Contributors to this book include government documents librarians and those working in government offices of scientific and technical information, as well as experts in library science, information science, information administration, and information resources management. Writing for stakeholders in public data and public information, they reveal the latest trends in US public information and describe some of the sources of public information, highlighting how public information can be used to the benefit its users. The book opens with an overview of the government’s public information infrastructure and discussion of citizen information literacy, access to government information in a networked world, and government resources in the classroom. Individual chapters profile the resources and information access methods of agencies including the Government Publishing Office, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, the Department of Energy, NASA, the National Technical Information Service, and the National Agricultural Library. Black and white photos, images, and screen shots are included. The book’s readership includes researchers and organizations that rely on public information. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
Public Knowledge: Access and Benefits, edited by Miriam A. Drake (now deceased) and Donald T. Hawkins, is the first book in years to explore trends and issues for researchers and organizations that rely on U.S. public information. More than a dozen topic experts, information specialists, and government documents librarians discuss the challenges inherent in collecting, preserving, updating, and disseminating a deluge of information generated daily by public sources.They describe agencies at the forefront of managing the information, explore the role of the federal government and its corps of information professionals, and highlight how public data are being consumed by a surprising range of stakeholders in the digital information age. They remind us of the value and diversity of public information, and of the imperative to make it readily available to all American citizens, to whom it belongs. No reader interested in the latter topic can afford to miss Barbie Keiser's closing chapter on open government, Big Data, and the future of public information.
