What is Information Policy and Why Should We Care?

Information policy impacts my ability to do my job and that is why I have always been active in following what is going on in regards to national and state government. I found out early on in my career that, especially in education, it is very important to know what is going on that can impact my profession. I realize through the various historical aspects that we have read about that while staying informed on current events I have neglected the past and we all know what happens when we don’t learn from the past. Relyea (2008), McDermott (2007), and Herndon et al. (2002) present a comprehensive historical look at public policy as it relates to information and access to information. It was interesting to see while they all presented information on some of the same legislation they each had their own slant on the issues. While it seems that there is some agreement on the past, there is no exact agreement as to which constitutes a definition of “information policy.” Duff (2004) goes back to the argument that maybe we first need a definitive idea of what information is before we can define information policy.

In reading Jones (1984), Anderson (2006), McDermott (2007) and McClure (1999) we are presented with the question of what is information policy and why should we care about it. I like McClure’s (1999) concise definition of “interrelated principals, laws, guidelines, rules and regulations, directives, procedures, judgments, interpretations, and practices that guide the creation, management, access and use of information” (p. 307). The “creation” part of this definition of information policy really struck me and caused me pause for thought. I guess I am on the other side of the coin, in that I am a librarian and always worried about access issues. Yet in this age of Web 2.0 and the participatory culture that is growing up because of it the “creation” aspect is becoming more and more important. In fact we are already seeing an increase in copyright and intellectual freedom issues coming to light.

I also found interesting the idea that information policy can be considered a sort of “meta” policy in that it affects all other policy systems. This makes sense to me because of the assumed multidisciplinary aspect of information science in general. As for the why we should care question, I have to say I am inspired by McDermott’s (2007) passion and identify with her cynicism! I am coming to realize that I need to be concerned more about the bigger picture of information policy. I tend to focus on my own small world of education and what I see as having a direct impact on my students and me as an educator. For example, when ALAWON sends out briefs or alerts that don’t relate to school libraries, education or children I tend to hit the delete key. Though through these readings it is becoming clear that everything trickles down and does impact me as an information professional.


References
Anderson, J. (2006). Public policy making (6th ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Duff, A. F. (2004). The past, present, and future of information policy. Information, Communication & Society, 7, 69-87.

Jones, C. O. (1984). An introduction to the study of public policy (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA:Wadsworth Publishing Corp.

McClure, Charles R. (1999). United States information policy. In K. Allen (Ed.) Encyclopedia of library and information science [Electronic version] (vol. 65, pp. 306-314). New York: Marcel Dekker.

McDermott, P. (2007). Who needs to know? The state of public access to federal government information. Washington DC: Bernan Press.

Relyea, H. (2008). Federal government information policy and public policy analysis: A brief overview. Library & Information Science Research 30, 2-21. Retrieved January 5, 2009, from ScienceDirect database.