Lorette Weldon discusses how busy business professionals determined to make the time to share and learn best practices from colleagues use a range of methods to accomplish this goal. But professionals seeking to talk to, travel and engage with experts in the skills that they wish to obtain and/or develop may be stymied in their efforts. In the late 1980’s, these Three T’s were formalized as a teaching method for the “tight time” individual. It was initially a method to help unite parent and child as they worked together on educational needs. Taking this further along, Weldon brings us forward through the dynamics of ELA, my Electronic Library Assistant, used to could build skills by taking the experts or teachers on the road. In order to use ELA as a training process, the Three T’s approach allows professionals to employ the skills of talking, traveling and tinkering with devices that they used daily in personal and work life.

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Ken Strutin begins his article stating that for the most part, the decision of whether to grant a pardon or commutation rests on the discretion of the executive. He continues, it is a constitutional authority that leaves little recourse if the President or a governor chooses not to act or to do so parsimoniously. He notes the downward trend in the granting of clemency begs the question of whether this is due to some fault in the process or in the decider or some other aggregation of factors. And he takes up the challenge of legal scholars and petitioners to speculate on whether there is any relief for a petrified constitutional remedy. Ken’s article highlights some notable decisions and scholarship about clemency practices and the legal theories underlying a mandate for its application. It is an important resource on a significant issue by a subject matter expert whose work continuously expands our understanding of complex issues related to civil liberties and the law.

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Crystal Vicente’s paper focuses on the impact of the dramatic termination of e-government access during the October 2013 federal funding gap that resulted in a shutdown of government processes. As she documents, the public’s access to government information was severely limited, and in some cases prohibited entirely. We now widely expect that an advanced technological society will make information available via Internet anytime and from anywhere. However, when access is eliminated, the resulting information crisis cripples the public’s interaction with the federal government. Vicente states that the shutdown and the subsequent lack of access to government information is an indicator that the information dissemination model is faulty, and reliance on a single point of access is a mistake. As a result, libraries, long charged with protecting the public’s access to information, are challenged to find a viable solution to protecting free permanent public access.

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This is the last article David Rothman’s in the current series mapping out a path for planners of America’s digital libraries. Part One encouraged librarians to be open to new ideas like BiblioTech, especially from friends outside the profession. Part Two featured the Hernandez family in a 2020 scenario telling how national digital libraries could benefit the non elite.

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This is the first article in a three-part series by David Rothman, all three of which are published here at LLRX.com. Part Two is about Carmela Hernandez and family. Set in the San Antonio area, a future scenario shows how a national digital library initiative could help turn their lives around. Part Three tells how librarians and policymakers can make the initiative happen and benefit the Hernandezes, not just the American elite.

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