private publishers and full-text database licenses in a highly competitive global market. These robust digital content management systems serve the scholarly communities of many disciplines and are considered the “gold standard” for timely vibrant digital exchanges that are based on the digital exchange of manuscripts authors, editors and the publishers. The libraries benefit because the publishers created powerful search engines and full-text access to primary and secondary research. This was something the libraries used to do for themselves through the combination of reference service, library guides, cataloging and the strategic purchase of paper and print indexes/abstracts. Further gains are made by no longer needing the physical space for paper and print collections. Of course, the costs and fees demanded through this private market fueled a counter-reformation among academic librarians: open access and institutional repositories. Pressure on shrinking library budgets pushes many academic institutions to struggle over how many times they will pay to have the intellectual (and creative) work product of their faculty accessible. In this same fashion, the implementation of GPO's next generation content management system–FDsys–seriously reorders the traditional “added value” of print and paper depository arrangements, along with the necessity of the care and feeding of hundreds of discreet collections around the country. Through FDsys, GPO enjoys a comparable “cradle to grave” digital relationship with government agencies over their “government information” content. This includes the proper bibliographic record keeping, meta-tags, interoperability across platforms and formats, as well as a long step towards preservation. As mentioned earlier, only a small fraction of the items distributed to depository libraries are exclusively paper and print. FDsys assumes the primary choice will remain digital, with the selection of paper driven by user needs rather than publishing purposes. A serious question must be asked about the

purpose of depositories in a world where the idea is so frozen in the framework of one format. Evolving arguments for a depository role (similar to ones argued for institutional repositories in the private information market) is for the sake of open access and transparency. Few government information librarians trust a government system with only one access and organization point. A comparable argument is made for sustainability and preservation—many digital collection points assure survivability in times of natural or manmade disruptions. But the fluidity and synergy unleashed by FDsys work against this primordial librarian impulse. In early 2009, the venerable publication (begun in the mid-1960s), Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, ceased to exist as a paper and print byproduct of the publishing relationship between GPO and the Office of the Federal Register, which is the agency responsible for its content. It is now completely digital and named the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents. What's more, the newer version incorporated all the years of the title going back to 1993. This “care and feeding” for fewer depository partnerships is more an interdependent collaborative of collection responsibilities—and less of some kind of coordination among hundreds of similar collections that might differ in size and depth of collection. To put it another way, since the passage of the GPO Access Law, and the rapid expansion of the World Wide Web, has essentially undone the binary relationship between Regional depository libraries and the hundreds of selective depository libraries. Legislated by the 1962 Depository Law, these two types of libraries, working in close partnership with GPO, were supposed to assure the widest availability of collections throughout the fifty states and territories. The law introduced flexibility and cooperation as a way for the greatest number of depositories in the program to participate. In an environment driven by e-government programs and policies, it raises the question about whether or not the program needs approximately 1,200 libraries to accomplish its goals. The relative costs and opportunities (the core value proposition) of a national system of free permanent public access to federal information are no longer weighted towards technology, rather with management and collaboration.

“... an environment driven by e-government programs and policies … raises the question about whether or not the program needs approximately 1,200 libraries to accomplish its goals.” The “core value proposition” of the GPO/Depository Library partnership remains the free permanent public access to federal government information. The proposition is, essentially, format neutral. It would be a strategic mistake to reduce the complexities of depository access to a minimalist free exchange of physical items (GPO sends material to an exclusive, and limited, number of libraries around the country.) This simplicity ignores other critical parts of the exchange. The depository arrangement creates a national community of expertise and bibliographic best practices that seeks to explain, for communities, what, how, where, when, and why the federal government collects and distributes information. For an academic depository librarian that came of professional age during the paper and print dominance between the early 1950′s and the early 1990s, the physical depository collection was a core resource used in conjunction with other tools and services to help researchers find vital federal information sources. The physical depository collection was a predictable set of bibliographic tools, training programs, and approaches that enable the librarian to teach the user on how to find federal government information, as well as foster the development of several early techniques or tools of preservation and organization. The

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program's digital present and future does not displace this core of expertise and service. Since the certainty of paper and print is no longer a given, a continuum of “best practices” and expertise created by GPO and the participating libraries will still be necessary, if not even more important.

