An adventure in finding information

Folks sometimes don't understand just how difficult it can be to find specific government documents, even when those documents are not very old and are not sensitive in some way that would suggest withholding them from public access.  The government is this highly organized bureaucracy, so every piece of paper should be neatly filed in a folder somewhere. Not.  Even with its extensive regulations on record-keeping, the volume of information is just too much.  Records are retained for specific periods depending on the subject and the reason for the record.  Stuff gets tossed out or mislaid or misfiled by mistake or misjudgment.  Here is a recent example of the lengths to which one must go, sometimes, to find an important document.  (Any errors in this story are mine.)

A faculty member at the Washington College of Law, American University in DC, asked Adeen Postar, Deputy Director of the Pence Law Library of Washington College of Law, to find a document entitled "United States Border Patrol Strategic Plan: 1994 and Beyond" that was prepared by the United States Border Patrol in 1994.  She points out, "One would think that a document with this title would be available in many places, but in fact, it was not distributed widely ... I have, however, seen many references to it by other people writing on border issues."  The plan was 'approved' in July or August 1994 and was at least 17 pages long.  Ms. Postar points out that "It was an internal document that was never published, yet widely quoted."

Not finding anything in the usual government documents sources (e.g., GPO, Library of Congress), she started calling around.  She contacted the library at the Department of Homeland Security, among others, without success.  After several frustrating weeks, she posted a query on the local DC librarian listserve, then on the listserve for the Academic Law Library Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries.  Finally, Ms. Postar was able to track down someone who had cited the document (now a professor at Brown), who didn't have it himself but who referred her to another professor at Vassar who was able to email her the document in pdf format.  "What worked was to contact the authors who quoted the document."

The lesson here is not so much the specific technique that led ultimately to success, but just how hard it was to find a seminal government policy document.

EMM