[WEEK 10] Tutorial Task - Short Essay ( GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT)

AINA NUR ALEESA BINTI RAHMAT

2017333881

Government document is a treatise on almost every subject printed at government

expenses or published by authority of a governmental body. Government documents are
information resources produced by local, state, and federal governments. Usually, these
sources are used by the general publics like students, teachers, politicians for research
purpose, and others. Purpose of this government documents is to inform the citizens about
the documents like Circular and for researcher for their research purposes. We need to ask
permission first before using these Government Document for its data because they are
authoritative. There are difficulties in these government documents which is the first one is
censorship. Government engage a censorship on their documents.

Censorship is the restriction of speech, public communication, or other content including in

government documents, on the grounds that such material is deemed offensive, disruptive,
sensitive, or inconvenient. The purposes of censorship is made so that the document may be
distributed to a broader audience and prejudge materials for everyone.

Next, the lack of skilled librarian. As we know, librarian in the library rely on broad array
of federal documents, including directories, handbooks, bibliographic and more to answer
factual questions about the government, its personnel and activities. But somehow, some of
librarian are lack of skilled in using these documents. They didn’t know how to use it properly
like example, lack of knowledge of what sources (government document) exist in the library
or how to find and use them.

After that, lack of availability. User and researcher usually often searched government
document for study purposes or for research purposes. Many of government document is an
important primary sources. So, there is no other copies of them. Researcher or user who want
to use one of these document have to wait for the availability of the document itself and wait
for their turns. But, they can easily obtain information on a government web sites.

Last, inadequate central indexing. There is not many central indexing are available to
make all the documents are easy to retrieve for the users. Example, if the documents are not
being index, it will causes a difficulties for the users to find and obtain information from it.

Conclusions, government document often perceived as a unique and separate area of

reference services and it is important documents to everyone to obtain and gained information.