MEETING ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT INFORMATION USER NEEDS The federal government is moving ineluctably toward an exclusively electronic approach to information, records, and even many services. The vast majority of users prefers to access and use government information electronically. The diffusion of technology and connectivity means that users can access online government resources from anywhere, at any time, and over a growing number of technology platforms—from computers to netbooks to mobile devices. Librarians of all types now are predominantly proficient in helping patrons find and use government information online. The legal, social, technical, service, and professional contexts in which the FDLP exists are radically different than the world of 1962. To remain relevant, the FDLP and other academic libraries must determine the roles they can play in this changed environment that fall more broadly under the egovernment umbrella. E-government, as the provision of government information and services through the online environment, includes such diverse interactions as applying for Medicare prescription drug plans to paying taxes to emailing a public official. Seeking government information is the primary reason that people use e-government in the United States; for example, 77.3% of Internet users have used e-government to get information related to recreation and travel.57 For more than a decade, users have looked to e-government as a valuable source of information, considering e-government sites to be “objective authoritative sources” of information.58 In the United States, 58% of Internet users believe egovernment to be the best source for government information and 65% of Americans expect that information they are seeking will be on a government site, with more than 26 million Americans seeking government information online every day.59 Government documents and information are a central part of egovernment, yet they are not the sum total of what constitutes egovernment. According to earlier bibliographic traditions, government documents were primarily physical entities that contained government information. The current digital environment allows government agencies to not only deliver information to individuals, but also integrate levels of service that allow for direct contact with specific individuals or bureaus in an agency, financial transactions, and even social networking.60 E-government information can differ significantly from the way the same information would be presented through paper and print formats. For instance, integrative e-government information reaches a broader audience than traditional and stand-alone government documents collections. This creates many opportunities for digital government providers to repackage and market their information and their positions in ways that were not previously possible.61 While e-government is widely used to disseminate information directly by agencies to citizens, there are concerns related to reliance on electronic publishing by agencies to ensure access to government information. The vast majority of users prefers to access and use government information electronically. The diffusion of technology and connectivity means that users can access online government resources at home, at work, or at the public library. The issues detailed above demonstrate an operational context that is increasingly based on the use of, access to, and engagement of digital content. It is particularly significant to note that both users and libraries, in response to user preferences, continue to shift their service roles and collections to a digital service operating environment. Rather than limit access, the Internet creates the possibility for

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an expansion of services and resources to users on an unprecedented scale. And libraries, through collaboration, digitization projects, and other Internet-enabled approaches, have increased the availability of and access to resources and services to users. No longer are libraries and users constrained by the physicality of collections.

“... the Internet offers unprecedented opportunities to fulfill the intent of the [Federal Depository Library] Act in ways that both meet user needs as well as library operating contexts.”

This new service context, however, was neither envisioned nor anticipated by the Depository Act. And yet the Internet offers unprecedented opportunities to fulfill the intent of the Act in ways that both meet user needs as well as library operating contexts. The creation, organization and access to government information in this fluid environment means that depository libraries must exist in a future that: 1) Increasingly chooses digital over print and paper; 2) Offers multiple access points other than those traditional search tools offered by libraries; 3) Follows user preferences rather than traditional library bibliographic control technologies; 4) Creates new knowledge management tools that enables users direct and independent access to content; 5) Fosters non-librarian organizations (that are often competitive with libraries) to create access points and dissemination mechanisms for government information; and 6) Pushes users expectations to expect immediate access to information beyond the confines of a library's physical collection housed within a particular building. It is essential that any change FDLP's underlying structure and legal foundations adapt to this shifting framework of national services and collection building context in ways that take direct advantage of the benefits from the opportunities of this new reality. By tradition and legislative mandate, the civic contextualization and expertise provided by depository libraries continue to be the program's essential features that transcend either changes in technology or organizational schemes. Whether through paper/ print or digital, people use the depository program's librarians to access significant social, political, and economic information produced by federal government as byproducts of its thousands of laws and programs. Over the decades that followed the 1962 revision to its legal mandate, the GPO produced and delivered, while the program's libraries organized and serviced localized print and paper collections. These hundreds of local practices were united though a national system of standards and protocols developed and overseen by the Superintendent of Documents office. By 1993, technology and further revisions to the depository laws, as well as further changes to the ways in which libraries organized their public and technical services, created the impetus to transform this 19th century print and paper relationship between collection and service in many research libraries. For instance, from the mid-1960s through the early 1990s, many depository collections in the large and medium sized research libraries treated federal government documents as something different from their main or general collections. Because the GPO distributed the print and paper material already “branded” with a

