The message that US libraries are increasingly seen as government information/service centers is spreading through the regular media. At least that's the impression that I get from this Florida Times-Union column:

Libraries are expected to be our e-government service By DONNA PAZ KAUFMAN

I like the way the column ends after explaining the lack of financial support for the nation's libraries:

As engaged citizens and civic leaders, it is time to acknowledge that the trend continues to point to technology for efficiencies in government and convenience for citizens - and this makes good sense. Yet when government services, educational institutions, medical programs and disaster programs rely on public libraries for support, the libraries need to be prepared to respond.

Librarians are trained to provide assistance. It's what they do. But until public libraries are recognized for the greater role they've been fulfilling since the advent of information technology, the wait in line or on the phone will be that much longer.

More anecdotal evidence that even when information and services are online, brick and mortar places increase their usefulness.

Iraq survival guide now online, by Gina Cavallaro, Army Times (Jan 30, 2007)

According to this story:

[A]n electronic version of a new handbook for soldiers on how to survive their first 100 days in Iraq can be seen online.

Deploying soldiers are encouraged to log in with their Army Knowledge Online passwords to the Center for Army Lessons Learned at http://call.army.mil and review the guidelines gleaned from more than 1,700 soldiers who responded to a survey six months ago.

A paper version for basic trainees was supposed to be issued by January, but has been held up at the Government Printing Office until sometime in February.

According to a reputable media outlet, The White House has retracted the entire State of the Union address! (I couldn't resist :-) )

Thanks to the blog BiblioTICando con humor (blog bibliotecario por Diana Rodríguez), I became aware of this paper about eGovernment in Argentina: Gobierno Electronico: donde esta parada la Argentina? by Paula Nahirnak. IF I understand this paper correctly, it has some very interesting things to say. I say IF because my understanding of it is formed by my approximate 5th grade Spanish level plus hints from Google Translate. So, if any fluent Spanish speakers would look over this six page document and let me know if I've gone wrong, I'd be grateful. The paper appears to focus on the delivery of government services and information by Argentina's provincal government. A year and a half ago the provinces were given a decree by the central government to undertake electronic activities. For reasons I can't translate well enough to understand, the authors of the article graded provinces by how well these four classes of information were web posted:

1. Information regarding provincal debt.
2. Provincial budgetary law.
3. Information about the budget.
4. Information about tax collection.

From a table it looks like performance in these categories significantly improved from 2002 to 2006, and especially after 2005. The article also references a 2005 article, Global E-Government 2005 by Darrell M. West and from what I can tell, Argentina ranted with countries like Spain, Lithuania, Korea, Iraq(!), Romania and a few others. What I find really fascinating about the article, again if I understand it correctly, is that I'm not sure who this electronic information is actually for. Page five of the article has a chart of public employees by province who have access to computer equipment. Even the top rated area, the capital of Buenos Aries, only 51% of the government's own workers have access to computers! The median for the country seems to be 26.7%. So almost three quarters of Argentina's government workers cannot access the web posted information from their employer. On the last page of the article is a table expressing access to home Internet connections in terms of people to one Internet connection. The capital again wins out with "just" five people per Internet connection. Nationwide average is 26 people per Internet connection and in the NEA y Litoral province, there are 83 people for every home Internet connection. So I don't think most people at home could get much out of Argentina's drive to put government information and services on the Web. Perhaps their citizens are going to libraries. But as I've said, this is MY reading. If you have a better one, please let us know in comments. But it does look like the digital divide is hard at work all over the planet. So how do we help the 30% or so of Americans here at home w/o Internet access get their government information?

The announcement for First International Workshop on Database Preservation (PresDB'07) has been posted to the relevant mailing lists, so you may have already seen it, but it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the need for this workshop and the relevance to government information and depository libraries.

While considerable thought has been given in the past to the preservation of fixed "digital objects", the preservation of databases, which have an internal structure and which may change over time, poses new challenges. Typically databases are centrally managed, and their survival depends on the viability of commercial organisations or the continued public funding of data centres. Libraries, the traditional curators of scientific and scholarly reference material, have largely abrogated their archival responsibility to databases.

