Seeking Ideas for Greater Transparency and Open Government in Federal Departments, Agencies and on Federal Web Sites
In the e-mail below Camilla Tubbs, Chair of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Government Relations Committee provides useful information regarding efforts by the Obama admiinistration to create greater transparency and openness in and among federal departments and agencies. She is also asking what types of information people want to see on federal agency web sites? These are important questions that merit serious consideration. Although this e-mail was originally directed to a group of law librarians everyone should be concerned about these issues. Comments from both librarians and non librarians are welcome. We will be glad to forward comments on to Camilla upon request.
E-mail from Camilla Tubbs:
In his Memorandum on Transparency and Open
Government http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Transparency_and_Open_Government/
President Obama instructed the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) to issue an Open Government Directive. Responding to that
instruction, on December 8, 2009, a
memorandum http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdf was
issued directing executive departments and agencies on how to take
specific actions to implement the principles of transparency, participation,
and collaboration. The memo was broken up into four main points, each
having their own action items: (1) Publish Government Information Online;
(2) Improve the Quality of Government Information ; (3) Create and
Institutionalize a Culture of Open Government; and (4) Create an Enabling
Policy Framework for Open Government
Aside from the major points mentioned above and the action items posted in
the memorandum http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive ,
*what types of information would you want to see on agency web sites? *For
example, some ideas from the open government community include:
1. List of government agency employees and how to reach them.
2. Visitor logs of each agency and calendars for top-level agency
officials should be made public in timely fashion. The public has a right
to know who agencies are consulting, and a "timely fashion" needs to be
narrowly defined.
3. Contract and award documents include Requests for Proposals,
Contracts, Task Orders, Contract Modifications, etc.
4. Communications between the agency and Congress, including responses to
inquires, testimony before committees, reports mandated by Congress, etc.
5. A records retention policy along with a schedule of records that will
be declassified and the timetable for such action, as well as a list of all
FOIA requests.
*What else would you like to see? What types of documents are your patrons
requesting? What suggestions should be passed along to make the federal
government more transparent and participatory?