cataloging and classification scheme, many libraries opted to set up separate units, collections, and/or departments to house and service the material. The added difficulty inherent in legal, social, statistical, or policy research often encouraged the development of librarians with a special expertise in navigating and preserving this civic complexity. As a result, this Internet-enabled access means little to users without the expertise of government information librarians to explain to users how to arrange these blocks in such a way that makes the policy, services, or resources understandable. This is a form of civic semantics and literacy that still remains elusive in 2010. As this transformation shifts its balance from an emphasis on collections toward service model, the depository program should seek ways to recalculate the balance between the local possession of material received from a national printing plant and build a plan that can leverage the local and national expertise shared between the GPO and its depositories. This blended expertise of collection management and public service will come in many organizational arrangements and profoundly influence how libraries collect and manage their local resources, access, and public outreach. Indeed, it is clear that many aspects of collection management in this evolving digital environment must represent a form of distributed arrangement that is different from the balance in the paper and print traditions. This new framework should place less emphasis on the apparent inflexibility of the retention and management expectations of paper collections created by the 1962 law. Indeed, there are ways depositories can take advantage of existing tools to manage the size of their physical collections, as well as opportunities offered by digital networks and software. Emerging social software and broadband networks offer the GPO and its depositories new ways to cooperate as they seek to build and sustain the digital collection of the future, while also preserving the paper and print resources of historic importance from the past. A key factor in the new partnership would come from the libraries and the GPO collaborating in substantial ways on capturing/preserving government information sources “born digital” or through the coordinated digitization of print/paper legacy collections. For instance, many research libraries enjoy years of experience in the digitization of paper and print organizations that can support GPO's national efforts to create such a collection. At the same time, many ARL institutions have an active local digital community program fostered through their commitment to Open Access. Many of the goals of the digital repository movement are shared by the century old traditions of the depository program: open access, active scholarship, and deliberative preservation.

“Emerging social software and broadband networks offer the GPO and its depositories new ways to cooperate as they seek to build and sustain the digital collection of the future…”

The FDLP and other academic libraries and the GPO can also agree on a new set of national organizational protocols, just as they have created bibliographic control/standards to digitize existing paper and print collections. This would enable individual libraries to decide how much of a paper/print collection they might need to keep, but still meet the needs of national depository library public service by drawing on the freely accessible digital collections sustained by the GPO and its depository partners. Paralleling the efforts to develop a master digital and digitized collection, member libraries should also pool their resources to create a small number of master paper/print collections that can be housed in several existing regional libraries. By reaching an agreement regarding this digitization process, the possibilities for the program's libraries to shift their energy and

resources in new local, regional, or national arrangements becomes much more realistic. For instance, a group of depositories might agree to work together across a multi-state region through a collaboration that allows for specific collection subject emphasis, centralized digitization centers to work with the GPO's national programs, and even a shared digital reference service staffed by government information experts from each of participating institutions. Elements of these new efforts can be seen in the initiatives in Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASRL) and the Consortium of Institutional Cooperation (CIC). Theses innovative GPO/depository collaborations would be ideal to establish clear protocols of public service that embrace the institutional and geographic needs of libraries throughout the program. Finally, instead of becoming islands of paper and print, depositories and GPO can seek to build from the organizational advantages of other electronic government initiatives that seek transparency, openness, and e-government. By harmonizing the program's public service and national collection responsibilities with other government information and technology laws and regulations, the FDLP could act as a conduit to a broader context of digital government services that provide enhanced user services.

