Access and Preservation

The Alabama Dept of Archives & History (ADAH) is charged with archiving state documents and records, but they receive these documents sometimes several years after their creation. Until they receive the documents, it is up to the state agency to keep the documents and records that they create. That is, ADAH provides preservation and access once they receive these documents, but during the interim of the creation of the work until ADAH receives them, there are varying levels of access and preservation success, depending on the agency. Some documents end up in various libraries, either by request/purchase by the library or because the agency chooses or has a mandate to disseminate the document. In Alabama, there is no law or rule for an agency to send publications or documents to any library, except to ADAH after a certain amount of time. As many of you know, this is a VERY SIMPLE explanation of a very complex issue. Nevertheless, it's a basic concept that should be understood when discussing Alabama publications and records.

Born Digital

We are all familiar with print publications, and the library and archiving communities have years of experience in preserving these materials. Therefore, we have an advantage of knowing how to archive, catalog, and provide access to, these materials. Yet, these print materials have the limitation of a finite, physical presence, and can only reside in as many places as copies were made. In recent years, librarys and other organizations have been overcoming this limitation by digitizing these documents and providing potential unlimited access to these printed publications. Nevertheless, they were born in print and existed first as a physical document or record (or were created at the same time). "Born Digital" are materials such as web pages and databases, with no official print equivalent. In the case of state records, one might consider such things as word processed documents and email (ADAH does). If such materials are made accessible to the public, access and timeliness can be wonderful. Preservation, on the other hand, is a very problematic issue, and not even on the horizon of awareness for many of those who create the materials. (As Sam Quigley, of the Museum Computer Network, said in the opening remarks at the recent Persistence of Memory conference in Boston, creation of digital documents is very "sexy" right now... preservation, not so much).

Born in Print

The contacts at state agencies and offices are often very willing to share their information and very helpful in supplying libraries with the publications that they need. The problem is not with an obstinate or ineffective state workforce: it is more a problem of uncoordinated dissemination. While some state publications are easily obtained, and libraries can place some titles on a subscription service or regular distribution list, other publications are difficult to identify and obtain, with perhaps a yearly phone call, or repeated phone calls, required to request or to purchase a title. Multiply this effort by hundreds of librarians and other individuals for numerous titles. The duplication of effort, and the inefficiencies of time for many organizations, businesses, and individuals in the state - and for the state itself - is mind-boggling. Even state personnel in state offices and agencies would work more efficiently for their own information needs if there were good practices in place which made information available after the collection phase was completed.

Past Attempts to Improve Access

Government documents librarians and other librarians in the state have made various attempts over the years, both officially and unofficially, to provide greater access to Alabama state publications for the purpose of providing greater access to Alabama state information for the citizens of the state. One result of these efforts was the Alabama Clearinghouse for State Publications, passed in 1993; however, the act was contingent upon funding which never received legislative attention. For more information on this effort, see Alabama Documents Depository System (An Overview) and Report of The Alabama State Publications Task Force.

Disappearing Information

The advent of electronically published information, most specifically through the Web, has radically changed distribution and public access to all information, with some of the first and most dramatic changes occurring at the federal publication level. In recent years, state governments have become more active in placing publications on the Web, and also creating original content to be placed on the Web. This is wonderful for accessibility of the information. More problematic, however, is that while more agencies are placing information on the Web, they are often discontinuing publications in print format, while yet not preserving the information they place online. Previous editions of information disappear at the flick of a wrist, erasing forever the ability for researchers to do time-series analysis on statistics and other types of information.