|
State-by-State Report on Permanent Public Access
to Electronic Government Information
Government Relations Committee and Washington Affairs Office
American Association of Law Libraries
June 2003
One of the most significant developments related to the growth
of the Internet during the 1990's was the pace at which governments at all
levels--Federal, state and local--embraced its use to provide the public
with unparalleled access to government information and E-Government services.
Unfortunately, however, while government entities today make enormous amounts
of information available to the public through the Internet, most fail to
recognize the need to manage the entire lifecycle of electronic government
information from its creation to its preservation, ensuring permanent public
access all along the way. We define permanent public access as the process by which applicable government information is preserved for current, continuous and future public access.
The need to provide permanent public access to and preserve electronic
government information is challenging and as yet unmet in any comprehensive
manner at any level of government. Technical obsolescence and the failure
to create a centralized and coordinated system to ensure permanent public
access have resulted in the loss of huge amounts of electronic government
information during the past decade. Titles that are born digital
and have not been retained for preservation and permanent public access upon
removal from a government agency Web site are likely to be lost forever.
The purpose of this study, generously funded by a grant from Aspen
Legal Publishers, was to assess the level of permanent public access to electronic
government information across all state governments. Members of the American
Association of Law Libraries in each state, the District of Columbia and
Puerto Rico completed a comprehensive survey. The survey results reveal that
no state is comprehensively addressing these challenges. Very few states
have updated their statutes to explicitly incorporate electronic government
information into their public access, Freedom of Information or depository
laws. Nonetheless, the survey results reveal a growing awareness, greater
in some states than others, of the necessity to ensure that valuable electronic
government information remains available to the public for their continuous
and future use. We hope that the findings of this report will encourage state
governments to work with law librarians and the broader library and public
access communities to enact legislation in order to ensure that permanent
public access to electronic government information will become a reality
all across our Nation.
State-by-State Report on Permanent Public Access to Electronic Government Information
Appendix A -- State Government Web Sites
Appendix B -- State Contacts
Appendix C -- State Survey Results
|
