About the AuthorIn the Spring 1993 issue of TWL readers were invited to submit accounts of “specific instances where a government decision was shaped to some degree by information from a library.” An avalanche was not anticipated, nor did it materialize. Direct approaches to a number of internationalist librarians have brought generally vague responses to the query. In truth it seems that such incidents — which we would like to imagine as daily occurrences — are rare and far between. However, some interesting cases have been reported, and they are offered here for inspiration and guidance.
Let us think first of what a library role ought to be in the formation of governmental policy. L.O. Aina (University of Botswana) sent me a stimulating overview of this question in a most interesting paper, which I regret we cannot print in its entirety. In his abstract, Professor Aina says:
| It is generally believed that decision making by the leadership at the governmental level is beset with a lot of flaws because of the limited alternatives usually available to the cadre of senior civil servants and experts upon which the leadership at governmental level in Africa relies heavily.... These flaws have resulted in several crises facing the continent... . These flaws can be minimized if libraries can provide relevant documents to senior civil servants and experts in order to give them an increasing number of competing alternatives when a decision is about to be taken... . Each ministry should have a qualified librarian whose duty will be to collect and disseminate relevant documents to technocrats in the ministry or panelists of a commission of enquiry when a decision is about to be made. The national library of each country should also be mandated to index government gazettes, reports of commissions of enquiry, and other important government documents. |
Of course Aina’s clear agenda can be applied outside Africa. It calls for libraries to give officials what are often called “scenarios” — different procedures and anticipated results based on best information available. Aina’s target group are the civil servants, who are known to have the greatest influence on decision making by the leadership. He believes that the lack of a tradition in Africa (in fact, nearly everywhere) for the utilization of libraries by government requires assertive tactics by librarians, such as “the provision of current awareness services to decision makers in areas that will help them make effective policy; and the abstracting of relevant documents.” At the very least, provision of current awareness and abstracts on topics under review would avoid duplication of effort. (Aina cites a 1975 debacle in Nigeria when the Minister of Health set up a fact–finding commission to investigate a problem that had just been examined and reported on by another commission created by his predecessor.)
This model, conceived in a Third World context, is similar to one presented by D. J. Foskett of Britain. He goes into more detail on the part played by the civil service:
| It is the task of ministry civil servants to prepare briefs based on information assembled from documents, which their minister can use in debates in the chamber of parliament to persuade its members to reach wise decisions. They will also consult outside bodies of experts, such as industry and the professions, both as a regular practice and especially when a report is called for on a particular subject of high topical interest. ... A long–established practice in Europe has been to set up an academy, supported by the state: an Academy of Sciences, and an Academy of Social Sciences can be found in all parts of the world. In China, for example, these have been accorded a very high authority as advisers to the government. |
Foskett makes a further point of importance: it is not only nationally based libraries that have an impact on decision making, but libraries at local levels as well, because they enable citizens to “bring grass–roots opinion to bear on local and national government decision–making... .” “All types of library have a role to play in ensuring that the decision–makers at every level do so on the basis of research and information, and not on ill–conceived or ill–informed prejudices.”
For a more detailed elucidation of the library function at government level, we have an interesting statement from John Harvey (Cyprus):
| Examples of the functions of government libraries are the following: serves as a depository for the publications of its own government agency, of other government agencies, of comparable agencies in other countries; serves as a depository for data; provides information on the policies and practices followed by other countries in establishing legislation of the same kind needed locally. Not only is the legislation of their own and other countries provided, but also the history, data, examples, and case studies of other governments. ... Government libraries can be helpful in telling the drafter of legislation what other countries are doing about the subject of the legislation. |
A communication from Benki S.H. Womboh (Nigeria) reminds us that “to teach Latin one needs to know Latin first.” Librarians have the responsibility to learn what the government priority programs are, to study what elements of the decision process will require what specific types of information. Beyond that, the proactive librarian
| could go even further by way of outreach or extension work ... by initiating development programmes for the government and helping them to take the right decisions regarding such programmes. Librarians could observe a problem, make a detailed analysis, rank available courses of action, and pass these facts over to the government ... [but] librarians would have to do a lot of salesmanship in order to convince government officials of their capability to assist and even participate in decision making. |
In the largest sense, libraries influence decisions by providing the materials to their users which give exercise in comparing alternatives. This concept, generally associated with the British librarian A. Broadfield, was elucidated in a communication from Grete Pasch in Guatemala:
| Universities have the mission of forming citizens. For example, at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín, our mission is to teach the principles of freedom and free enterprise, and this is reflected in our collection, which houses the works of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, etc. ... Students will become part of an educated elite ... will graduate and continue to shape public opinion and policy through their activities, including government positions and non–government leadership roles. |
As for concrete examples of library assistance to government decision makers, we have some particulars from John Harvey:
| When I was working in the Iranian Documentation Centre in Tehran, 1968–71, the Irandoc collection was useful to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education staff members who wrote up new policies for government adoption. Some of these policies dealt with the atomic energy research then going on in Iran and others with overall higher education policies. |
| Recently the librarian of the Cyprus legislature recounted instances to me of Cypriot legislators using her library to learn how the British Parliament handled certain matters of social importance before determining what to recommend to their own colleagues in Nicosia. |
| In 1990 Cyprus drafted legislation establishing a government ombudsman. Before doing that they read several books and journal papers about the history of government ombudsmen in other countries, especially in Sweden where the idea started long ago. The books and journals came from the material kept handy by the president’s administrative staff members in the Presidential Palace Library. |
From Jamaica, ever a model of library planning and action, there is an interesting report. Sheila Lampart (executive director of NACOLAIS—the National Council on Libraries, Archives and Information Systems) notes the rarity of direct involvement by librarians in Third World government decision–naking. The situation is better in her country:
| The government of Jamaica, in recognition of the value of information for the development process, approved in 1973 the establishment of a national coordinating body to plan and implement the development of a National Information System (NIS). The chief objective was the ensure the speedy provision of information as needed for national development. |
The NIS, structured on a series of networks, involving all types of libraries—national, public, academic, special—and based on voluntary cooperation, achieved a significant measure of progress and success although it was still not fully automated. A national referral service at the National Library of Jamaica plays a key role in directing clients to sources of information.
