Ongoing Discussions on Access to Federal Government Information

“A dramatic termination of e-government access occurred when the October 2013 federal funding gap resulted in a shutdown of government processes. The public’s access to government information was severely limited, and in some cases prohibited entirely. The natural progress for an advanced technological society is to make information available via Internet anytime and from anywhere. However, when access is eliminated, the resulting information crisis cripples the public’s interaction with the federal government. The shutdown and the subsequent lack of access to government information is an indicator that the information dissemination model is faulty, and reliance on a single point of access is a mistake. Libraries, long charged with protecting the public’s access to information, are challenged to find a viable solution to protecting free permanent public access.”  See the full article on LLRX, http://www.llrx.com/features/egovinfoaccess.htm.