As Vista, the new version of Microsoft Windows, gets closer to release date, there is more commentary about it. Michael Geist echoes some of the comments that Peter Gutmann made in his widely discussed paper (See: How Windows Vista Will Affect Government Information for more on this topic and links to Guttman's paper.)

• Vista's Fine Print Raises Red Flags, by Michael Geist, Toronto Star January 29, 2007. (another copy)

Here are excerpts:

In the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the "user experience" from the user.

Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge.

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software." The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated "high" or "severe," even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted.

For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who is in control by providing that "this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights." For those users frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software."

Carl Malamud gave a talk at the 2006 OSCON (O'Reilly Open Source Convention) on "10 Government Hacks." He has posted his presentation materials as a series of 10 movies with textual commentary on the Internet Archive. He says he...

...whirled through 10 hacks in 15 minutes. I left myself 23 seconds to sum it up. The hacks all have a point, and that point is that government should be less about private interests and more about the public interest. The skills we use in the open source world are tools of civic engagement, tools of citizenship. And, if we apply those skills of engagement to our government, it is possible, at least sometimes, to drag the political system (kicking and screaming perhaps) towards the common good.

Here are links to each of the 10 with short annotations on a couple of my favorites:

• Hack 1: Be Media
• Hack 2: Get Standing (Somebody Sold the Attic)
• Hack 3: Be Government
• Hack 4: Adopt the FCC
• Hack 5: Enforce ODF By Proxy
  In my world of vaporware hacks to government I'd love to see, I imagine a Firefox extension that detects any proprietary format in a .gov URL and talks to a backend proxy running tools like docvert to convert-on-the-fly and store the doc for the next user. Government rarely provides even minimal security (https URLs, MD5 signatures on documents, signed email, etc.., etc...), so one could add value to lots of government data by signing on their behalf.
• Hack 6: Audit the Feds
• Hack 7: Link Check the Feds (Link Check the Mayor)
  ...periodically run a link checker against all the departments, then send the head of the agency a list with the number of broken links, ranked by department. Oh, and send a copy of the list to the chairman of the congressional oversight committee. And to each department head in the agency so the ones on the top can have something to chat about with the ones on the bottom while they're on the golf course.

  This hack works at any level of government. For example, link check your city government and send the results to your local newspaper. Pick a slow news day and your ranking will probably even make the evening news.

• Hack 8: Annotate Hearings
  ...take the time to watch a hearing and blog the good parts, it definitely gets the word out. For this hack, adopt a committee or an issue, and make a habit of watching what they do and systematically annotating them. If nothing else, you help set the terms of the conversation.
• Hack 9: Hold Hearings
• Hack 10: Map Spectrum (Summation)

Editorial Observer: The George W. Bush Library: Scholarly Mecca or $500 Million Oxymoron?. Dorothy Samuels, New York Times, 1/28/07.

Here's an interesting little tidbit in today's NYT about Southern Methodist University (SMU) -- where Laura Bush sits on the Board of Trustees -- and their plan to host the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Policy Institute (similar to the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University). There is growing concern within the SMU community that hosting Bush's library is not in keeping with the university’s scholarly mission, governmental integrity and the rule of law.

On 1/12/07, 68 theologians, professors and other past and present faculty members, citing complaints about President Bush's poor marks on civil liberties, the environment, gay rights and the war in Iraq, sent the university president a letter questioning whether visions of the library were "consistent with the school's religious and academic values." ("A Discordant Chorus Questions Visions for a Bush Library at Southern Methodist." Ralph Blumenthal, NYT 1/14/07 Subscription required to access the archives).

Samuels, the NYT editorial observer, is calling on the SMU trustees (hopefully Laura will recuse herself!) to withhold the final OK unless two basic conditions are met:

1. SMU should insist that Mr. Bush rescind Executive Order 13233, his 2001 directive that limits access to the records of former US Presidents.
2. The trustees should insist on disclosure of contributions to the library complex.

