BACK

Government Information Quarterly Contents

Government Information Quarterly

Volume 5, Number 4, 1988 (index)

CONTENTS

Discussion Forum:
Institutional Elements in OMB's Control of Government Information
David Plocher .................................................................315

The Defense Technical Information Center: Acquiring Information
and Imparting Knowledge
Kurt N. Molholm, Betty L. Fox, Paul M. Klinefelter,
Ellen V. McCauley, and William M. Thompson ........................323

Freedom of Information in Atlantic Canada
Charles Ferris ......................................................341

Federal Information: Foundation for National Competitiveness
Joseph E. Clark, George E. Brown, Jr., J. Timothy Sprehe,
Fred W. Weingarten, Charles R. McClure, Arden L. Bement, Jr.,
and J. Joseph A. Lahoud .........................................353

The Right to Know: Public Access to Federal Information in the 1980s
John Shattuck ....................................................................369

The Emergence of Surveillance Societies in the Western World:
Toward the Year 2000
David H. Flaherty ......................................................................377

Contributors..............................................................389

Reviews
David C. Heisser, Editor

Computer Security Act of 1987: Hearings before a Subcommittee of
the Committee on Government Operations on H.R. 145, February 25
and 26, and March 17, 1987
Reviewed by LeRoy C. Schwarzkopf ..........................................393

Developing Library and Information Center Collections
By G. Edward Evans
Reviewed by Peter Hernon ..........................................................395

The Electronic Era of Publishing:
An Overview of Concepts, Technologies and Methods
By Oldrich Standera
Reviewed by John Richardson, Jr ....................................... 396

Federal Documents Librarianship, 1879-1987
By Alan Edward Schorr
Reviewed by Peter Hernon ........................................................ 397

Hearings on the Privatization of the National Technical
Information Service, and H.R. 812, the National
Quality Improvement Award Act of 1987
Reviewed by Sharon M. Anderson ................................... 398

The Library of Congress: A Documentary History;
Guide to the Microfiche Collection
Edited by John Y. Cole
Reviewed by David Kaser ................................................... 398

New Information Technologies and Development
Reviewed by Peter I. Hajnal ............................................. 399

Privatization: The Key to Better Government
By E.S. Savas
Reviewed by Thomas A. Karel ............................................. 400

Selecting and Organizing State Government Publications
By Margaret T. Lane
Reviewed by Lauren S. Williams ................................................ 401

Subject Guide to Major United States Government Publications
By Wiley J. Williams
Reviewed by Ted Samore ..................................... 402

Technology & U.S. Government Information Policies:
Catalysts for New Partnerships
Reviewed by Christina J. Woo ................................. 402

Through the Corridors of Power:
A Citizen's Guide to Federal Rulemaking
By David Plocher and Barbara Coleman
Reviewed by Lois P. Mills ..................................... 403

U.S. Government Advisory Organizations Publications on Microfiche
Edited by Denise M. Allard
Reviewed by Deborah Mongeau ............................... 404

White House Conference on Library and Information Services
Reviewed by Michael Vocino, Jr . ............................... 405

List of Titles Received ........................................... 406

Index/Volume 5 ................................................ 409

The Defense Technical
Information Center:
Acquiring Information
and Imparting Knowledge
KURT N. MOLHOLM, BETTY L. FOX,
PAUL M. KLINEFELTER, ELLEN V.
McCAULEY, AND WILLIAM M. THOMPSON

T'he concept of the U.S. Department of Defense Scientific and Technical Information Program is based on a coordinated structure of decentralized scientific and technical information activities located in research laboratories and organizations worldwide. The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) is the central organization serving the Department of Defense, other Federal agencies, and government contractors. This article describes how DTIC fits into the Department's Scientific and Technical Information Program, how the mission is accomplished, and plans for the future.

Freedom of Information
in Atlantic Canada
CHARLES FERRIS

Freedom of information legislation was enacted in three of Canada's four Atlantic Provinces between 1977-1982 in response to public demand for more open and participatory government. The New Brunswick and Newfoundland statutes have conferred broad public information access with a right of appeal to the Ombudsman or a judge. This legislative structure has effectively sustained the remedial objectives of the legislation--an assessment qualified by low rates of recorded information requests and appeals, deficient public information systems, legislative exceptions, and the absence of privacy protection legislation. The Nova Scotia legislation provides broad information access rights, but lacks any independent review mechanism and is arguably a statement of principles of little more import than Prince Edward Island's absent legislation.

