fine libraries away from their historical functions as curators
Transformative E-Government and Public Service 43
of information. Instead, libraries perform different functions in the context
of supporting connections between patrons and information, primarily
through promoting digital literacy and serving in social work capacities to
help patrons through major life needs, like applying for social services and
seeking employment online.
Similarly, librarians are shifting from information intermediaries to
information-based service intermediaries. This means they need to know
more about the services than the information content itself, representing a
transformation from the librarian as reference for information to the librar-
ian as intermediary to online services. Helping patrons work with e-gov-
ernment websites and services and fi
filling out online applications requires
the ability to both impart digital skills and the knowledge of what content
is necessary to fi
fill the major life need and the ways to accomplish the neces-
sary tasks. Public librarians now do not just provide information, they work
the structure, content, and delivery mechanisms of information to best suit
their communities and individual patrons. As information intermediaries,
librarians take information and transform it to so that it contributes needed
value to their communities.
The importance of intermediation represents a transformation of work
of librarians. As part of the initial push for e-government by the federal
government in late 1990s and early 2000s, a key part of the argument was
that e-government would connect citizens directly to government without
any need of an intermediary, what was commonly called “G-2-C” service.
However, it is clear that intermediaries are still necessary for many citizens
in many transactions, with users engaging government through a range of
both technologies and service outlets staff
ffed with people. And, in some
cases, a librarian is serving as the intermediary.
Eff ecti
ff
ve library/government partnerships, such as those detailed above,
present another form of government transformation—building new commu-
nity services and roles based on the Internet and e-government. Many of the
partnerships present the delivery of services that neither libraries nor govern-
ment agencies are capable of independently, and all of these partnerships meet
specifi c ne
fi
eds in their surrounding communities. The Baltimarket program,
using library computers to bring groceries into a food desert, acts to alleviate
a major problem while also promoting digital literacy and empowerment with
health information. The other examples discussed above, from immigration
processes to social services, show similarly innovative approaches to bridging
library and government agency resources and skills.
These partnerships not only are transforming what libraries and govern-
ment agencies can provide to their communities, they are also transforming
the relationships between libraries and other government agencies. Through
these partnerships, government agencies benefi
fit not only from the ability to
provide services they would not otherwise be able to, they benefit from the
association with public libraries. As public libraries are consistently rated
as the most trusted government institution, e-government and partnerships
44 John Carlo Bertot, Paul T. Jaeger, and Natalie N. Greene
have served to align other government agencies with public libraries in the
minds of community members.
The relationship between public libraries and e-government has also
served to transform government itself. Public libraries—by ensuring that
members of the public have the access and training necessary to use e-gov-
ernment—have facilitated the growth of e-government. Without librarians
being able and willing to serve as intermediaries between members of the
public and e-government information, communication, and services, gov-
ernment agencies would not have been able to close so many physical offi
ffices
and move so many services online.
A fi
final transformation through the interaction between governments,
libraries, and users, is the transformation of communities. E-government
service roles of public libraries respond to community needs that can span
broad societal issues such as literacy, nutrition, health, child and family
welfare, and employment, for example. Thus, the transformations can
extend to communities as libraries and governments work together through
e-government services.
These transformations of public libraries demonstrate the many ways
in which e-government has changed both social institutions and govern-
ment. Public libraries have been an essential, if scarcely noticed, part
of the expansion of e-government in the United States. In the process,
their activities have been signifi
ficantly changed, as have the expecta-
tions for libraries by patrons and governments and the jobs of librarians.
While in most cases these changes have resulted in more responsibilities
and less funding for libraries, they also have facilitated new ways to
serve communities. However, public policy does not account for these
transformations.
For all of their support in the growth and functioning of e-government,
public libraries have not been rewarded through policy decisions. Public
libraries are increasingly envisioned as part of the national infrastructure to
promote connected and inclusive communities, an expectation made clear
in the Federal Communication Commission’s The National Broadband
Plan (2010) that openly acknowledges the reliance of the federal govern-
ment on public libraries for delivering e-government and teaching digi-
tal literacy. However, the funding sources for public libraries are almost
entirely local, with less than 1 percent of funding for libraries coming from
the federal government (Davis, 2011). As a result, the federal government is
increasingly using libraries to deliver its information, communication, and
services without contributing in any meaningful way to their funding. The
concurrent defunding of public libraries at both the state and local levels
creates even more pronounced disjunctions between the government expec-
tations for libraries and the levels of government support of libraries. For
public libraries to continue to meet these vital needs, policies at local, state,
and federal levels must better account for the transformed roles that public
libraries now play in society and refl
flect the enormous level of reliance by
the federal government on libraries.