I think Samuels has the right idea. Nobody wants Bush's papers to end up in a black hole like the Nixon library, a private institute outside the NARA presidential library system where historians have struggled for years to gain access (see this article from the National Security Archives for more). Bush's papers should be under the control of a university in order to assure the widest public access and analysis by scholars. But she's also correct in calling for the university to set these conditions. What are the odds of Bush rescinding EO 13233?!

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has been in the news recently with members of Congress complaining publicly about the Bush administration's 6 month delay in submitting an NIE (see Deb's recent post and Silverstein in Harper's).

Now Chalmers Johnson (author and emeritus professor in political science at UC San Diego and contributor to the American Empire Project) has written a provocative article for Harpers Magazine (01/17/07) giving an NIE for the US (Reprinted on the Information Clearinghouse site). In it, he gives an historical wrap-up of the US military-industrial complex and tells of the danger to both the US and the entire world when military Keynesianism is combined with the Unitary Presidency.

The imperial project is expensive. The flow of the nation’s wealth – from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers – has created a form of “military Keynesianism,” in which the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.

and:

To understand the real weight of military Keynesianism in the American economy today, however, one must approach official defense statistics with great care. The “defense” budget of the United States – that is, the reported budget of the Department of Defense – does not include: the Department of Energy’s spend¬ing on nuclear weapons ($16.4 billion slated for fiscal 2006), the Department of Homeland Security’s outlays for the actual “defense” of the United States ($41 billion), or the Depart¬ment of Veterans Affairs’ responsibilities for the lifetime care of the seriously wounded ($68 billion). Nor does it include the billions of dol¬lars the Department of State spends each year to finance foreign arms sales and militarily re¬lated development or the Treasury Depart¬ment’s payments of pensions to military re¬tirees and widows and their families (an amount not fully disclosed by official statistics). Still to be added are interest payments by the Treasury to cover past debt-financed defense outlays. The economist Robert Higgs estimates that in 2002 such interest payments amounted to $138.7 billion.

[Thanks Information Clearinghouse!]

Bill Bell is the editor of the Whittier Daily News. According to a recent column, he has been a journalist for 50 years.

This long experience has given him a long perspective on access to government information, especially from law enforcement agencies.

What has this experience taught him?

Today, part of the big picture in the news business is how official agencies of the government make it harder and harder to come by information that is suppose to be available to the public. That might seem like a fairly narrow concern, yet it is a symptom of a chronic societal cancer that is helping to destroy our species.

Much of his column is about how open and informal local information gathering used to be. In Mr. Bell's view, it depended on police being intelligent enough to know what information could be divulged w/o spoiling their case and reporters sophisticated enough not to burn their sources for a single juicy story. But over all, he implies the level of information sharing, at least at the local level was high.

How does he see the situation now?

What's it like today? The Freedom of Information Act has spelled out that a huge amount of government information and records are available to the public.

But government agencies seem to make it exceedingly difficult to get to the records they consider most sensitive, despite the FOIA.

And, as for local cops and deputies being forthcoming with information that should be available immediately, that's a bygone era. We get it when they feel like providing it.

How true and how sad. But I'm glad to see we still have people like Mr. Bell pointing out the importance of transparency at all levels of government.

My workplace subscribes to the Info-to-Go electronic "new web sites" newsletter.

I was very happy to see that the January 2007 issue issue carried mention of our videos page. Subscribers can see what I'm talking about. Nonsubscribers will have to trust me on this one.

Thanks Info-to-Go!

If you or your library has produced a video promoting or celebrating government publications, information or e-government available at your library, please send us the link so we can add it to our video page.

If you really like one of the videos featured on the page, please consider nominating it for Information Today's first InfoTubies award.

Jeff Bliss reported for Bloomberg on Friday, January 26, 2007, that Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee may subpoena Bush administration documents related to domestic surveillance.

I don't trust what they're doing, Rockefeller said in an interview on taped for Political Capital, a weekly 30 minute Bloomberg television program on politics, economics and public policy hosted by Al Hunt.

The full story, Rockefeller Says He May Subpoena Documents on Spying is available online.

Read the related story Review of prewar Iraq intelligence: Senate Requests, White House does not reply posted by James Jacobs.

