DLF Interest Group on Records Transparency/Accountability

A new DLF Interest Group on Government Records Transparency and Accountability was launched in early 2017 by organizer Rachel Mattson. Please read the announcement and join!

Get Involved

A Google Group will be used for coordination of meetings and collaborative work. You are welcome to sign up! (and be sure to adjust your settings to receive mail)

Past meeting minutes, announcements for future calls, and details on projects will be posted to our wiki page.

Scope of Work

Some possible directions for this group’s endeavors include:

  • Learn, listen, gather info, ask questions. Reach out to organizations already doing smart work in the area of government sunshine, FOIA, public records transparency, and government accountability, and learn all that we can about their work. Where are these groups putting their efforts? What are the central concerns, questions, and debates they consider to be important? Which groups do we want to make connections to? Also: what are librarians and archivists already doing in this area? How might we extend and contribute to this work?
  • Consider, discuss, and outline the ways in which this work, these questions, overlaps with our own areas of expertise and labors. How might we bring conversations about transparency and accountability into our schools, workplaces, and professional communities?
  • Consider, discuss, and work toward understanding how we might use our expertise and situated-ness to support increased public records transparency and accountability at the local, state, and federal levels.
  • Share what we learn with the broader DLF and library/archives community (and beyond?).
  • Support Endangered Data Week. Spearheaded by a dedicated group of collaborators in collaboration with DLF, this distributed event is in planning for February 25–March 1, 2019. It is designed to bring “awareness to different types of threats to publicly available data; engage with the power dynamics involved in data creation, sharing, and retention; and make endangered data more secure and accessible.” More information here.
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