Federal mandates requiring that publicly funded research be made openly accessible recast scholarly information as public information and provide an impetus to join the efforts of scholarly communication and government information programs in United States research libraries. Most major research libraries are long-standing participants in the…

In an era of demands for greater accountability in higher education, an increasingly polarized political environment, and scandals such as that at Penn State, access to information is becoming everyone's business, affecting public and independent institutions alike. Although Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) demands are often annoying or…

For the Federal government of the United States, freedom of information policy is expressed in statutory law--the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), enacted in 1966, being the first such expression in this regard. Other transparency laws would follow. The FOIA, however, was legislated in the face of considerable opposition by the executive branch.…