It's been one of those crazy weeks with lots going on. So rather than blog all the things that I had planned to blog about this week (and last week while in Seattle for ALA!), here's the list of open tabs on my browser. Ahhhhh, I feel better now :-)

• Sloan Foundation funds "open" alternative to Google Book Search [Shoutout to Rick Prelinger!]
• Copyright, DRM Technologies, and Consumer Protection March 9 & 10, 2007 ~ University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law
• The Daily We: Is the Internet really a blessing for democracy?. article by Cass R. Sunstein
• Why reference and authority matter [Thanks jessamyn!]
• GODORT's new wiki!. Try it, you'll like it!!
• How to disable Google personalized search. For you privacy nuts...er...concerned folks out there.
• Jake Appelbaum lecture on anonymous communication. And another for the privacy-concerned.
• WIPO anti-podcasting treaty refuses to die
• BoingBoingBoing podcast 9: Matt Haughey of MeFi
• Sen. "Series of Tubes" Stevens introduces DOPA II: the sequel

NCH Washington Update (Vol. 13, #3; January 27, 2007) "Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) Meets" by Lee White, National Coalition for History.

Chairman Snider stated that the PIDB had received a request from the Senate Intelligence Committee last fall to review the classification of prewar Iraq intelligence. Snider stated that the PIDB was prohibited from taking action without prior approval of the White House. However, despite requests to the Bush administration to move forward, the board had received no response from the White House. Snider announced that the board was going to proceed unless told not to do so by the administration.

As we reported the other day (Remixes, Mashups in the news) there are several sites that have online tools for visualizing word use in the State of the Union speeches. Here are two more, one by Jason Giffey who is a librarian at University of Tennessee - Chattanooga.

• State of the Union Project by Brad Borevitz at onetwothree.net
• Tag Cloud for 2007 State of the Union, by Jason Griffey, Pattern Recognition (January 24th, 2007)

Do you ever get a WordPerfect document and can't even read it? How about a .PCX or .PGM or .PNG file? These tools from the National Library of Medicine may be of interest to you! They help you convert over 50 file formats.

Electronic Document Conversion National Library of Medicine

The U.S. National Library of Medicine's (NLM) document conversion tools make the exchange and use of biomedical library electronic information easier for librarians, library users, and the general public. The DocMorph Web site and MyMorph software are two free conversion tools that allow users to convert more than 50 types of files into alternative, usable formats. The DocMorph Web site allows users to convert files into PDF, TIFF, text, and synthesized speech. The downloadable MyMorph software allows users to mass migrate files to PDF only.

The First Amendment Center announced on Thursday, January 25, 2007, a new "First Report" by University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey R. Stone. The report, Government Secrecy vs. Freedom of the Press, is available online.

These notes are from the EPA session at ALA Committee on Legislation Government Information Subcommittee (COL/GIS) 1/20/07, Seattle, WA. I'd like to thank Amy West for sharing her notes on the session. I had blogged it but because of a temporary hiccup on the FGI site, I had lost my notes. Ah, technology ;-) As always, please leave comments!

>>>>>>>>>

EPA staff: Mike Flynn, Rick Martin

Mike from EPA - review library system to be premier system to increase delivery to more people. Effort has 2 foci: more emphasis on elect delivery and reviewing physical library presence; utilize staff across network; It's NOT correct that all physical libraries closed in favor of all electronic; They are keeping some physical locations. They are focusing on digitizing materials from libraries where walkin access has closed;

EPA staff have heard comments about deliberation in process; and have doubled the number of electronic documents. EPA has closed 5 physical locations (regions 5,6,7, headquarters, and chemical). Each of these is now serviced through the overall network. EPA is reviewing collections in those places. They estimate having 3 repositories and keeping unique documents in those repositories.

EPA staff: Services (refer to back of hand out); online "card catalog"; possible shutdown was due to an internal EPA housekeeping squabble which is now resolved.

ILL services are available across the network; unique materials available through ILL (or are supposed to be). NEPIS Web site is the home of digitized documents; up to 24,000 documents in the NEPIS database with an initial target of 52k total; the goal for digitization was at first supposed to be the end of January and for original inventory of closed libraries; however, EPA then found additional material to be digitized. Add classes of docs where copyright was unclear? Grantee-produced documents, for example. The remaining libraries have a 2 year window for digitizing their materials.

