Library Visit With Cheryl McCoy

On Monday, Our class visited with Cheryl McCoy, who is the Coordinator of General Collections and Government Documents. She made it very clear that most of the public records for this class are easily accessible because public records in the state of Florida are open to the general public.

She explained that there will be times when we will find public records very easily while there are times when they won't be as easy to find because of different circumstances. Public Records at the University of South Florida can be found on the first floor of the library.

At the University of South Florida, we have access to almost any public records available except for student records. Social Security Numbers are only available for investigative usage.

When finding about a certain person or place, we need primary sources. Many people believe that the newspaper is a primary public record. On the contrary, McCoy pointed out that newspapers are not public records nor are they primary; they are secondary sources that have primary sources that contributed to the articles in the newspaper.

McCoy also gave our class some websites to start our searches for public records for our assignments in the future. She recommended IDigAnswers.com, where she explained that E-newspapers are more technologically advanced when it comes to getting the information as well as obtaining the information out there. But at the same time, that information can get you in trouble (freedom of information).

Another good place to start are the county websites like the Hillsborough County official website. On that website, you can find the minutes for any of the meetings you search for as well as the agenda for upcoming meetings.

Cheryl McCoy's seminar helped several of us understand how easy it is to find the public records, but as previously stated from the last blog post, it is hard to obtain those public records.

Nickens Visit

Tim Nickens, editorial page editor for the St. Petersburg Times visited our class to inform us about public records and what we may not know about them in general and how to obtain these records. He explained that Florida has some of the most open public records and what is meant by that is that any person in our society has the right to obtain public records from the state of Florida. For example, if a person wanted to see the minutes from their county’s school board, they can ask for those minutes and see what was discussed in their meetings. Nickens explained that the only records that are denied to the public are juvenile criminal records and public employee files with their social security numbers.
The one aspect of public records that I found very interesting was the fact that as Floridians, we are allowed to gain access to public records for someone’s own personal interest. I personally don’t feel it’s necessary to look through public records for my own personal whim but I can understand why people do take advantage of the opportunity. For some, it is refreshing to know what is going on in our own community.
Nickens also got my attention about the fact that these public records have value. What he meant was that if these records weren’t public, we as a society wouldn’t have an idea what the elected officials were doing. The one thing I found even more interesting was the fact that even though Florida has open public records, obtaining these records are actually very difficult and involves some sort of monetary value as well as a long paper process.
After hearing all of this, I came to the conclusion that while most public records in the state of Florida are open to the public, I am not sure if they are worth trying to obtain because how difficult it is to get them.

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This is Dwipin Maliackal for Public Affairs Reporting