PREPARING FUTURE GOVERNMENT INFORMATION LIBRARIANS Many LIS programs offer law and information policy-related courses and programs, primarily along traditional approaches to the ways in which government documents and government information are included in a print and paper library.62 However, the teaching of government information librarianship in most LIS graduate programs remains bound to a civic culture born from a paper and print world.63 E-government access places considerable new obligations on libraries— ranging from emergency response to providing assistance in using government services across the thousands of government websites, and students must be prepared for these even if they are not planning on becoming government information librarians.64 But most LIS programs have not begun to address the educational needs for e-government librarianship.65 Studies of new librarians' levels of perceived readiness for working with government information demonstrates the gaps. The majority of interim government documents librarians are new to the profession, with more than half needing to rely on a course or courses in library school as preparation, and many others relying on selfinstruction.66 Two thirds of interim government documents librarians “felt this pre-existing training had inadequately prepared them for the position.”67 Perhaps for lack of preparation, the majority of interim government documents librarians do not carry out the basic depository activities defined by the GPO.68 In contrast, in 2000, government documents librarians generally felt comfortable with their knowledge and the organization of and access to the collection.69 However, full-time government information librarians most frequently are forced to learn about government information through self-instruction.70 Clearly, LIS must provide better preparation for future government information librarians, a well as preparation for librarians to work with patrons seeking access to government information. To meet these professional preparation needs, LIS programs must begin to adapt educational programs to ensure that future librarians are educated to meet the Internet-related access, resource, and training roles and expectations of patrons, communities, and governments. LIS programs can focus on creating and presenting courses that better prepare students, increasing the number of faculty and doctoral students teaching and researching these issues, using research to help libraries better meet patrons' government information needs, and promoting the exchange of innovative ideas and best practices between academic libraries, among other steps.

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“LIS programs must begin to adapt educational programs to ensure that future librarians are educated to meet the Internet-related access, resource, and training roles and expectations of patrons, communities, and governments”

There are different educational programs and specializations that can arise from these broad areas. For example, the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland has launched its E-government Master's Concentration (http://cipeg.umd.edu/teaching/egovcon.html). This program is unique among LIS schools and is one of the few graduate programs devoted to e-government in any field internationally. Students can enroll to study the nature and use of e-government information; policies and laws shaping e-government; management, economic, and social challenges to providing egovernment access; and other issues related to e-government. The core issues and intersections of librarianship and e-government are diffused throughout the courses in the program curriculum. Indeed, the University of Maryland is expanding its e-government librarian coursework to include the digital government information context, and received an Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian scholarship grant to bring this program of study online in the fall of 2010. The program entails four key components that will educate the next generation of government information and e-government librarians:71 • Coursework. The coursework serves as the intellectual and conceptual basis for the evolving government information and egovernment service environment; • Practice. Though internships with the Government Information Online (http://www.govtinfo.org/) program, students will develop applied government information and e-government skills. • Professional. By bringing students together annually to attend the Fall Federal Depository Library meeting, students will become integrated into the larger government information and e-government community and engage key issues in government information. • Scholarship. Though inclusion in the review process of Government Information Quarterly (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ govinf), students will publish government resource reviews, contribute to furthering scholarship in government information, and learn the publication process. The project principles will also work with students to publish manuscripts in key areas of government information and e-government. This comprehensive approach will push the boundaries of egovernment services in libraries. This is significant, as the provision of e-government is a vital role of public libraries that is likely to increase significantly, and graduates of LIS programs need to be prepared to meet patrons' e-government information needs. If LIS programs are not properly preparing graduates to be e-government savvy librarians, they will have difficulty meeting the needs of many patrons. Further, LIS programs also can support public libraries in their e-government access and training roles by focusing more research on the intersections of libraries and e-government. Another example can be found at the School of Information at the University of Michigan, where Master's students can take a course in digital government as part of the Information Policy Specialization in the MS in Information program (http://si.umich.edu/msi/ipol.htm). Such educational efforts can be significant in preparing future librarians ready to serve as government information specialists and by creating more research to document and analyze the impacts these roles and expectations have on libraries, librarians, patrons, communities, and governments.