Special attention was given to the coordination of special libraries in the public and private sectors. Three information networks for socio/economic, scientific and technical, and legal information—to facilitate the provision of information to government—were established. Examples of the value of libraries in decision–making by government are drawn from the focal points of these networks.
When the Government of Jamaica was considering the timing for deregulation of a particular industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Library proved especially useful in being able to retrieve quickly all material on recent European community discus-sions on the topic—both internal Community negotiations and comments from Lomé Convention administrators on the potential impact for participating countries. The government was able to take an informed decision on the matter. AS a depository for EEC publication, the MFA Library had achieved both the organization of the collection and a knowledge of its contents.
In contrast, a library which is the depository for World Bank publications containing important information for government negotiators was unable to provide critical negotiating points when needed, because there was no direct relationship between the librarian and the research agenda of the institution.
A government agency was faced with finding a solution to the problem of post–harvest losses of fruit, vegetables, and spices. It was the Library and Documentation Centre of the Scientific Research council which provided the information for the construction and use of solar dryers for the preservation of such crops. The introduction of this technology proved successful and is now being increasingly used in Jamaica and is also being shared with other Caribbean countries.
Lampart stresses the necessity for both government and librarians to take responsibility for useful information flow:
Timely and effective decision–making by governments of developing countries can be facilitated through greater use of libraries and librarians. Government must however be prepared to involve librarians at the planning level in order to ensure the provision of information materials when needed, to increase its support for the recruitment, training, and retention of appropriate staff, and for the development and maintenance of effective information systems and services. The integration of information resources in an institution—the library, the registry, and the management information system—will also result in rationalisation of staff and information resources, and more efficient provision of information to those in the development process. Librarians themselves must make it their business to be aware of the objectives and information needs of their institutions, use their professional techniques to access and organize the information, ensure knowledge of their collections, and meet in a timely and efficient manner the information required by their clients. |
In a mature form, the Lampart model is exhibited in the arrangements that has emerged in some of the industrialized countries, e.g., in the library service in the Canadian Parliament, or the Congressional Information Service of the U.S. Library of Congress. For developing countries, it may be that the first step for the library profession to work toward inclusion of library components national planning (cf., the editorial in TWL at http://www.worlib.org/vol03no2/index.shtml") and national policy (cf., an account of the Norwegian library policy in TWL at http://www.worlib.org/vol01no2/granheim_v01n2.shtml). No one will say that the issues are easy objectives to meet. It may be germane to review some of the problem encountered in achieving centrality for library services in the minds of government officials.
Sheila Allcock (University of Bradford, U.K.) has written about one dimension of the problem, in an article she kindly sent to me: “Development Planners and Libraries : A Survey of Attitudes,” Information Development 2 (April 1988): 86–90. Her observations stem from the courses offered at the University of Bradford, Project Planning Centre, for development planners Third World countries. A survey of the Spring 1987 registrants brought responses from 114 persons from 33 nations. Intended to examine “library awareness” among the respondents, the survey found that
the majority... seemed to have a positive view of libraries and their potential usefulness. It was surprising how many could make spontaneous suggestions as to the need for better display of what stock there was, more systematic cataloguing, better information as to new items added to the library, and the advantages to be gained by interlibrary cooperation. Unfortunately, behind these suggestions is the implication that the librarians they had encountered were not performing these tasks professionally. The explicit statements quoted in the analysis about the need for helpfulness and a welcoming atmosphere also reflect badly on the librarians they had encountered in their work. These reactions give rise to speculation about how much interaction there is between librarians and other staff in development institutions, a limited acquaintance with the situations in Indonesia and Nigeria suggests that there are situations where librarians do not feel that they are professionals on an equal footing with other professionals in the organization... . With such feelings of inferiority, the librarian is likely to provide a reactive service, responding to demands made by other staff, rather than a proactive service, initiating ideas and offering services perhaps not expected, such as selective dissemination of information... . |
Allcock’s recommendation echo much of what has been said by others: librarians in developing countries, if they are going to work effectively with government officials, must have “sufficient feedback about the kinds of information which are relevant to the various projects ...”; need sufficient resources; and must maintain “working relationship with non–library staff... on a basis of mutual respect for the particular skills that each can bring to the common task of making the most effective use of the limited resources available for development.”
Well, enough for today. My thanks to the individuals quoted above, and to others whose comments were not mentioned (being duplicative of the general line of thought suggested). It would be good to hear of further specific success stories. At the moment I am left with the conclusion that librarians have to do more to be accepted by the development planners and government decision–makers. As much as we may believe that the governments ought to be smart enough to build information resources into their thoughts and plans, it is apparent that they do not automatically do so. There must be confidence in the ability of a library system to deliver useful, timely data, or the call for assistance will not go out. The active role for librarians is much more likely to be successful than a proactive one. To a large extent we have to say, as we confront the gap between governments and libraries, that “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” But having said it, we should meditate as well on another passage from Julius Caesar : “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
Guy A. Marco is Editor of Third World Libraries.
© 1993 Guy A. Marco.
Citation
Marco, Guy A., “Symposium: Libraries and Government Decision Making,” Third World Libraries, Volume 4, Number 1 (Fall 1993).