Transformative E-Government and Public Service 45
Public libraries can survive and thrive in these transformed roles, as the
innovative partnerships to meet community needs demonstrate. However,
if policy decisions simultaneously bleed libraries of their resources and con-
tinue to pile on add
itional social responsibilities, libraries will not be able
to continue to operate, much less meet patron and government needs. As
policy decisions are made related to libraries, it would serve policy-makers
well to consider what the level of success of e-government and related pub-
lic services would be without public libraries to guarantee access and assis-
tance. Indeed, the success of some e-government services will likely depend
on the ability of libraries and other intermediary institutions to serve as
community-based providers of e-government services.
NOTES
1.
More
recently released public library e-government survey data are available
at http://www.plinternetsurvey.org.
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5 A
Green Revolution
Innovation and Transformation
in the Use of ICT by the Irish
Department of Agriculture
Frank Bannister, Regina Connolly,
and Philip O’Reilly
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In the late 1990s, the Irish Department of Agriculture’s 30-year-old com-
puter systems were in crisis. After a near disaster in 1998 the Department
launched an ambitious 5-year strategic plan to completely modernize its
information and communications technology (ICT). The plan called not
only for a shift from the old mainframe technology to a modern distributed
computing architecture but for a change in mindset; regarding technology
as a vehicle for delivering direct benefi
fits to farmers and agribusiness in
the form of better services, new services, lower costs, and less paperwork.
The multiple outcomes of this process have resulted in a transformation
in the ways that farmers interact with the department and have led to a
whole range of innovative services. This chapter describes the particular
approach taken, the multiple benefits of this transformation and some of
the lessons learned.
1 INTRODUCTION
Historiography is a small but growing area of interest in computer and
information systems research (Mason et al., 1997a; 1997b; Bannister,
2002). A premise of historiography is that there are useful lessons than can
be learned from the past. This chapter presents a historiographical study of
the development of ICT in the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and
Fisheries (DAFF) over a period of 40 years. Refl
flecting the subject matter of
this book, the emphasis will be on the last 15 years though events during
the earlier period will be briefl y o
fl
utlined. The reason for this time frame is
that in late 1998 the department was
confronted by a number of crises that
forced it to rethink its entire approach to its computer systems. The story
of how this was done and what was learned from this experience provides
the core of this chapter.
48 Frank Bannister, Regina Connolly, and Philip O’Reilly
Historiography diff
ffers from conventional case study research both in
the time frame and in the more limited nature of the evidence that is
available. It can be approached from a theory generation perspective and
from a purely narrative perspective. There are also many possible research
questions a historical study might seek to answer. In this chapter two
questions are addressed: what happened and what lessons for practice
emerge from this?
In the 1990s, the DAFF experienced four major crises. The cause of each
was diff
fferent: two major changes in the common agricultural policy (CAP),
an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and the discov-
ery of serious failings in the department’s accounting systems. A common
thread running through each of these crises was the department’s computer
system, which during this period struggled to cope with the changes and
demands being placed on it.
It should not have been thus. The department had been one of the fi
first
Irish departments of state to acquire a large computer in 1969. But poor
management understanding of the potential of ICT and other priorities
meant that by 1990 the department’s systems were dated and inflexible
whilst morale in the IT department was low. To make matters worse,
the IT group had split into two hostile camps. Problems with the systems
came to a head in 1998. Following a “systems review” of the department,
senior management decided to act and for the fi
first time in its history, the
department commissioned a strategic information systems plan (SISP) and
recruited a Chief Information Offi
fficer (CIO). The brief for the new CIO
was a formidable one. The requirement was to turn the ship around by
replacing and/or upgrading aging legacy systems, changing a top manage-
ment culture which had long been dismissive of the value of IT, integrating
two powerfully opposed IT groups into one, modifying a department wide
culture which viewed IT as a problematic and underperforming operation
Public Sector Transformation Through E-Government Page 9
