Government Information Quarterly Contents

Government Information Quarterly

Volume 10, Number 4, 1993

CONTENTS

Discussion Forum
Achieving a Restructured Depository Library Program
Peter Hernon ....................................................................................... 411

SCON is Dead! ... Long Live Project Hermes!
Bruce D. Collins ..................................................................................... 415

Data Integrity Boards: Institutional Innovation and Congressional Oversight
Priscilla M. Regan ................................................................................. 443

Interagency Public Access Conference: Summary Report
Reed Phillips and Theresa Carroll ............................................................ 461

Contributors ............................................................................................. 477

Reviews
John A. Shuler, Editor

Chronology of Selected Literature, Reports, Policy, Instruments,
and Significant Events Affecting Federal Scientific and Technical Information (STI)
in the United States, 1945-1990
By Thomas E. Pinelli et al.
Reviewed by Diane Bradley ..................................................................... 479

Identifying and Describing Federal Information Inventory/Locator Systems:
Design for Network-Based Locators
By Charles R. McClure, Joe Ryan, William E. Moen, and Wally Babcock
Reviewed by James T. McDonough ........................................................ 480

Major U.S. Statistical Series: Definitions, Publications, Limitations
By Jean Slemmons Stratford and Juri Stratford
Reviewed by Raeann Dossett ................................................................ 481

Reading the Congressional Record on CD-ROM
By the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Reviewed by Robert E. Dugan ..................................................................... 482

Index
Index/Volume 10 .............................................................................................. 485

SCON is Dead! ... Long Live Project Hermes!

Bruce D. Collins

Today, the Supreme Court of the, United States regularly distributes its opinions and orders electronically immediately upon their announcement from the bench. The story of the high court's move into the computer age is not one of overcoming technical problems so much as one of overcoming political problems. The result was that a coalition of legal-information providers and news organization, and associations, called the Supreme Court Opinion Network (SCON), was formed to address the Court's peculiar requirements. This article describes not only the computer system that ultimately emerged, Project Hermes, but also the lengthy and circuitous route the Court felt it necssary to take in achieving a rather straightforward techical goal. This decidedly human story of coalition building and management of perceptions is told from the perspective of one who was at the center of the effort over a four-year period--one of SCON's founding directors and its president.

Data Integrity Boards: Institutional Innovation
and Congressional Oversight

Priscilla M. Regan

This article is a preliminary analysis of the first few years of the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (CMPPA). The act requires Federal agencies to establish Data Integrity Boards (DIBs) with responsibility to approve written agreements for computer matches in which their agencies are invo1ved. Information for this analysis was collected from the annual reports on computer matching submitted by agencies to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for 1990 and 1991 and from 108 matching agreements. The secretaries of several DIBs were also interviewed. The effectiveness of DIBs and matching agreements are analyzed using McCubbins and Schwartz's distinction between "police-patrol" and "fire-alarm" oversight. The article concludes that more active and direct oversight, which would occur through an independent data protection or privacy board, is necessary.

Interagency Public Access Conference:
Summary Report

Reed Phillips
Theresa Carroll

The article analyzes the third in a series of interagency workshops whose purpose has been to develop a policy framework for improving public access to agency information. The agencies are clearly demonstrating a determination to assume a leadership role on information policy issues.

Contributors
Theresa Carroll is Director for Special Programs in the Department of Commerce's Office of Information Resources Management (OIRM), where she is responsible for formulating department-wide policies for electronic data interchange (EDI) and for developing and overseeing the Department's EDI program and the new Electronic Commerce initiative. She also directs the OIRM quality improvement effort and is responsible for the Department's electronic information dissemination program. She currently chairs the Department's Electronic Commerce Planning Committee and the Interagency Council on Total Quality Management in IRM. Theresa Carroll holds a Masters of Science in Applied Statistics from Villanova University and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Chestnut Hill College.

Bruce D. Collins is Corporate Vice President and General Counsel of C-SPAN, the cable television industry's public affairs television network. Prior to his service at C- SPAN, which began shortly after it was founded in 1979, he served as director of government relations for the National Cable Television Association. He also worked on Capital Hill as a legislative aide to a congressman for three years, including work on two congressional campaigns in New York. He is co-chair of the ABA's National Conference of Lawyers and Representatives of the Media and sits on the board of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment. He is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania. He holds a B.S. from Cornell University and a J.D. from the National Law Center at George Washington University.

Reed Phillips joined the Department of Commerce as Director, Information Resources Management in May 1985. Previously, he was Vice President, Marketing for Advanced Information Management (AIM), a Washington area-based international consulting firm, and before that he was Vice President, Systems Engineering with the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in New York. He performed some of this nation's earliest pioneering work in Information Resources Management (IRM) as Director, IRM for the Department of the Interior from July 1980 to August 1983. He previously served as Director, Information Systems Development with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Reed is a former Marine Corps Colonel and Vietnam Veteran. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Iowa and an M.S. in Computer Science and Management Information Systems from the American University. He is past President of the national Society for Information Management (SIM); past Chairman, Associated Information Managers (AIM); past Chairperson, Association for Federal Information Resources Management (AFFIRM); and past Chairman, Capital Area Chapter, Society for Information Management. He is a member, Editorial Review Board, Information Management Review Magazine and on the Advisory Board for DataPro Reports on Information Security.

Priscilla M. Regan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University. Prior to that, she was a Senior Analyst at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, where she was the principal author of Electronic Record Systems and Individual Privacy (1986) and Electronic Surveillance and Civil Liberties (1985). She is the author of numerous articles on privacy and information systems, and is currently completing a book on privacy, technology, and public policy. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1981.

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