Jane Inman's book is one of the first, in my experience, devoted entirely to official publications. Inman is clearly an expert in this area, and the book covers not just central government and parliament, but local government, regional assemblies and other public bodies to an impressive level of detail.
The book opens with discussions of the digital environment and why official information is published, and concludes with chapters on statistics and the future of access to official information. In between are dedicated chapters on the functioning and publications of the various types of public body: parliament, devolved parliaments and assemblies, regional government, central government, other public bodies, and local government. There is a separate chapter devoted to statistics.
The chapter on definitions and why official information is published is useful to bear in mind when considering the overload of public sector information. Inman emphasises the importance of democracy, knowing the law and transparency.
Inman also considers the problems of more information being published online: whilst digital information is theoretically easier to access by more of the population, “perhaps public understanding of the nature of official publications is no better than in the days of print”. This can be compounded if the original print publications are no longer produced. Inman gives the example of the Civil Service Yearbook which is no longer published in any format; information about staff in government departments is now published on departments' own websites (and in part on No. 10 website) meaning there is no single point of reference.
Official information is defined as “any item produced by reprographic or any other method issued by an organisation that is an official body and available to an audience other than that body” (IFLA, 1980s), and official bodies are further defined so that in the UK “all information issued by a public sector organisation, which is intended for use beyond that organisation, is within the remit of this book”. This results in some interesting definitions of official publication in practice: Inman notes that the Radio Times is within the scope of this book as it is published by the BBC, technically a public body.
The opening chapters also contain a discussion of Google and a reminder that whilst Google is often all the user needs - and may even be a better search engine than those provided on the target websites – it does not cover all pages available on the web. There is no mention of Google Advanced Search however, but the facility to use Google to search one site or type of site, for example site:redbridge.gov.uk:, appears later under the section on parliament.
The aim of this book is, “to provide a reference guide to official publishing at a time when material published by the public sector is usually available in digital form.” So does the book meet this aim?
The history and functioning of all the institutions is explained in detail but the stand-out chapter is possibly Parliament at Westminster which covers, among other things, Hansard and Pepper v Hart research.
The chapter on central government departments highlights the fact that these departments often change names, making their information difficult to find and resulting in a lack of continuity in the information provided. Recent examples include the change from OPSI to legislation.gov.uk and the various incarnations of the DTI/DBERR/DBIS.
More unusual is the level of detail on the types of local government, in particular comparing unitary authorities with two tier local government, and in the case of the latter the explanation of who is responsible for what. The responsibilities of the county council and the district or borough council are clearly laid out. As such this would be very useful for the private individual as well as librarians or researchers in this area.
The downside with providing such a detailed background is that the book sometimes feels more like a description of how official bodies function than a guide to how to find information. I would have liked more on the practicalities of searching for government consultation papers (although green and white papers are mentioned), more focus on regulatory bodies like the Financial Services Authority and possibly enquiry/library contacts at government departments, but this could be my own perspective.
The case studies included in the chapters on central government, local government and statistics redress this to a certain extent, though they seem to be aimed at private individuals rather than businesses or institutions.
The concluding chapter on the future of access to official information considers the move from print to online formats, and the issuing bodies' focus on access to information rather than publications. This often results in data files, tables and web content being made available separately and not necessarily brought together to form publications (the fate of the Civil Service Yearbook, referred to above).
There is a detailed index and list of abbreviations, and each chapter has a list of references (usually official reports and consultation papers). The book is a good length at just under 300 pages making it detailed yet readable and the use of short sections and sub-chapters breaks the text down into manageable chunks.
This book is not likely to date as it takes a broad approach and because Inman warns the reader in the preface that: a) it is a snapshot; and b) government department names and procedures change. This is probably not a book to be dipped into for help in locating a particular statistic or publication (unless it happened to be in one of the case studies), but to be read chapter by chapter as a background work. As such it does meet the stated aim of being a reference guide to official publishing.
There are good general discussions in the opening and closing chapters as well as the informative chapters in between. Of particular note are the explanations of local government, devolved parliaments and regional assemblies. Although it can sometimes feel like a guide to the functioning of local and central government rather than a guide to finding information, at £52.50 this book is a recommended purchase for anyone regularly researching official information or managing official publications, or even the interested private individual.
