Intrigued by my initial request for FOIA logs at my local library, I wanted to see how other libraries in the area would handle an identical request. I submitted a request for FOIA logs from 2012 to the present to libraries in Woodridge, Lisle, Lombard, Westmont, Bolingbrook, Aurora, and Naperville.
First, I was delighted in the format of the responses. Instead of a 250 page PDF tome, all the responses were itemized spreadsheets. While I really did enjoy reading Downers Grove’s “logs” or lack thereof, these true logs were much more palatable. Perhaps I need to be more explicit in my requests, but most of the files returned were PDFs. This to me seems both inconvenient for the library and me. If I want to look at the data, I need to convert it and a lot of PDF to Excel converters can be flaky.
I was surprised how the same request yielded different results. For example, for all of their 2017 FOIA requests, the Lisle Public Library captured how many hours it took them to fulfil the FOIA request. As of this writing, it is 51 hours. This is interesting because there’s often complaints about FOIA abuse or rather excessive requests detracting from other duties. By tracking this number, the administration can assign a full-time employee value to their requests. I’m curious if this metric is tracked at the other libraries, and if how is it captured. That actually sounds like a FOIA request itself – meta!
I also found it interesting that one of the libraries, Westmont, provided unredacted emails for the requestors. Every other library provided a first and last name, but no contact information. The only “black ink” I saw out of this request came courtesy of Lisle.
In submitting the same request to all of these libraries, only Aurora Public Library responded similar to Downers Grove. While the Aurora Public Library does maintain a FOIA log – the Downers Grove one does not – apparently all the metadata I requested is not contained within that log, and as such, to meet my request, they exempted the log from my request and instead sent a PDF of every request. Unlike Downers Grove, the PDF files did not include the records requested.
It’s interesting that there appear to be very few standards across a similar body of local government in the same geographical area. I very well could have appealed what the libraries disclosed because they did not provide all of the records requested. However, this request was more for discovery than anything else.
As part of my discovery effort, in surveying the logs it becomes very apparent that there are a lot of commercial uses for FOIA. Numerous requests to all of the libraries ask for details about contracts – specifically around janitorial services. They all appear to come from different firms, but these individuals are obviously using FOIA for competitive knowledge. Additionally, almost all libraries have requests from SmartProcure. I was unaware of this vendor before, but it appears they’re like a commerica FOIA clearing house or a MuckRock on steroids.