John Carlo Bertot

University of Maryland, College Park | UMD, UMCP, University of Maryland College Park · Academic Affairs

Governments need to adapt to changes in their internal and external environments and create systems that allow them to scan trends, identify developments, predict their potential impact on the organization, and quickly learn how to implement changes to their standard operating procedures. As a response, government organizations are adopting agile a...

This article presents key data, findings, and analysis fromthe 2013 Digital Inclusion Survey, which is a national study of the ways in which public libraries promote digital inclusion in their communities. Survey questions addressed the provision of various public access technologies and infrastructure, educational efforts and training offerings re...

The role that the Internet has played in redefining the activities of public sector organizations is well-documented. What has yet to be fully explored, however, are recent collaborations among community-oriented entities (local government agencies, public libraries, and non-profit organizations) to provide enhanced services through innovative uses...

In view of the rising social and economic inequalities, public service delivery should be both universal, i.e. independent of the recipients' social or economic status, and contextualized, i.e. able to compensate for different local needs and conditions. Reconciling both properties requires various forms of innovations, chief among them innovations...

The leadership mindset and associated skills have become a mainstay in the education and practice of information professionals. Our own policies, pedagogies, and attitudes become part and parcel of the educational environment we foster and serve as role models for students. Guided by the discussion of selected human resources practices at Google, a...

This paper proposes the Digital Public Service Innovation Framework that extends the " standard " provision of digital public services according to the emerging, enhanced, transactional and connected stages underpinning the United Nations Global e-Government Survey, with seven example " innovations " in digital public service delivery – transparent...

Concern over rising inequality in society and the challenges of creating sustainable communities through access to opportunity, underlie the recent United Nations 2030 Sustainability Goals. In addition, demographic changes, population growth, population mobility, and other community factors create further pressures to ensure an inclusive society th...

The 9th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2016) took place under the high patronage of the Presidency of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay in Montevideo, Uruguay, from 1 to 3 March 2016. It was co-organized by the Agency for Electronic Government and Information Society of Uruguay (AGESIC) and the United...

The role that the Internet has played in redefining the activities of public sector organizations is well-documented. What has yet to be fully explored, however, are recent collaborations among community-oriented entities (local government agencies, public libraries, and non-profit organizations) to provide enhanced services through innovative uses...

PurposeThis chapter introduces the role that libraries have played in the struggle for equity and access for people with disabilities. It explores the historical evolution of the library and its service to patrons with disabilities and the significance that the now dominant role of the Internet and digital library resources hold in the realm of equ...

PurposeThis chapter explores the historical and evolving relationship between human rights, social justice, and library support of these efforts through physical and digital access, as well as relevant legal frameworks. Methodology/approachWe explore the connection between libraries, technology, human rights, and social justice. The human rights an...

The last several years have been marked by a number of societal challenges and changes that include the evolving nature of our economy; the workforce skills needed to succeed in a shifting job market; advances in technology; the changing nature of information; transformations in education and learning approaches; and rapid demographic shifts occurr...

The period of enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” positioned public libraries as a primary place for enrollment for individuals lacking sufficient levels of access or literacy to enroll on their own. Inclusion also thrust public libraries into the middle of a significant political and policy fray about the approp...

Technologists often discuss the intricacies of implementing a technology within a certain technological context-the existing operating systems, protocols, languages, and operating systems in an environment. When discussing public policies related to interaction design, it is important to understand the context of the application area and the variou...

https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=the-policy-gap

Communities face opportunities and challenges in many areas, including education, health and wellness, workforce and economic development, housing, and the environment [21]. At the same time, governments have significant fiscal constraints on their ability to address these challenges and opportunities. Through a combination of open government, open...

The transformative promises and potential of Big and Open Data are substantial for e-government services, openness and transparency, governments, and the interaction between governments, citizens, and the business sector. From «smart» government to transformational government, Big and Open Data can foster collaboration; create real-time solutions t...

When e-government first became a viable solution to the dissemination of government information, experts believed that the rise of direct government-to-citizen (G2C) services would improve government transparency, foster civic engagement, and offer new and innovative service possibilities. It soon became clear, however, that not all users received...

Rural public libraries have been relatively understudied when compared to public libraries as a whole. Data are available to show that rural libraries lag behind their urban and suburban counterparts in technology service offerings, but the full meaning and effect of such disparities is unclear. The authors combine data from the Public Library Tech...

Local communities are turning to new online systems to help motivate and coordinate local volunteerism and problem solving. Inspired by the American barn raising tradition, ACTion Alexandria is designed to help local residents and service-oriented organizations collectively take action to address pressing local needs. This paper introduces "civic a...

This year the Open and Participatory Government minitrack includes six papers that explore several issues related to participation and also to transparency and openness. As always, there is significant international representation. The papers include case studies of participation in budgeting and in redistricting, model building and testing in the...

This Libraries and Policy essay explores the interrelationships between the public library goals of supporting democracy and remaining an apolitical institution and the expectations for demonstration of value and economic contribution at a time in which public discourse emphasizes austerity from public institutions. Libraries’ positions on democrac...