Federal Information:
Foundation for
National Competitiveness
JOSEPH E. CLARK, GEORGE E. BROWN, JR., J. TIMOTHY SPREHE, FRED
W. WEINGARTEN, CHARLES R. MC CLURE, ARDEN L. BEMENT, JR.,
AND J. JOSEPH A. LAHOUD

The National Technical Information Service functions as a cornerstone for the Federal technological publishing structure in the United States. It is a key participant in the development of those information processes that are helping, in part, to support U.S. productivity and industrial innovation. NTIS, which recognizes the relationship between information and competiveness, links the end products of information producers to those who need them. Many complicated issues confront all of us, in terms of sharing information for greater national competitiveness. For example, what steps can be taken to ensure and improve the use of government generated scientific and technical knowledge, how can NTIS better serve more government sources and customers, and what are the implications of recent government policies in terms of technology transfer? This article explores these and related issues.

The Right to Know:
Public Access to
Federal Information
in the 1980s
JOHN SHATTUCK

This article is based on a symposium held at the University of California, Berkeley, and sponsored by the Library, University of California, Berkeley; the Librarians Association of the University of California (Berkeley Division); and the School of Library and Information Studies, University of California, Berkeley. The author examines government information controls in the context of the constitutional and statutory tradition of open access to government information in the United States. He discusses the restrictive climate in which the Reagan administration views public access and warns that restrictive national security policies may actually curtail economic growth, retard defense programs, and undermine the Constitution.

The Emergence of Surveillance Societies
in the Western World:
Toward the Year 2000
DAVID H. FLAHERTY

Our information societies are evolving into surveillance societies, as we near the year 2000. The various automated databases now in existence make possible fairly integrated monitoring of individuals in Western countries. The proliferation of such information banks in both the public and private sectors, rather than the existence of any single one of them, poses the fundamental challenge to privacy interests. We need to think about the implications of such surveillance practices for the protection of human rights. In North America, in particular, the application of information technology is galloping ahead of regulation and control. Moreover, despite the advent of privacy and data protection laws and agencies, there is some evidence that we have only created the illusion of data protection, since the force of those trying to invade privacy is so overpowering in the name of efficiency and cost control.

Contributors

Arden L. Bement Jr. was appointed Vice President of Technical Resources, TRW, Inc., in 1981. He received an Engineering of Metallurgy degree in 1954 from the Colorado School of Mines, an M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Idaho in 1959, and a Ph. D. from the University of Michigan in 1963. Dr. Bement began his professional career in 1954 as a research metallurgist and reactor project engineer with General Electric Company. In 1965, he joined Battelle Memorial Institute and, in 1970, the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology as Professor of Nuclear Materials. From 1974 to 1976, he served as a member of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Bilateral Exchange Program and was the organizer and principal investigator of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Fusion Technology Program. In 1979, he was appointed Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

George E. Brown Jr. graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a degree in Industrial Physics. He was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962, where he served for eight years before running for the U.S. Senate. Mr. Brown returned to Congress in 1972, as a representative of his current district (CA-36th) in the Riverside-San Bemadino-Ontario area. Mr. Brown is a senior member of the Agriculture Committee and is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Research and Foreign Agriculture. He is also the ranking Democratic member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee; is the ranking Democratic member on the Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications; and serves on the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology. In addition, he serves on the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, and the Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research and Environment. He was appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 99th Congress and serves on its Subcommittee on Oversight and Evaluation. He is also a member of the congressional Technology Assessment Board.

Joe Clark, Deputy Director of the National Technical Information Service, holds a doctorate in physical chemistry and is the recipient of Villinova University's first distinguished graduate medal in chemistry. He developed statistical models to protect the outdoor life of various materials and conducted research at the National Bureau of Standards on combustion and flammable fabrics. He led the formation of the U.S. Fire Administration and handled information policy issues at OSTP and the White House.

Charles Ferris is the Solicitor to the New Brunswick Ombudsman, an editor with Maritime Law Book Ltd., and a historian. He has written published texts on the subjects of legislation, freedom of information, the Ombudsman, and New Brunswick political history. A member of the International and Canadian Bar Associations, he presently serves as Vice- Chairman of the national Administrative Law Section and Chairman of the provincial Administrative Law Subsection, as well as Canadian Director of the IBAs Ombudsman Forum. He is proponent and a co-author of public and private legislative enactments, including the bylaws of Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton.

David H. Flaherty is a professor of history and law at the University of Western Ontario. He has written extensively on the implications of technology for private and data protection and has acted as a consultant on these issues to governmental bodies in both the United States and Canada. Flaherty has recently completed a comparative examination of the implementation of privacy and data protection laws for the public sector in five countries, which will be published as Protecting Privacy In Surveillance Societies: A Five-Nation Study (University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming). Flaherty's edition of Privacy and Data Protection: An Intemational Bibliography appeared in 1984.

