Gov Docs

All three readings for this week were very interesting but I warmed up most to the Eschenfelder/Miller and the S+R for several reasons. The article from Ithaka S+R was quite useful in helping me understand the many issues with Goverment Documents and their distribution issues. The Eschenfelder/Miller reading brought up issues of different levels and standards for providing information to the general public and how this differs between the GPO and other institutions such as the DNR. Nancy Mulhern from the WHS explained many important points which were needed for me to properly analyze and understand the implications of the readings for this week.

The issues that Nancy covered in her fantastic lecture that I found particularly interesting were: (all while still being obviously sick, which was impressive) 
(1.) Explaining more about the mission of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
I am new to this region and being new, all is confusing when it comes to the state buildings surrounding us because we are the capital city. I have never spent much time in a capital city before so it is a bit overwhelming because there is so much to learn. I find it interesting that they collect what they can from all of North America and that, as a result, it has become one of the largest libraries on this subject.
(2.) Questions about going electronic.
In both the Ithaka S+R and the Eschenfelder/Miller readings, I automatically wondered about the issues associated with having fully digitized and digital born documents available for people. With the Eschenfelder/ Clark, I wondered why they didn't have more paper documents available for people with questions about CWD. I realize that this particular study was not about analyzing the information from DNR in paper-format, but in website digital format. I just thought about how much information is probably not being released in paper format either since adding things to the website would probably be easier and definately less expensive that distributing paper documents. I have not looked fully at the website, though I am sure that they do not have all the information that the public wants on that site. It sounds like Wisconsin and Colorado are the only two states who even try to make documents available, even if it is only partial information.
There is definately a problem there in several ways: one way being that many people who might be looking for the info are not on the web and might have no clue that the DNR even has a site; and another being that the DNR might be picking only the information which would benefit their organization and maybe not providing some statistics because they feel there has not been enough research done to warrant placing it on the site and perhaps creating more of a problem for themselves. I say, this only leads to more public mistrust. They can say, "this is what we think....but these are the facts, decide for yourself." In the Ithaka S+R article, I had the same questions about the people who don't use digital formats to recieve their information. The article states that 97% of NEW government documents are available digitally as of 2009, and part of that exists only in digital form. Nancy brought up the fact that many places are able to choose many items to be kept in print, but not others. She seemed to be very suprised that she was even given a choice on anything, that they even bothered to ask. As is stated in the Ithaka S+R article ( in footnote #4), print brochures are a very important way of getting information to the general public that may not have or want to use digital formats for their research.  It seems to me that print is a great way to preserve information in an age where we are constantly enundated with new technological concepts and formats. Print will always be print it won't change and I believe that there should be at least one official print version of everthing, just in case. I say, digitize it but also keep as many paper copies as you can because most digitization is not akin to preservation. The problems is, how do you store it. 
(3.) The Preservation of these documents, both print and digital.
The Ithaka S+R speaks about the preservation of these documents and the problems associated with having them in digital formats, particularly when the documents are being edited and updated. There is the FDsys federal digital watermark which authenticates the document but what about preservation?
(4.) What is accurate and what has been edited.
We kind of got the impression from the research conducted by Eschenfelder/Miller that there are issues with the DNR only putting certain documents and statistics on their websites, which I really have a problem with. In the area of federal government documents online, there is another issue which pertains to preservation and accuracy in government documents. This issue has been partially solved by using the FDsys to create a way of certifying that the information is accurate and the document is trustworthy. FDsys created a federal kind of digital watermark. I was still a bit confused about exactally what this meant and about FDsys and what it was until Nancy came to speak to the class. This is all new to some of us and just reading an article usually isn't enough to explain some of these devices. Some of these articles that we read assume a previous knowledge base for these issues which we might not have during our first semester.
(5.) Problems associated with the release of this information to the general public without charging a fee.
I was also happy to hear Nancy explain a little more about Hathitrust vs. Google books. I had hear a bit of a complicated professionally informed conversation between Michele Besant and one of the students in the program who knew a lot about the Google digitization project. I have been confused by what Hathitrust did and how it worked with Google books, how they were different. This issue is much more clear now. I had no idea that UW-Madison was so active in the digitization through Google. Nancy was kind enough to explain about the copyright status of government documents which we learned about in the fabulously informative lecture by Kristen Eschenfelder the week before so I understood what she was talking about. When commercial vendors get hold of these materials and start charging fees that the government does not pay for, we have to pay for it. This goes against the basic principles established first, long ago, by people like Thomas Jefferson, that to have a truly democratic state, you must provide the public with the information they need to make an informed decision. I am glad to hear that there is another viable option for the digitization of documents for the public.

What I really thought about after reading all three of these articles is that since so many people rely on the public libraries for their gov. docs, are there special training programs for public librarians who want to take continuing ed. classes or offer them to the employees who will most likely have to deal with reference questions in this area? As a future public librarian (maybe, perhaps), I wonder about how much training most public librarians (and library assistants) have in this area and how much the government can do to help to educate them? Some, if not most of the people trying to access law documents are in the public libraries without any money to spend on these subscriptions or anyway to know where is best to look. This is being left up to the under-paid and overworked public librarians and they need help. For instance, Nancy spoke about the fact that when you search online for government documents, there is no author so you have to have knowledge of which dept. of the govt. this document would be included in? This takes special training and experience.