Talk about government transparency and sunshine

It’s a new dawn in more ways than one.

One of the things I hated most about the Bush administration, from a librarian’s point of view, was their ever increasing secrecy. Every year it seemed that more and more government information, information that people needed in order for democracy to function, was being hidden in the shadows, made inaccessible. This was done through a number of means, including the use of private contractors to perform government functions, gratuitous classification of documents, and simply operating in the dark.

Welcome to daylight. Check this out: The Obama transition team has already put a directory of transition resources on the open web. The 2008-2009 Presidential Transition Resources Website is intended for the administration’s nominees and appointees, for orienting them and organizing them and helping the transition happen smoothly. It is not intended as public communication, but is totally open to the public, not on some government intranet as it might have been. Not only is it on the open web, but Obama’s Change.gov President-Elect website actually links to it, encouraging the public to follow what the transition team is doing in detail.

Up to now I have only dreamed of this kind of openness in government….