Betty L. Fox became the Special Assistant to the Administrator, Defense Technical Information Center, in March 1987. She has a B.A. degree from the University of Maryland and an MSIS from Catholic University. She was previously the Director for Technical Information at the Defense Nuclear Agency. Ms. Fox has been active in the Special Libraries Association, serving as Chair of the Military Librarians Division and hosting a Military Librarians Workshop.

Paul Klinefelter, the Program Manager for DTIC's Information Analysis Centers, has been with DTIC and its predecessor agencies since 1951, as Director of User Services and Deputy Director of Database Services, among other assignments. He represented the Department of Defense on the principal COSATI panel for six years. A long time member of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), he has been the chairman of the Executive Board for Military Librarians Workshops, of SLA:s Military Librarians Division, and President of the Washington D.C. Chapter.

Joseph A. LaHoud, who hold B.S. and M.S. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is President of the Virginia Small Business Advanced Technology Asociation. He was elected as a delegate from Virginia to the 1986 White House Conference on Small Business. In June, 1986, he co-founded L.C. Technologies, a small consulting firm providing services in the development of computer-based modeling, control, and signal interpretation systems.

Ellen V. McCauley, Director, Office of Information Systems and Technology, is responsible for carrying out DTIC's development program. During her 23 years with DTIC, she has held such positions as Chief, Systems Design Branch and special assistant to the Administrator, DTIC. She holds a B.S. degree from D'Youville College, Buffalo, New York and an MPA from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and is a member of ASIS, the Data Processing Management Association, and Phi Alpha Alpha, the national honor society of Public Administrators.

Charles R. McClure completed his Ph. D. degree from Rutgers University and currently is Professor of Information Studies at Syracuse University. He has written extensively on topics related to government information, including the co-authored works Federal Information Policies in the 1980's (1987), Linking the National Technical Information Service with Academic and Public Libraries (1986), GPO's Depository Library Program (1985), and Public Access to Government Information (1984). He served as co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation study that resulted in the report, Improving the Transfer of Scientific and Technical Information: Yhe Federal Role (1986).

Kurt N. Molholm became the Administrator, Defense Technical Information Center on February 3, 1985. Previously, he was Chief of the Technology Division, Telecommunications and Information Systems, Defense Logistics Agency. Mr. Molholm has a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of Oregon, and an MSA in Administration from George Washington University. He is a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He has been awarded both the DLA Exceptional Civilian Services and the DLA Meritorious Civilian Service Medals. He is a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service and a Director, National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS).

David Plocher is Staff Attorney for OMB Watch, a non-profit research and advocacy organization that monitors the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Mr. Plocher has authored a number of papers on OMB's information and regulatory review powers. A member of the District of Columbia Bar, Mr. Plocher graduated from Antioch School of Law in 1980 and the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1975.

John Shattuck, Vice President of Harvard University and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, received a B.A. from Yale College, M.A. from Cambridge University, and LL.B. from the Yale Law School. A former national staff counsel and legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union, he has taught at the Woodrow Wilson School of Politics at Princeton University and has written numerous articles on civil liberties and constitutional law issues.

J. Timothy Sprehe received his doctorate in sociology from Washington University in 1967. After completing a postdoctorate at Johns Hopkins University and serving two years as Assistant Professor at Florida State University, he entered Federal service as a statistician in 1970. He is currently senior policy analyst in the Information Policy Branch, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, at the Office of Management and Budget. He is the principal author of Circular A-130, "the Management of Federal Information Resources."

William M. Thompson is the Director of Database Services at DTIC. As such, he has functional responsibility to monitor and control the input to and retrieval from centralized DoD STI databases. During his 19 years at DTIC, he has held such varied assignments as Director of the Office of Information Science and Technology, and Chief of the ADP Systems Design Branch. His 35 years of Federal Service also include assignments in the Air Force Office of Aerospace Research, Management and Scientific Information System Division, and 12 years of military R&D service in the Air Force. Mr. Thompson holds a Master's degree in ceramic engineering from Ohio State University and an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University.

Fred W. Weingarten is Program Manager of the Communication and Information Technologies Program at the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). He earned a B.S. degree in engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1962, and a Ph. D. in mathematics from Oregon State University in 1966. He accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the Lawrence Laboratory at Livermore. Prior to his appointment as Program Manager at OTA, he gained recognition, in academia, as an authority on information policy. In 197l, he joined the National Science Foundation to form and direct a program of research in the impacts of computers on society. While with NSF, he also worked on detail to the Privacy Commission, was a member of the State Department Task Force on Transborder Data Flow, and served on task forces of the White House Committee on the Right to Privacy.