There is a new FAQ site to assist with public service and access. Librarians manage the Website and FAQ. Library services for the public fit into a framework of public access services of which in-house access is only a piece. They are allowing GoogleEarth and TerraServer to include EPA content natively. They have also developed a desktop library for EPA staff. This desktop library allows all staff to access Electronic material in the same suite. Whether they have the right number of professional librarians is still under discussion.

Mike:

EPA is going forward - see handout.

Q&A session:

Bernadine Abbott Huduski (BAH) - being an original EPA librarian, the libraries were NOT set up like headquarters or laboratory libraries, so they were for the public in the first place in addition to state/local/contractors.

Fred Stoss/Ubuffalo (FS) - What has happened with physical collections - like the one in Chicago?
Answer: EPA has used EPA listservs to dispose of materials.

FS: Are there no books on the shelves?

EPA: Yes. Some in headquarters repositories. Duplicates have been given away? Not sure, but probably? Catalog updated? In process. Cincinnati has taken some too. Also RTP. What about the Great Lakes portion of Region 5? Anything region-specific went to headquarters.

BM / OSU - What about next time govt wants to take documents offline a la 9/11? EPA: The only information taken off was risk management plans. They have developed criteria for sensitive information; testified to Congress on standards. Maintaining hardcopies of all digitized materials.

FS - why were documents taken down for a few hours some time in Dec? OTPP?

EPA: It was a mistake. It happens. Information was restored as soon as it was found dto be an error.

Are there any long-range projects?

EPA: sorta. Cincinnati manages digitization program. Understand that we need to provide details of program. We will add "expert" opinions. and establish an advisory group of librarians.

Andrea Morrison, Indiana University (AM): thanks for coming, we're passionate about information. Collections of region 5 were "carefully evaluated" - what does that mean? E.g. not all versions retained, drafts, updates, etc. Put together a work group with full criteria. Search OCLC, where is it held, "good library practices". Are guidelines public?

EPA: Part of framework which we will soon describe. We know we're not doing everything right, but we're trying. If we have to close a physical location, we're trying to build in services to replace that.

AM - We also care about curration of historical datasets.

EPA: our careers have been about getting info out, so don't look for conspiracies.

Michele McKnelly, University of Wisconsin River Falls (MMk) - What ILS do you use?

EPA: Based on "basis"; built inhouse. Planning on openURL/link resolvers? thinking about it. When digitizing, are you enhancing bibliographic records with links to related documents? No, but NEPIS will be searchable via Northern Lights search engine. Digital Asset management systems? Looking at it.

Will EPA's system work with federated search systems?

EPA: Don't know. Yes, they are looking to modernize it. They are moving the in-house database onto Oracle.

James Jacobs - Stanford University (JRJ) - Libraries are beginning to build digital repositories and are interested in harvesting digital content; will NEPIS be harvestable?
EPA: Yes, in fact, NEPIS and our whole site was harvested as part of a GPO pilot. What's harvested? Metadata and objects associated.

BAH - Coop cataloging? Yes. BAH asks for formal coop cat agreement.

Mary Alice Baish, American Association of Law Libraries (MAB) - Libraries closed were very important. and NEPIS is primitive.

EPA: no, it's not.

MAB: so NEPIS will be cornerstone of the digitization; therefore do you have the funding to do the rest of the digitization/preservation?

EPA: Funding comes from each region.; going forward, digitization comes from current budget.

MAB: I have 1/3/07 CRS report on EPA funding and CRS says that in addition to $2million budget cut, there was also $1million from another office.

EPA: The other office was funding materials for science community; change of funds represents a shift, not reduction, among sub-offices within EPA. Also a reduction; wasn't $1million reduction, it was a 500k net reduction. 500k reduction was from subscription funds that are now purchased jointly. Regardless of fund reduction, we still have more titles on desktop library than before.

Stoss/UBuffalo - Why was there no effort to ask for more funds to assist with the transformation? We'd have helped you. We've got the same problems, we feel for you, you should have asked us.

