In early 2001, the Library Association set up a number of limited life Policy Advisory Groups (PAGs) to prepare reports for the LA Council on a variety of topical subjects. One such PAG, under the Chairmanship of Chris Koster, was set up to cover the area of National information Policies. This PAG decided to commission a report on current developments in NIP in a selected number of overseas countries, to identify areas where the Library Association could usefully prepare papers or lobby government for action. Funding for this report was given by Re:source, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. Following a Tender process, the contract for this research was awarded to the Department of Information Science, Loughborough University. The research was led by Professor Charles Oppenheim and Adrienne Muir. Naomi Hammond and Jane Platts were employed to undertake the original research. Tom Riley, a consultant on National Information Policy based in Canada, provided expert advice for the team. In addition, the authors used contacts in other countries to clarify ambiguities, to distinguish practice from rhetoric, and to obtain an up to date picture where published materials were lacking.
National Information Policies have come to the fore in the UK in recent years, as a result of a large number of initiatives undertaken by the Government, including the National Grid for Learning, efforts to promote e-commerce, the launch of UK online and the stress on e-government placed by the current administration. The remit of the research was to identify significant Government and Government-funded initiatives in a number of aspects of National Information Policy in a variety of developed countries, including Canada, USA, Member States of the European Union, South Africa, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. The activities of certain international bodies, including UN Special Agencies and the European Commission were also noted. The UK (including Northern Ireland) was not studied, as the position of, and initiatives taken by, the UK Government are already well-known to the Library Association.
A copy of the proposal as submitted to the Library Association and Re:source can be found in the Appendix. The approach taken followed this document. The emphasis was on initiatives that were concerned with information, rather than technology. Therefore, policies on telecommunications, on developing local hardware and software industries, on teaching technology skills, and the like were ignored. We also ignored initiatives undertaken by the private sector. Our research was instead focused on initiatives either undertaken directly by Governments themselves, e.g., new legislation, or else initiatives funded by Governments or their agencies, e.g., funding for developing content, for supporting SMEs and the like. We did not look at the routine activities of National Libraries, but have only mentioned particularly significant initiatives. Because of our own limitations, we only looked at English-language source materials. This made examination of French initiatives in particular problematic, and our coverage of France is therefore weaker than we would wish it to be. Inevitably, the emphasis has been on electronic developments, as this is where most of the major initiatives are focused.
Despite the use of local experts where possible, one characteristic we found of this entire area was the tendency of Government Web sites to use hyperbole. Many countries claimed to be the world leaders in (say) developing e-government, when of course by definition there can only be one world leader at anything. Although we tried to guard against being taken in by such hyperbole, it is inevitable that the tenor of the Government Web sites have crept into our descriptions of activities. Wherever possible, we read and used objective and critical overviews of developments in the field. However, we found relatively few such articles, and so were largely dependent upon what the Governments wish their readers to read.
This report is divided into a number of chapters within six broad areas (introduction; broad policy areas; legislation; making it work; information literacy; and conclusions). It begins with this Introduction and a chapter on the methods used. We then consider the broad areas of e-government, content creation and delivery, heritage/legacy, quality of information, social inclusion/universal access and e-commerce. We then consider some of the areas where legislation is important - legal deposit, intellectual property rights, Freedom of Information, and privacy and confidentiality. Then, we briefly consider some of the more technical areas that governments can influence to make it all work, i.e., authenticity/authentication, and metadata and interoperability. We then examine the area of information literacy before drawing up some conclusions and recommendations. Each chapter starts with an introduction, is followed by a country survey with countries in alphabetical order (EU Member States normally within the generic heading of “European Union”) and then ends with a brief conclusion. Where appropriate, another sub-section on other international initiatives carried out by UN Special Agencies or similar bodies is provided. The time period covered is 1997 to date.
This report does not claim to be comprehensive. Because of the extremely tight time schedule we were working to, this report is necessarily limited in its coverage of both topics, and countries. It therefore does not cover all the major countries of the world. It does not cover all the areas that might be considered to fall under the broad heading of “Information Policy”.[1] Each section does not claim to offer a comprehensive literature review of what is available. Rather, it offers a selective list of interesting on-going initiatives.
One thing we also observed was the rapid pace of change in many countries’ attitudes to National Information Policies. Perhaps the only thing that is certain about this report, then, is that by the end of 2002 it will be well out of date.
We wish to thank Re:source for funding this research, and our many correspondents around the world, especially Tom Riley, for assisting us with the text relating to Canada, Denise Nicholson, for assisting us on the text relating to South Africa, and Sheila Webber for her help in the text relating to Information Literacy.
[1] For a review of the broad themes that fall under the heading of National Information Policies, see MacMorrow, N. and Oppenheim, C., Information Policy, in Feather, J. and Sturges, P. (eds.), International Encyclopaedia of Information and Library Science, London: Routledge, 1997, 198-209.