Electronic government information

This submission from the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) discusses how government libraries provide a key part of the information management infrastructure of government agencies. In order for public service employees and clients of government agencies to benefit from online information resources an approach is needed to ensure that:

a) quality information resources are available cost-effectively to support policy development and program delivery;

This submission from the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) discusses how investment in libraries can be expected to generate economic as well as social, cultural and environmental benefits. Libraries sustain the community in social, cultural and environmental terms and contribute positively in terms of economic value, benefit and activity. ALIA advocates the development of an informed society that can partake and participate in skilled decision-making.

This joint submission from the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and eight other library associations supports the development of an information infrastructure with libraries as the conduit for a sustainable knowledge economy.

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) congratulates the government on developing the draft legislation and, in a timely manner, seeking to ensure that information is managed as a national resource. Improvements in FOI are vital for an informed nation, and expanding digital access will contribute significantly to an effective democracy and a digital nation.

ALIA recommends that to be truly effective further consideration should be given to:

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to the Government 2.0 Taskforce. ALIA believes that:

This submission from the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) highlights three major issues—the importance of libraries and information centres in assisting high quality policy advice and service delivery, the need for whole of government approaches to information for an efficient and effective public service and the need to make government information widely available with web 2.0 technology to enable a high level of citizen participation in policy development a service delivery.

This submission from the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) recommends the publication of the full text of Parliamentary Papers through a national repository based in the parliamentary network providing long- term access through modern systems supporting full text searching, RSS feeds, alerts and other mechanisms to assist Australians to participate in our great democracy.

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) brief submission in response to the issues paper supports the appointment of a National Data Commissioner to oversee data sharing and release.