ALIA Public Sector Information Advisory Committee

The ALIA Public Sector Information Advisory Committee exists to function as an expert group to provide advice and guidelines on government publications to the ALIA Board of Directors, and focuses attention on Australian government publications and government information, at federal, state and local level.

Public sector information: issues and advocacy

Visit the Public sector information: issues and advocacy page to subscribe to the aliaozgovpubs e-list, for ALIA policies on government publications, for all ALIA submissions relating to government publications, for a guide about how to find government publications, and lots more.

Issues facing the Committee now and in the future

1. Distribution of government publications to libraries.
2. Government publishing in electronic formats.
3. Collecting Australian online government publications.
4. Archiving electronic government publications.
5. Proposals for digitisation of government publications.
6. Government web search engine effectiveness eg. websites.
7. Commonwealth government publications
1. Library deposit and free issue schemes
2. Distribution, collection, access
3. Parliamentary papers
4. Review of changes in distribution by AGIMO
8. State and Territory government publications
1. Distribution, collection, access
2. Parliamentary papers
9. Australian Bureau of Statistics publications
1. Distribution, collection ,access
2. Library deposit

Read the complete Terms of Reference for the Committee.

Background of the Committee

The ALIA Expert Group on Government Publications has been an active library-based group since 1972. It used to be known as the government publications subcommittee of ACLIS and before that of AACOBS. When ALIA assumed responsibility for ACLIS activities at the end of 1998 the subcommittee became an expert group of ALIA.

The group and the subcommittee before it has been an invaluable forum for discussion relating to government publications. It has been involved in a number of major issues over the years: the inquiry into the publications pricing policy of the Australian Government Publishing Service by the Prices Surveillance Authority in 1993 and the inquiry into the future of the parliamentary papers series by the Joint Standing Committee on Publications of the Commonwealth Parliament in 1997. In both these cases, the subcommittee was involved in discussion of the issues which formed the basis of the submission made and the evidence given by the convenor at the hearings.

In 1981 and 1982, the subcommittee organised workshops on government publications; both were by invitation to experts around the country, and the intention was to discuss existing difficulties with the aim to produce recommended solutions. These were not teaching workshops. Teaching was carried out in the 1980s through the LAA travelling workshops led by Michael Harrington.

The subcommittee compiled and published Government publications of Australia: a list of lists in 1976, with a second edition in 1979 and supplement in 1980; and Government publications collections: a directory of deposit and exchange collections held in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific libraries in 1994.