Hi there,
I’m trying to develop a tool called the Investigative Dashboard http://www.investigativedashboard.org I believe this could be a good place to initiate meaningful cooperation between journalists and librarians. As Bill Densmore put it, the Investigative Dashboard could become a:
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We are currently handling requests such as this:
”Request: I am a young french journalist based in Sydney, working on the production of an investigative documentary about the development of the fisheries industry in the South Pacific. During my research I came accross some very interesting data which I need assistance for, in order to conduct further research. I believe such research could, if successful, prove the corruption of very high political leaders in Papua New Guinea. Part of my film looks at the impact two foreign but locally based companies have had on the local population: XXXXXX Limited and xxxxx PNG LTD. Doing a search on both companies revealed that in 2006 and 2007 hundreds of thousands of shares from these
companies have been transferred to an offshore company in the brithish virgin island called ”XXXXXX investments limited”. Now when looking at the adress where this company was registered in BVI, one can see that it was registered by another company called ”xxxxxx Trustnet” which indeed offers services such as”nominee shareholders” and ”directors”,which could make the research go into a dead end (unless you know some tricks that would reveal who are the people behind this company…). Now what i would need, would be to find a person based in the British Virgin islands who could go and do a search at the local business registry in Tortola. If I am lucky, the people reseponsible for the creation of this company have only used portcullis trustnet services to register it and not to act as an umbrella company which would hide the real identities of the owners. This is why I am writing to you today, hoping that you could help me on that occasion. Perhaps you would have contacts in the BVI which could help my research. I would indeed acknowledge your help for any possible future publication. I am currently working on very scarce resources but please let me know if I would need to pay for such documents to come out. I could always find some sort of solution… Many thanks, Best wishes (and keep this amazing work going!) Olivier XXXX”

This is from two days ago but requests keep on pouring daily. I believe librarians could participate in this effort and could assist journalists in their global work. It could be a lot of fun knowing you made a difference overseas :)