The field of library and information science (LIS) continues to struggle with the issue of diversity and inclusion. As we are perpetually working to increase racial and gender diversity in the profession, the definition of diversity continues to broaden to include socioeconomic status, education, language, literacy, age, sexual orientation, ability...

The promises and potential of Big Data in transforming digital government services, governments, and the interaction between governments, citizens, and the business sector, are substantial. From "smart" government to transformational government, Big Data can foster collaboration; create real-time solutions to challenges in agriculture, health, tran...

This article explores the historical relationships between libraries, policy, and politics in the United States. Far too often, policy and political discussions related to libraries have little historical context. While libraries have long viewed themselves as a pillar of democracy by supporting informed, educated, and engaged citizenry, political...

The news feeds of two U.S. politicians' Facebook sites were examined across 22 months leading up to an election in order to explore changes in social-network-mediated public political discourse over time. Changes over time were observed in who was being ...

Due to an increasing reliance on public libraries to deliver government services online, coupled with decreasing funding for public services, many public libraries have begun to collaborate with local government agencies and community organizations to provide vital services to their communities. Drawing upon findings made through an extensive liter...

Drawing upon findings from a national survey of U.S. public libraries, this paper examines trends in Internet and public computing access in public libraries across states from 2004 to 2006. Based on library-supplied information about levels and types of Internet and public computing access, the authors offer insights into the net- work-based conte...

Public libraries are heavily affected by political and policy-making processes that shape the funding, activities, and roles of libraries in society, with the explosion of information policy decisions in the past two decades significantly increasing the responsibilities of libraries while also increasing limitations on their activities. Research in...

Open government is an approach that purposefully emphasizes and re-invigorates the basic principle of a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people". As e-Government becomes more ubiquitous, many questions arise about the development and maintenance of open and transparent government, citizen engagement in participatory government,...

As e-government grows in scope and complexity, an increasing number of e-government services have surpassed the digital technology access and literacy of many members of the public. The "digitally excluded" often seek information intermediaries - such as public libraries and other community anchor institutions - to bridge their information needs an...

For much of their history in the United States, public libraries made services for immigrants a key part of their mission by offering them many long-term services, such as developing job searching skills and learning English as a second language. Internet-enabled services, such as navigating the citizenship process, establishing residency, and deli...

When e-government first became a viable solution to the dissemination of government information, experts believed that the rise of direct government-to-citizen (G2C) services would improve government transparency and foster civic engagement. It soon became clear, however, that not all users were not getting the type of information or instruction th...

While many studies have discussed the impacts of electronic government (e-government) on public libraries, little research has considered the extent to which the current federal government's implementation of e-government relies on the public technology access, training, and support provided by public libraries. A range of data and policy materials...

Since 1994, 14 reliable national studies have provided longitudinal data revealing and analyzing trends in the public access computing, Internet access, and technology assistance and training that public libraries make available to the communities they serve. This article provides an overview of selected data from the 2012 study; examines major iss...

This article examines the Internet-related responses of public libraries to the sustained economic downturn of recent years. Following a discussion of the changes to the economy and the expected skills for employment that have resulted from the advent of the Internet, this article presents the services that libraries are providing to help patrons t...

This chapter explores the intersections of information policy and government use of social media to interact with members of the public, using the policies and initiatives of the United States federal government as a case study. Following a discussion of the opportunities and challenges that social media presents to governments as a means to intera...

In this poster, we describe phase one of an IMLS-funded project begun in December 2010, wherein a team of researchers from the Information Policy and Access Center at the University of Maryland, assisted by the American Library Association, the University of Chicago-Illinois, and various state library agencies and public libraries, has developed a...

Due to an increasing reliance on public libraries to deliver government services online, coupled with decreasing funding for public services, many public libraries have begun to collaborate with local government agencies and community organizations to provide vital services to their communities. Drawing upon findings made through an extensive liter...

In trying to address pressing community needs in the face of dwindling resources, many government agencies, local community groups, and members of the public have formed symbiotic partnerships at local and state levels to address significant community challenges by marshalling and leveraging community resources. As part of this broad movement of co...

As a means to interact with citizens, social media presents governments with many opportunities and challenges. The ways in which these technologies are framed in policy, particularly information policies, heavily shape resulting government-citizen interactions. This paper uses a policy analysis approach to detail key policy instruments related to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which governments build social media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) into e‐government transparency initiatives, to promote collaboration with members of the public and the ways in members of the public are able to employ the same social media to monitor government...

This paper examines the implications of the continued growth of e-government information, communication, and services for Library and Information Science programs in the United States in light of the development of e-government educational programs and library/government partnerships. The implementation of e-government raises several important chal...

Government agencies are increasingly using social media to connect with those they serve. These connections have the potential to extend government services, solicit new ideas, and improve decision-making and problem-solving. However, interacting via social media introduces new challenges related to privacy, security, data management, accessibility...

