Author archives

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski was born in New Deal, Montana and is from a family of homesteaders. She was Assistant Professor and Director of the Government Documents Department at Central Missouri State University, started a library for EPA Region 7 in Kansas City, Missouri, and served 21 years as a Professional Staff Member for the Joint Committee on Printing of the United States Congress. She chaired the JCP Ad Hoc Committee on Depository Library Access to Federal Automated Data Bases, which laid the groundwork for the passage of the GPO Access Act of 1993. That Act led to the establishment of Fedsys, which provides on line free public access to government information. Bernadine was one of the founders of the American Library Association, Government Documents Round Table. She is the author of “Lobbying for Libraries and the Public’s Access to Government Information” and is a contributing editor to “Unabashed Librarian”. She co-chaired the 2000 Fund Our Library’s Future Committee, which persuaded Lewis & Clark County, Montana voters to support a seven year levy for the public library in Helena, Montana.

Shutdown Cuts Off Public Access to Government Information

Access to government information is important in the daily lives of the people of the United States. During the shutdown of the federal government, paper and digital versions of government publications are either not available at all or the web sites are not being updated. Bernadine Abbott Hoduski has documented the specific impact shared by Librarians around the nation who report that they are unable to help patrons find the information they need to do research, write articles for journals and newspapers, prepare class assignments, find laws and regulations relevant to the conduct of their businesses, find information needed to file law suits, complete mortgage applications, access weather information, do historical and genealogical research, and contact government officials through agency web sites. Professors teaching future librarians, teachers, geographers, scientists, and other user communities, are unable to access web sites needed for their classes.

Subjects: Business Research, Congress, E-Government, Features, Law Librarians, Legal Research, Libraries & Librarians, Reference Services