[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Case study. State and local FOI. Sunshine open meetings principles.



Sent To: Michael Rogers  Senior Editor Library Journal <rogers@lj.cahners.com>
Cc: Bernie Margolis  BPL President <bmargolis@bpl.org>,
    don@saklad.org (  http://zork.net/~dsaklad  http://GuideToProblematicalLibraryUse.WebLogs.com/stories  )

                Please consider pulling together case study
                 How do you manage?
                 about principles and practice at our cities'
                 public libraries with regard to state and local FOI
                 freedom of information principles and practices, and
                 sunshine open public meetings principles and
                 practices.


                 With denial of service, our Boston Public Library
                 Departmental Reference Desks deflect people from
                 access to legitimately public information on hand at
                 the desk about our municipal public library
                 department and deflect people from access to
                 legitimately public meetings of our municipal public
                 library department committees with delay, additional
                 fees and denial. Fettering information and public
                 meetings in a manner that unreasonably limits
                 interested concerned users, personnel and unions
                 collective bargaining labor relations advocates from
                 participation in long range public library department
                 planning is antithetical and counterintuitive to the
                 very mission and mandate of our cities' public
                 libraries.

                 Contact BPL President Bernie Margolis bmargolis@bpl.org
                 for more details from an institutional point of view.



                Another approach would be with regard to our cities'
                 public libraries as the municipal reference and
                 research centers for the respective cities. Are there
                 Mayoral Directives and City Council Orders outlining
                 for the standard transmittal of city departments
                 public documents to the city public library?... That
                 way Government Documents Departments of our cities'
                 public libraries would be the complete comprehensive
                 repositories that they should be for city public
                 documents including even the public documents of our
                 public libraries departments needed for research and
                 for long range planning. Boston is an example of a
                 bad example when it comes to fettered limited access
                 to public documents. A coordinating acquisition and
                 accession committee is needed with librarians and
                 city officials.

                 Putting ever more municipal public documents on the
                 web is another version of the municipal reading room
                 for urban reference and research.

                 So far, BPL President Bernie Margolis,
                 Mayor Tom Menino, City Clerk Rosaria Salerno and
                 City Council President Michael Flaherty have not
                 really been attentive to the transmittal of city
                 public documents so that the people interested,
                 concerned or affected have unfettered access to study
                 and learn about our city.




Author Information
The incidents described in How Do You Manage? are based on actual
events in libraries across the United States and

LJ welcomes reports of such incidents for possible use in this column.

Send your accounts to How Do You Manage?/Library Journal,
245 W. 17th St., New York, NY 10011 or to mrogers@lj.cahners.com

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>