The Future of Government Information

James R. Jacobs, U.S. Government Information Librarian at Stanford, and James A. (Jim) Jacobs, Data Services Librarian Emeritus at UC San Diego, have collaborated for over two decades in the academic applications of government information, often leading to confusion due to their shared names. In 2004, they were part of a group of co-founders of the widely utilized website, Free Government Information – which began as a way to publicize their 2005 article in the Journal of Academic Librarianship entitled “Government Information in the Digital Age: the Once and Future Federal Depository Library Program.” Most recently, they co-authored an award-winning book titled Preserving Government Information: Past, Present, and Future, which is available online at no cost.

The award will be presented this month in Chicago during the annual conference of the American Library Association (ALA), which is celebrating its 150th anniversary. Their book has been selected for the 2026 Margaret T. Lane / Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award, one of the prestigious honors presented annually by the ALA’s Government Documents Round Table (GODORT). This award is given to an author or co-authors for exceptional published research—such as books, articles, or occasional papers—in which government information, whether published or archival, forms a significant portion of the documented research. The committee commended “the authors’ carefully constructed exploration of the historical and current practices of the preservation of government information.”

In the opening of their book, Jacobs and Jacobs highlight a fundamental issue: “The digital information that the US federal government publishes is not being adequately preserved. Information is being permanently lost every day. This is an odd situation because there is a virtually universal consensus that government information should be preserved, and the government itself has the responsibility for ensuring that preservation. This problem exists because almost all government information is now published online and the existing preservation infrastructure was designed for paper-based information, not for digital information.”
 

The outdated infrastructure is far from the only challenge. In recorded interviews with the New Books Network and the Internet Archive, the two authors discussed the complexities of gathering and reconciling information from various federal agencies and institutions, highlighting the urgent need for a distributed Digital Preservation Infrastructure to unify these efforts. They examine the transition from print to digital and how gaps in preservation pose risks to accountability, research, and democracy itself. Furthermore, they outline the necessary steps to safeguard the public record in an era when essential materials can vanish with a simple click.

Jacobs and Jacobs identified the most significant gaps in the records of the executive branch, which is not only the largest but also has the capability to willfully alter or erase information. This issue has been partially addressed since 2008 by the End of Term Archive, a large-scale collaborative initiative in which the Stanford University Libraries have long participated, aimed at preserving websites during administration transitions. The Libraries have also been actively involved in wider web archiving efforts for over 15 years, focusing particularly on at-risk sites both domestically and internationally, as well as local Bay Area government resources. The archived information is stored locally in the Stanford Digital Repository.

“Stanford’s main library was designated as a federal depository library in 1895 by the U.S. Government Publishing Office, with the Robert Crown Law Library receiving an additional designation in 1978,” said Michael A. Keller, the Ida M. Green University Librarian. He added: “University research libraries serve many important functions in the distribution of government information, including providing access and assistance to the public, hosting educational events, and facilitating Freedom of Information Act requests. As this excellent book demonstrates, they also play an increasingly vital role in building the infrastructure for collecting and preserving born-digital materials.”

There is a consensus among major federal depository libraries that both technological and policy reforms are essential. Cass Hartnett, U.S. Documents Librarian at the University of Washington, noted in a review of the book: “In artfully critiquing many projects, studies, ad hoc groups, and agencies that have gone before, the authors provide a non-technical introduction to what is needed right away: an open digital preservation infrastructure. Jacobs and Jacobs offer a well-researched distillation of our collective wisdom and our digital and tangible pasts, a mind-opening theoretical review, and thank goodness, a path forward.”

Preserving Government Information: Past, Present, and Future serves as both a warning and a rallying call, reminding us that the preservation of our governmental heritage is not only a responsibility of the authorities but also a shared obligation of society as a whole.