EPA: yeah. well. We're here now.

BAH: it's not too late - we can still support you in getting additional funds now.

At FGI, we continue to wonder why GPO has never said that they will avoid using "Digital Rights Management" (DRM) tools to authenticate government publications. DRM technologies, which are designed for use by the entertainment industry to protect content from copying, are (or should be) antithetical to open, freely available, reusable government information. A different way to authenticate a digital document is with a "cryptographic hash."

[A] cryptographic hash algorithm is a highly complex math formula that can be used to create digital signatures and authenticate data to ensure it hasn't been tampered with.

[NIST] is looking for "unclassified, publicly disclosed" algorithms that would be "royalty-free" and "capable of protecting sensitive government information well into the foreseeable future."

-- NIST announces competition for new cryptographic hash algorithm, by Ellen Messmer, Network World, 01/23/07

Such "digital signatures" (each one essentially a string of numbers) could even be included in library OPAC records along with a link to the algorithm so that any user could verify the authenticity of any document using open tools that run on any platform.

• NIST Wants Comments on Draft ‘Hash’ Requirements, NIST. January 23, 2007
• Announcing the Development of New Hash Algorithm(s) for the Revision of Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 180–2, Secure Hash Standard. Notice and request for comments., DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, National Institute of Standards and Technology, [Docket No.: 061213336–6336–01] Federal Register Vol 72, no. 14, January 23, 2007, p. 2861.

See also: Draft requirements for new hashing standard open for comment, by William Jackson, GCN, 01/23/07

Government Executive posted an article on President Bush's call for the creation of a "Civilian Reserve Corps" "...to ease the burden on the military...". It was mentioned in his State of the Union address, Tuesday.

"Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time. "

There are many ways a person can serve his country. Federal Depository Librarians, for example. Or just an ordinary citizen taking up an issue, commenting on Rulemaking, and so on. Serving or supporting the military often is made out to be the primary way "to serve your country' but it's not. The military is just one of many --and certainly has the greatest sacrifice and risk. What would happen if we mobilized a "Citizen's Government Oversight Corps", asking people to serve 3-4 years engaging in executive and legislative branch activities?

I wonder if there are any implications of international military "law" involving civilians in harms way. If your adversary is using the tactic of terrorism, the theatre is anywhere. We already have a great deal of commercial interests involved in supporting military. This is just not enough, certainly in our present foreign adventures, and this initiative confirms our military's lack of resources to accomplish all its aims (at the direction of the current executive). I wonder where this initiative will go and whether it is wise.

Remixes (now more often called Mashups) are in the news this morning. The Wall Street Journal has an article about the Chirag Mehta's US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud.

• State of the Speeches -- Time Waster: Web Site Tracks a History Of Presidential Buzzwords by Aaron Rutkoff. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). Jan 22, 2007. [ProQuest link. subscription required] Also available from the WSJ by subscription here. And it may still be available without subscription here

Chirag has a story about the story on his blog: 'Blog for Tuesday, January 23, 2007. We covered the site earlier here: remix: US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud.

And the New York Times has an online application that is similar to Chirag's: The Words That Were Used.

Regulations.gov to nearly triple number of rules posted, by Jason Miller, GCN 01/23/07.

Only about 36 percent of all federal documents that support agency rules are posted on Regulations.gov, but that will change over the next 11 months.

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs Regulations.gov as part of the E-Rulemaking e-government project, expect by Dec. 31 that the number percentage of documents posted on the portal that suppor rules should jump to more than 90 percent.

I'm still getting my notes together from the several sessions in which EPA officials fielded questions from librarians at GODORT sessions. The notes below are from the session presided over by the ALA Committee on Legislation Subcommittee on Federal Libraries. Over the coming days, I'll be posting more notes from others who were there. Please leave comments and/or recollections. One of the most potent points made at this session was about precedent. The questioner was extremely worried that EPA's decisions would set a precedent for other federal libraries (and we already know that other federal libraries are planning closings etc.). By leaving your comments (remember they can be anonymous), you'll be adding your voice to the discussion.