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CONCLUSION Librarians, government agency officials, educators, and policy-makers all share mutual, as well as individual, professional stakes in ensuring that government information meets the needs of citizens and maintains the health of our democracy. All these groups need to focus on a harmonization of government information services in the manner that best supports the traditions of access to government documents and the participation of citizens in government. Key issues that must be addressed include: • Sustainability of a digital-age FDLP. FDLP's future depends on how well the GPO and the participating libraries can agree to clear policy, collaborative arrangements, and practice that allow for effective collaboration on public service rather than physical collections. The 1962 and 1993 legislation changed the program's underlying roles assigned to the libraries and the GPO, framing the professional perspective of practicing librarians for almost a half century. The current operational context, however, is significantly different and needs to acknowledge and incorporate shifts in service, operation, and technology. • Internet-enabled service context. Social networking, mobile devices, increasingly digitized information content, collaborative ventures for the provision of information services and resources (i.e., digital reference, ASRL, CIC), and digital government services and resources, all serve to create a service context that simply did not exist prior to the integration of the Internet into the fabric of library and government services and resources. • Collaboration through digital technology and workspaces. Unlike a print-based collection that is bound in time, space, and service context, the tools of a digital government environment offer the potential to create entirely new service models that can substantially enhance the access to and dissemination of government information. A collaborative approach between the GPO and participating libraries, as well as among participating libraries, would enable participants to develop economies of scale, depth, and service expertise and focus, while simultaneously through collaboration providing users with a deeper and more thorough expert access to government information. In addition, collaboration can provide greater, not reduced, access to increasingly digital content. • Current fiscal environment. Though FDLP's underlying democratic principles transcend any given operating context or technology, it is impossible to ignore the realities of the current economic crisis. The fiscal crisis facing the nation, and individual states, has a substantial impact on the environment in which the FDLP operates. But, (1) the current economic situation also offers opportunities to try bold solutions to resolve these issues, and (2) principle and innovation should drive the opportunities sought, not just economics. • Data collection strategies. One of the issues that the government information community faces is the lack of reliable usage information regarding government information collections, user preferences, and a range of other factors surrounding the multiple dimensions of government information access and dissemination. There is a need to embed within the structure of the FDLP valid, reliable, and standard data collection approaches that inform the use, benefit, impact, and operation of the program and its information content. All stakeholders share interrelated interests in ensuring that a national program of government information service meets the needs of citizens, communities, the nation as a whole, sustaining the civic conversation so necessary to the future health of our democracy. All these groups must work together to ensure that a FDLP's future organization supports the traditions of open access and permanence to government information, as well as citizen participation in a collaborative, Internet-enabled service environment.

“It is more than just about libraries – it is the electoral and civic conversation sustained between a community and the officials they elect to serve their individual and collective goals.”

It is more than just about libraries—it is the electoral and civic conversation sustained between a community and the officials they elect to serve their individual and collective goals. This conversation is expressed through open meetings, robust exchange of information, and accessible proceedings/decisions of public organizations that inform the public's knowledge of services, security, and justice. This conversation is further sustained by an infrastructure of constitutional values of a free press, freedom of assembly/petition, and the freedom of speech. What a restructured FLDP will contribute to is something that might be called “civic serendipity”—the ability of people to engage their government on their terms and time. As the federal government develops digital resources to explain itself and its complicated policies, librarians must push back against displacement and demonstrate how they can continue to keep people connected to their government. As the FDLP community and academic libraries continue to debate, discuss, and shift the depository program deeper into America's 21st century digital age—the indigenous civic culture already thriving throughout the FDLP needs to move beyond its own institutional divisions (academic, public, law, special, and government) and reach some kind of national consensus on the program's future and work with the current GPO administration to get the job done.

NOTES

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REFERENCES

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29. Murray, K. R. & Hsieh, I. K. (2008). Archiving web-published materials: A needs assessment of librarians, researchers, and content providers. Government Information Quarterly, 25, 66–89. 30. Shuler, 2005, note 21. 31. Selby, 2008, pg. 40. 32. See for example, http://www.usa.gov; http://www.whitehouse.gov; http://thomas.loc.gov. 33. Priebe, T. Welch, A. MacGilvray, M. (2008). The U.S. Government Printing Office's initiatives for the Federal Depository Library Program to set the stage for the 21st century. Government Information Quarterly, 25, 48–56. 34. Burroughs, J. M. (2009). What users want: Assessing government information preferences to drive information services. Government Information Quarterly, 26, 203–218. 35. Priebe, Welch, & MacGilvray, 2008. 36. Jones, S. & Fox, S. (2009). Generations online in 2009. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Generations_2009. pdf. 37. See, for example, such projects as Yale's Digital Collections (http://www.library.yale.edu/libraries/digcoll.html); Cossroads to Freedom (http://www.crossroadstofreedom.org). 38. See Google Books, found at http://books.google.com/. 39. See http://www.google.com/unclesam. Google currently has arrangements with Virginia, Florida, California, and Arizona, to name some states. More information on the public sector information project is available at http://www.google.com/ publicsector/. 40. http://scholar.google.com/ 41. Waller, V. (2009). The relationship between public libraries and Google: Too much information. First Monday, 14(9). Available: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/ view/2477/2279. 42. ARL. ARL Statistics Tables. Available at http://www.arl.org/stats/ annualsurveys/arlstats/statxls.shtml. 43. Ibid. 44. Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., Shuler, J. A., Simmons, S. N., & Grimes, J. M. (2009) Reconciling government documents and e-government: Government information in policy, librarianship, and education. Government Information Quarterly, 26, 433-436; Shuler, J.A., Jaeger, P. T., & Bertot, J. C. (2010). Implications of harmonizing egovernment principles and the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Government Information Quarterly, 27, 9-16. 45. Riley-Huff, D. A. (2009). Web services as public services: Are we supporting our busiest service point? Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35, 65-74. Pg. 68. 46. Yelnick, K., & Hinchcliff, M. (2009). Accidental government documents librarian: A review of experiences and training needs of interim documents librarians. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 35, 46-56. Pg. 47. 47. GPO (2004). A strategic vision for the 21st century. Washington DC: Author. 48. DLC (2006). Knowledge will forever govern: A vision statement for Federal Depository Libraries in the 21st century. Washington DC: Author. 49. DLC, 2006, pg. 11. 50. GPO (2008). Regional Depository Libraries in the 21st century: A time for change? Washington DC: Author. 51. Schonfeld, R. C, & Housewright, R. (2009). Documents for a Digital Democracy: A Model for the Federal Depository Library Program in the 21st Century. Ithaka S+R. Accessed December 23, 2009 at http:// www.arl.org/bm∼doc/documents-for-a-digital-democracy.pdf.

