Theresa Pardo, Director of CTG, presents on the issues for public libraries that are seeking to proactively engage with government partners and other key stakeholders to develop portfolios of programs and services geared toward the realization of a more open government, and addresses the challenges of balancing traditional programs and services with public library capabilities and resources.

1. The Role of Public Libraries in
Enabling Open Government
A Stakeholder Workshop
Definitions, Concepts, and Issues
Theresa A. Pardo
Director
Center for Technology in Government

2. Why are we here?
• Many public libraries are seeking to proactively
engage with government partners and other key
stakeholders to develop portfolios of programs and
services geared toward the realization of a more open
government.
• Balancing such portfolios with the portfolio of
traditional programs and services and public library
capabilities and resources is a challenge
• This project is designed to help libraries meet this
challenge.

4. Open or Closed?
• “In the 21st century, the US is convinced that
one of the most significant divisions between
nations will be not between east or west, nor
over religion, so much as between open and
closed societies”
- Secretary of State Clinton
2012 OGP Meeting, Brazil

5. Openness as a powerful lever
• Open Data and Transparency may be the most
powerful levers of 21st century public policy.
– They present multiple opportunities offering benefit to the
public sector, individuals, businesses and the UK as a
whole.
• Open Data enables accountability; it improves
outcomes and productivity in key services through
informed comparison; it transforms social
relationships – empowering individuals and
communities; and it drives dynamic economic
growth.
– Prime Minister David Cameron (2010)

6. Tools of Transformation
• e-Government: Shift of government services to the World
Wide Web
• Open government
– A more transparent, accessible and responsive governance
system, where information moves freely both to and from
government through a multitude of channels
– Open government more than Open Data, encompasses
• Information and data transparency
• Public engagement
• Accountability

7. Historical context of
open government in the US
• Constitutional guarantees
– Freedom of speech
– Freedom of the press
– Right to assemble
• Freedom of Information Act
• Open Meetings Laws

8. Traditional implementations
• Land records
• Vital records
– Birth, death, marriage
• Federal Register
• Government archives
• Census and other statistical data

9. The 2009 U.S. OGD
• Principles
– Sets out the principles of increased transparency, participation and
collaboration as a framework to guide agency-level plans for
implementing the directive.
• Process
– Includes an implementation process to institutionalize policies and
practices that employ technology and information-based strategies to
create more openness at the federal level and beyond.
• Responsibility
– Assigns this responsibility to agency administrative and operational
levels to strengthen their capability to provide information and
opportunities for citizens and non-government stakeholders to play a
greater role in the workings of government.
Transp
arent
Partici
patory
Collab
orative

10. The 2009 OGD
• Directs executive departments and agencies to take
specific actions to implement the principles of
transparency, participation, and collaboration:
– Publish Government Information Online
– Improve the Quality of Government Information
– Create and Institutionalize a Culture of Open
Government
– Create an Enabling Policy Framework for Open
Government
• Central Mandate
– Open data requirement, not a political transparency
requirement

11. State and local
adaptations of the OGD
• Launched new data portals sites.
• Focus more on service delivery than
transparency.
• Particular adaptation – improving communities
through better services.
Source: Yu and Robinson, 2012

14. Public Value of Open Data
• San Francisco Mayor sees DataSF.org as a
way to...
– “stimulate local industry, create jobs and highlight
San Francisco’s creative culture and attractiveness
as a place to live and work.”
• Briefly acknowledged greater transparency.
Source: Yu and Robinson, 2012

15. Future U.S. OG Priorities
• Create a more community-oriented focus.
• Reduce the barriers to information for citizens and
policy makers at all levels of government and around
the world.
• Reduce the silos at the federal level - but also to
reduce distance between levels of government.
Source: U.S. Deputy CTO Chris Vein, 2011

16. Community Information Ecosystem
• A CIE is the people, entities, practices, values, information
sources and technologies that interrelate to support a defined
community’s information needs.
• Relationships among a CIE’s components are dynamic and
changes in one component will influence others
• CIEs include:
– Entities interested in and able to access, use, and share information that
a community needs
– Formal and informal networks for the exchange knowledge, ideas,
opinions, and perspectives
– Entities that generate and transmit news and information
– Entities that help people/entities access, use, and interpret information.

17. CIEs, Open Government
and Libraries
• Opening government is an initiative or process that
occurs within the context of a CIE
• Public libraries
– Serve as information intermediaries helping people access,
use, and interpret information within a CIE, including in
the context of opening government initiatives
– Have great potential to facilitate the opening of local
government
• Open Government presents new opportunity for
libraries

18. • Impact of eGovernment on libraries was unanticipated
– Increased expectations that libraries will provide services in areas
where staff resources, expertise, and available technology is limited
– Diversion of resources from traditional library services
– Fiscal impact on libraries as their role as e-government intermediaries
becomes a type of unfunded mandate
• Impact of Open Government on Libraries
– Has yet to be studied
– Dominant view is that it will match trends seen in eGovernmentt and
introduce new challenges
Open Government Challenges
for Public Libraries

19. Why Are We Here?
• Open Government as a strategy for government transformation
• Open Government’s focus on the role citizens and other non-
government actors can play in and improve governance
• The need to understand and improve Open Government at the
local level
• Public libraries continued role as trusted community partners
and information intermediaries
• Public libraries interest in understanding the needs of their
communities and developing the capabilities to meet these
needs.
• The importance of partnerships to meet community needs

20. Local Government “As Is”
• Open Government initiatives focused on providing
more and varied data to the public are occurring.
– Larger cities with progressive attitudes towards technology
or with a large university community
– Large suburban counties
– Smaller municipalities in metropolitan areas of
technologically progressive cities
• Across the country local governments of all levels
and sizes are exploring e-participation or e-
democracy as well as e-government services on their
websites

21. Public Libraries “As Is”
• Providing robust services to support community use of e-
government services
• Involved in opening government activities, although these
activities have not always been identified as such
– Engaging communities from providing neutral civic spaces to enabling
civic literacy
• Actively expanding community engagement activities in new
and creative way
– Some of these activities clearly involve local government and are
opening government to various community groups

22. Why are we here?
• Many public libraries are seeking to proactively
engage with government partners and other key
stakeholders to develop portfolios of programs and
services geared toward the realization of a more open
government.
• Balancing such portfolios with the portfolio of
traditional programs and services and public library
capabilities and resources is a challenge
• This project is designed to help libraries meet this
challenge.

23. The Role of Public Libraries in
Enabling Open Government
A Stakeholder Workshop
Definitions, Concepts, and Issues
Theresa A. Pardo
Director
Center for Technology in Government