Government Documents

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Government Documents

Aired October 10 and 11, 1998

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This is Internet On The Air. I'm Joan Silvi. What's in store as the world's biggest publisher moves to the Web? Details in a moment.

Funding Credit: Internet On The Air is a production of the University of Michigan School of Information and Michigan radio, made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The world's biggest publisher is not Random House..or Warner Time-Life..it's the federal government. And increasingly, federal forms and documents are available over the Internet. For example, taxpayers can now do almost everything on-line except pay Uncle Sam - and that may be possible starting next year.

Sue Davidsen is the director of the Michigan Electronic Library, and teaches a course in government documents at the University of Michigan. Davidsen says the federal government is in the process of moving vast amounts of publications, statistics and services onto the Internet.

This technological change has made it possible for groups and individuals to speak out to their elected representatives much more quickly than in the past. The text of most proposed federal legislation and regulatory action now appears on the Internet within 24 hours of publication. Citizens can respond immediately by e-mail. Legislators use the Internet to conduct straw polls to sample instant public opinion...and political organizers use e-mail lists for lobbying.

Davidsen says the change to this style of on-line democracy may be comparable to rural electrification 50 years ago...a sweeping technological change with unexpected social implications that took decades to achieve. But there are limitations. Not everyone has access to the Internet...and even on the Internet some government information remains difficult to find and interpret.

To listen to an interview with Sue Davidsen and get some pointers on finding government information online...visit our Web site at www.iota.org. For Internet On The Air, I'm Joan Silvi.

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Related Links

For further information, try these Web sites:

The Michigan Electronic Library's Government, Politics, and Law section can guide you to the government information you're seeking.
This page is also a resource for non-governmental links, which have been screened for "identifiable content authority..., currency of information, ease of navigavibility and interface and comprehensiveness of resources."

You can find out what's happening in Congress, as well as search through bills and legislation, at Thomas, the Library of Congress' site for "Legislative Information on the Internet."

The U.S.Department of the Treasury and the IRS publish The Digital Daily, an on-line information source about taxes, the IRS, and what it means for you.

For government information sources, especially collections of historical interest, visit the Library of Congress and National Archives and Records Administration sites.

For government statistics, particularly economic ones, check out the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides nation-wide data and reports regarding employment, productivity, price indexes, and workplace conditions.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis "is the nation's economic accountant, preparing estimates that illuminate key national, international, and regional aspects of the U.S. economy."

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The Interview

Use the RealAudio Player to listen in as IOTA talks with Sue Davidsen.

This IOTA interview took place in September 1998.

By way of an introduction to online government, could you tell us something about how online information has changed the way people pay taxes?

The whole tax situation has changed dramatically over the past two years... Now people are downloading tax forms like crazy, especially the two nights before April 15th. In fact, our statistics double on those nights just from people downloading tax forms... I think the federal government is very interested in letting people submit their information [online]. Right now they're producing forms in portable document format because the government doesn't want us to change the instruction manuals. But once they get over that hump, then they'll start allowing us to send our documents over the Web. It's speeded up the process already and I think we'll see it speed up the process even more in the next few years."

Besides taxes, what are some of the most common types of government information used by individuals?

Are there any particularly significant dates we should be aware of as the government moves online?

"One landmark date we'll see is when the 2000 census is released in 2001...I think we're going to be seeing something very interesting with most of that information coming out over the Internet."

How is the speed by which we receive government information changing the nature of our democracy?

"Now instead of having to make an informed choice with information that's three months old we're able to get our information instantaneously and you can fire off an e-mail to your Senator saying I like or don't like this legislation right after you've found out about it...I'm sure one day we'll be voting online. "

It's easy to update documents on the Internet, but what challenges does this present for archiving official forms and records?

What will these changes mean for people who don't own computers?

"It's wrong to assume that everyone is going to be able to afford a computer in the home. The other issue we have is local Internet access there are still a lot of rural areas, that like in the 1930s when we brought electricity into those areas we had the problem of hooking up those areas and that's still true with Internet access. So what that means is we still need that trusted third party that can provide access to government information. And public libraries are the places people are having to go to get access to that information."

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Last Updated October 4, 1998