I posted recently that a new set of nuanced distinctions should be put into effect for government documents, setting priority levels and procedures for digital public access, much like security classifications and preservation schedules operate now. After James A. Jacobs thoughtful comment on “instantiation” to the google group (where he reminds us that transactional access only works for very specific kinds of public access needs), I went on a more detailed search for executive branch guidance on documents management.

There’s far more detail available online than I expected, perhaps because the executive branch functions through centralized authority with centralized management structures. (Most notably the Office of Management and Budget, and the General Services Administration, possibly also the National Archives and Records Administration and the Government Printing Office.)

The best primary source on governmental IT management is the IT and e-gov page from OMB, with its index of memos and circulars. Even the organization of the documents indexed gives us a sense of the IT priorities from an administrative perspective; OMB lists:

• E-Gov initiatives
• Information Quality Government-Wide Initiatives
• IT Policy Documents
• IT Spending
• Computer Security
• Privacy Guidance
• Privacy Reference Materials
• Government Paperwork Elimination Act, and
• Freedom of Information Reform Act

Some thing I found in perusing the documents most relevant to public access:

OMB Circular A-130, about “Management of Federal Information Resources”, is probably the most well known directive on public access. A copy is embedded below, and I’ve written about its public access provisions here, concluding that it is encouraging as a broad mission statement.

OMB document M03-18-1 (source pdf) gives guidance on implementing the e-government act of 2002’s new requirements, giving us a both a to-do list and a review of to whom the requirements were delegated.

This (above) may be usefully compared to the reports on the act’s implementation; here’s the most recent one, the FY 2007 Report to Congress on Implementation of The E-Government Act of 2002 posted in March of 2008,

…which is a formal companion to Karen Evans’ testimony to the HSGAC committee in 2007. (Evans is the Administrator for the Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, within OMB.)

I also found M-98-09, which guides federal agencies in creating “Government Information Locator Services”, intended to offer “in one place the various ways by which a person can obtain public information from the agency, as well as the types and categories of information available.” Since their publication online wasn’t mandated, (”Although the law does not require that the handbook be available on-line, OMB encourages agencies to do so as a matter of policy…”) I decided to look for agencies offering this sort of guide.

I took the Department of Commerce as an example, and wasn’t able to find any information outline (or GILS) on their site. I did, however, find resources relevant to my original inquiry, the one that sparked this investigation. I was looking for records management designations, and I found a host of resources on the Commerce Department’s CIO’s Web site.

This is more like what I was looking for. Here’s the page on Records Management, complete with definitions of records schedules and policy. I’d like to see if they’re making distinctions to facilitate public access to federal documents, but haven’t found that yet. The CIO site also offers Information Quality guidance, a host of Section 508 compliance accessibility resources, and CIO resources, including the Council of CIOs.

What does all of this have to do with Congress?

Well, the question is this. When we make laws about information, and make practical distinctions about kinds of data, are they made with the public end in mind? As the Internet forcibly exposes public information at a rate faster than we can make distinctions about it, we need to better understand the mechanisms of public information control. The strategies, successes, and shortcomings of the executive’s information management history will illuminate the challenges of the legislative.