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52. Schonfeld, R. C, & Housewright, R. (2009, p. 48). 53. Association of Research Libraries. (2009). White Paper: Strategic Directions for the Federal Depository Library Program, Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries. Last accessed December 23, 2009 at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlwpfdlptrans.pdf. 54. A review of the first 11 annual reports of the Superintendent of Documents finds a constant stream of statistics and anecdotal information about the libraries included in the program's first decade of service, including many reasons why academic libraries proved to be the most viable “public libraries” in their communities. For a handy collection of these several reports, consult the full text of all 11 reports found as part of the Google Book project – (http://books.google.com/books?id=FSsDAAAAYAAJ&printsec= frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage &q=&f=false) 55. Jaeger, P. T., & Bertot, J. C. (in press). Designing, implementing, and evaluating user-centered and citizen-centered e-government. International Journal of Electronic Government Research. 56. Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., McClure, C. R., Wright, C. B., & Jensen, E. (2009) Public libraries and the Internet 2008–2009: Issues, implications, and challenges. First Monday 14(11) Last accessed December 23, 2009 at http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index. php/fm/article/viewArticle/2700/2351; Jaeger, P. T., & Bertot, J. C. (2009). E-government education in public libraries: New service roles and expanding social responsibilities. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 50, 40-50. 57. Reddick, C. G. (2005). Citizen interaction with eovernment: From the streets to servers? Government Information Quarterly, 22, 338–357. 58. Anderson. (2002). A usability analysis of selected federal government web sites. Washington DC: Author. Pg. 1. 59. Horrigan, J. B. (2006). Politics online. Washington DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project; Horrigan, J. B., & Rainie, L. (2002). Counting on the Internet. Washington DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project. 60. Bertot et al., 2009. 61. Bertot, J. C., & Jaeger, P. T. (2006) User-centered e-government: Challenges and benefits for government web sites. Government Information Quarterly 23(2) 163-168; Jaeger, P.T. (2007). Information policy, information access, and democratic participation: The national and international implications of the Bush administration's information politics. Government Information Quarterly, 24, 840-859. 62. Gathegi, J. N. & Burke, D. E. (2008). Convergence of information and law: A comparative study between i-chools and other ALISE schools. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 49, 1–22 . 63 Jaeger, P. T. (2008). Building eovernment into the Library & Information Science curriculum: The future of government information and services. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 49, 167–179. 64. Jaeger & Bertot, 2009. 65. Jaeger, 2008. 66. Yelnick & Hinchcliff, 2009. 67. Yelnick & Hinchcliff, 2009. Pg. 50. 68. Yelnick & Hinchcliff, 2009. 69. Wilhite, J. M. (2000). A survey of government document frontine employees: The road to service standards continued. Journal of Government Information, 27, 47–64. 70. Yang, Z. Y. (2000). An assessment of education and training needs for government documents librarians in the United States. Journal of Government Information, 28, 425–439. 71. Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., & Shuler, J. A. (2009). Next generation E-government librarians and digital government librarians. Last accessed December 23, 2009 at http://www.liicenter.org/ libegov.