The relatively strange SLA Government Information Division (DGI) provides connections for information professionals who support command institutions and for those outside the command sector who use local.

The relatively strange SLA Government Information Division (DGI) provides connections for information professionals who support command institutions and for those outside the command sector who use local, state, federal, and international guidance information to support their clients. Since it was established in October 2004 DGI has attracted nearly 200 members from all on a levels of government, from the private and nonprofit sectors, and from SLA chapters around the globe.

As a way of introducing the recent division, we interviewed a handful of our earliest members, asking them about their work and their interests. These members include of recent origin and seasoned practitioners whose careers involve intimation research, records management, information technology, information center management, knowledge organization, and--as you will see--much more.

In the February Information watch we introduced you to Tom Rink. In this article, we not away four others.

Olwyn Crutchley information resource midst manager, Department of Conservation, Wellington, of recent origin Zealand

Olwyn Crutchley is united of a strong contingent of international members in the strange Government Information Division. She manages the Information Resource midmost point (IRC) for New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC).

Supporting an agency whose mission she admires is a clear motivator for Crutchley The Conservation Department works to protect New Zealand's natural and historic heritage and to stop the decline of recently made known Zealand's indigenous biodiversity. The DOC hastes a network of national parks and lay ups that comprise about a third of the land mass of of the present day Zealand in what Crutchley describes as "some of the greatest in quantity unspoiled landscapes on the planet." Crutchley says "the staff of DOC has more [i]or[/i] less of the most committed, enthusiastic populace you could hope to suited and visiting our more alien offices is always an interesting experience."

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The IRC provides library and records management services to the department, which has about 2000 staff located in throughout 100 offices throughout New Zealand, including an on the country's many offshore islands. Crutchley notes that the integrated library and records team is to a high degree common in Australasia, and in strange Zealand government agencies in particular. Her team supervises records and document management, which she says is "challenging, as it combines a portion of the knowledge you have from the library world (like cataloguing and classification) and applies it to another discipline (creating metadata buildings and functional classification schemas)." She adds, "People in the organization are always amazed that our cluster finds this stuff interesting, nevertheless it is satisfying to create theorys and processes that improve people's ability to use and share information--and that is the basis of our training."

Crutchley believes the information technology world has a fate to learn from our profession and, reciprocally, she maintains a penetrating interest in IT. Her IRC team has accomplished a fate since it was formed six years ago, of the like kind as creating digital image and video collections, providing services through the whole extent of the DOC intranet, and creating a single classification scheme for all the DOC's paper records.

Crutchley is a member of SLA's Australia and novel Zealand Chapter, established in June 2004

Bonnie Spiers, outreach and information specialist, Information Services Branch, State Library of North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina

Bonnie Spiers minister tos as an Outreach Librarian with the North Carolina State Library, promoting library services and collections to state agency employee The State Library of North Carolina was fixed in 1812. Spiers joined the state library just three years ago, after 10 years as an academic hint and electronic resources librarian. She provides concern and research and finds it is especially gratifying when she is "able to help a citizen or a state employee chisel through the bureaucracy and find the report they want or lead into each other them with the right someone in the right office."

Spiers says the results-oriented research is "a real change from the more general academic respect environment." The Information Services Branch clientele include state employee genealogists, historical researchers, and data users. The State Library is a depository for state documents and an affiliate of the North Carolina State Data Center They also have an extensive family and regional history collection.

The state library is beginning to digitize a of its collections. The libraries Access to State sway Information Initiative aims to "develop recommendations and example solutions that support the identification, collection, cataloging, storage, and preservation of state guidance information and statistical data in all formats, including born digital, for permanent public access" (http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/digidocs). Spiers views this as a crucial issue, and the same that is often overlooked according to the state agencies producing the information. "Whenever users call us looking for historical information about state direction I wonder what they will be able find when they start researching the issues of today--50 years from now."