The terms digital divide, digital literacy, and digital inclusion have been widely used in discourse related to the Internet over the past two decades. Even though these terms are rarely defined and their meanings shift with changes in technology, these concepts have driven many Internet-related policy decisions in public libraries. This article ex...

Introduction to the Minitrack "Transformational Government"

When the Obama Administration released its Open Government Directive (OGD), agencies received specific guidelines regarding the development of Open Government Plans. The OGDdid not offer agencies guidance on how to assess the attainment of open and transparent government through the implementation of their plans. This paper describes the practical...

The theme of this year's ASIS&T conference inspires us to examine our past, present, and future as a discipline. This panel adopts a similar lens but focuses specifically on the decade that has passed since the events of 9/11 and the subsequent legislative and policy impacts on information. The aim is to provide information professionals and schola...

This chapter explores the implementation and management issues faced by public libraries in the provision of e-government access and education to their patrons and communities. Due to a complex set of factors - policy decisions, widespread trust of libraries, and a lack of social institutions that play similar roles - public libraries now stand as...

This chapter explores the implementation and management issues faced by public libraries in the provision of e-government access and education to their patrons and communities. Due to a complex set of factors – policy decisions, widespread trust of libraries, and a lack of social institutions that play similar roles – public libraries now stand as...

The effectiveness of user interactions and engagement with e-government hinges on the extent to which the information and services being offered are user-centered, and in particular citizen-centered. E-government is not effectively serving users if they cannot find the information and services that they seek due to organizational, educational, poli...

Historically, library usage has increased during economic downturns. In the pre-Internet era, this meant increased usage of print materials and reference services. In the Internet era, however, the number of roles that public libraries can play in serving their communities has expanded greatly. This chapter provides insights into the ways in which...

In the current economic climate, public libraries find themselves in the position of defending and justifying their funding and continued existence to their stakeholders. Many of these public libraries seek to prove their worth to their community through the use of different measurements and metrics to demonstrate quantifiable contributions and dif...

Wayne A. Wiegand, F. William Summers professor of library and information studies and professor of American studies, Florida State University, retires this year. For more than three decades, Wayne’s sustained involvement with librarianship reenergized the profession’s historical studies and brought new conceptual frameworks to the debate. Retiremen...

This proposal describes a panel on the topic of universally usable e-government for the 2011 Digital Government conference. Many e-government services are not universally usable, and this panel will discuss some of the policy approaches for moving towards universally usable e-government services.

This paper analyzes the laws and policies related to the use of social media by U. S. government agencies. We illustrate the complexity of the existing legal framework by discussing laws that govern the use of social media, most of which were written prior to the existence of social media. We then characterize the Obama administration's approach to...

This paper presents a case study of the development of two innovative graduate programs in e-government. The goals of the paper are twofold. First, by detailing the principles and processes of the program's development, the paper demonstrates the importance of these types of education initiatives in LIS and across other academic fields as e-governm...

Access to government information has been considered an essential element of democracy since the foundation of the American republic. Over time, the amount of government information produced has increased significantly, and the rise of e-government has made access to online government information, communication, and services equally vital to partic...

This paper explores the issues faced by public libraries in the provision of e-government access and education to their patrons and communities, particularly through partnerships with other community organizations aimed at promoting social inclusion of disadvantaged populations. Due to a complex set of factors - including policy decisions, widespre...

This special issue of Library Quarterly has privileged readers with a retrospective, current state of library assessment in critical areas of librarianship and a look toward the future of library evaluation. Inherent within these articles are notions of a deep tradition of assessment, progress, challenges, and tensions (not necessarily negative) th...

Researching and evaluating social media initiatives is essential to encourage usage, continually improve the tools and policies governing their use, and develop governance processes that incorporate social media participation in its many forms.

The electronic environment has significantly shifted library capabilities and user expectations for the delivery of government information and services. At the same time, many laws of the federal government have pushed for the creation and distribution of government information through electronic channels. However, the Federal Depository Library Pr...

The Obama administration campaigned on the platform of increased transparency and access to government information after the limitations of the Bush years. As part of this focus on transparency, the Obama administration is emphasizing the use of e-government and new social media services to open up access to government. This paper explores the cons...

In the United States, e-government is a complex mix of federal, state, and local governments; technologies; service paradigms; and policies. There is no single approach to e-government, with a range of e-government applications and set of e-government technologies in effect. Agencies and levels of government have different mandates and approaches r...

U.S. public libraries provide free public internet services to the communities that they serve, but require robust, high-speed broadband internet connections to continue meeting public demands. The 2008–2009 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study (PLFTAS) illustrates challenges that public libraries encounter in achieving broadband connec...

In recent years, many governments have worked to increase openness and transparency in their actions. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are seen by many as a cost-effective and convenient means to promote openness and transparency and to reduce corruption. E-government, in particular, has been used in many prominent, comprehensive t...

The effectiveness of user interactions and engagement with e-government hinges on the extent to which the information and services being offered are user-centered, and in particular citizen-centered. E-government is not effectively serving users if they cannot find the information and services that they seek due to organizational, educational, poli...