| Abstract: | Abstract The National Commission on Libraries and Information Science published recommendations for a national information policy in 1976, and concerns regarding the protection of privacy and equal public access to online information were introduced. From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s, federal government agencies were beginning to publish materials and maintain records electronically. Most current U.S. government information was available on the Internet by the late 1990s, and depository libraries were required to provide workstations that would facilitate access to documents. Documents librarians, already concerned with the lack of attention to archiving online federal information, were provided with an example of the vulnerability of online publications in the early 2000s when federal agency Web sites were made inaccessible-quickly and easily. The possibility that too much government information was available to anyone with access to the Internet was becoming a national concern. Using government documents as resources, this article retraces the events that were occurring in federal government agencies during the movement of government information to the Internet. |
