National Information Policy: An Insider's View

THIS PAPER PRESENTS one individual’s view of national information policy in the United States. The paper is not intended as a comprehensive review of information policy; rather it is intended to provide a personal view from someone who has been interested in information policy since 1962 and has had the pleasure of playing a small role in helping to shape it for many of those years. The discussion concentrates on U.S. policy activities within the last decade. This paper presents a series of trends to set the background and content for a discussion of information policy; discusses the 1976 National Information Policy (NIP) Report; reviews clusters of policy issues, including some recent activities of key players; and concludes with a discussion of the implications of policy developments for the library and information community.