And now to the notes. As always, these are my notes based on my own memory, hearing and poor typing skills ;-) Any errors are completely my fault.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

EPA meeting sunday 1/21/07
ALA Committee on Legislation Subcommittee on Federal Libraries
EPA staff: Mike Flynn, Rick Martin and a few others who's names I didn't catch

During EPA's introduction, you mentioned that you had a number of takeaways from the various meetings during the ALA conference. What are the most important things that you've "taken away" from these talks?

EPA: Concern about loss of documents and information. EPA's collections are critical to so many operations. We must make sure we don't lose critical materials in the digitization process.

Concern about the digitization process, make sure there is proper metadata, they will make available the technical specs of the process and will have an independent review of that process.

There's a need to continue to communicate, a sense from the stakeholders that there has not been enough communication with those that are affected by this shift. We need to do more outreach outside our (EPA) community and a stronger connection inside the network. Information access is our primary job. Libraries and librarians are a key part of that.

Concern about the physical closures and loss of physical presence. Contract librarians have been dropped. We will go back and look at that and make sure there is enough support for public services.

Question: Transparency is key to this process and that includes posting specs etc on your website. There are MANY other stakeholders (academics, law librarians etc). Transparency is above all of the previous items listed in the last question.

The Questioner looked at the statutory provisions (PLA?) and EPA manual to see if these changes are in compliance with those provisions. How does this apply to the closing of libraries to the public?

EPA: Delivery is shifting and we're still committed to doing access electronically. Trends in regional offices is such that there have been less walkins.

Questioner: Do you have statistics on walkins for the regionals that have closed for the last 5 years?

EPA: It's not that there are none, but walkins have dropped off. Our intentions are not to go and shut the remaining 20 some EPA libraries. There is a consistent pattern of less walkins. There are other public access avenues depending on the region. There may be a public information center/officer in addition to or instead of a librarian. Some places integrate the services and make multiple uses of the people.

Question: All of us work in libraries with undiscovered collections. We're worried about the precedent that EPA sets in terms of the closing of *other* federal libraries. In Chicago, a lot of the federal regional libraries are looking at this. As the only expert in the area, this person was negatively affected by the number of users who were now going to the university for research assistance because they could no longer get help from EPA.

EPA: We are sensitized to the issues and concerns. We're not just closing down but are shifting and helping to set a new model.

Question: 3 comments. This person is also concerned about the precedent setting. Part of that precedent is that there was no communication and dialog with user communities before the process went forward. Depository libraries will take all comers and want to have access to materials. 3rd, the real question is, what will you do with those walkins? Will you refer them somewhere else?

EPA: All regions have a public intake process and those things will continue. Walkins in need of information and research will be referred.

Question: You mentioned email reference question. Is there a system of email question management? how is email reference done at EPA?

EPA: We have automated the process and have created a knowledge base and FAQ. But each of the areas/programs deal with email. There are a number of professional librarians who are answering email and phone questions. Regional offices are in the process of putting a research assistance process is in place. We're making sure there is information for the public on how they can get help.

Ridley R. Kessler, Jr., retired documents librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died in Durham, N.C., on Jan. 11, 2007, of congestive heart failure. He was 65.

I meant to post on Ridley earlier than this, but for some reason I've been very slow reacting to the death of colleagues and relatives of friends this past year.

But Ridley Kessler deserves to be written about in many venues. One eloquent tribute I've seen is at Chapel Hill and can be found at http://www.lib.unc.edu/spotlight/kessler.html.

I did not know Ridley well, although I met him at several documents conferences. I considered him to be one of the deans of our field, even when I felt I needed to disagree with him.

I believe that our main differences were on tactics. Ridley believed in electronic information. He wanted to break down the walls of the depository library. As I perceived him, he wanted librarians to "stop whining" about the loss of print and embrace the opportunities of the future. His full embrace of an electronic future seems to be untypical of his generation.

While I see the ideal (and to a certain extent the actual) future as one of mixed media, I agreed with Ridley that electronic information has tremendous potential and that librarians need to do more to realize that potential. Like Ridley, I didn't think that government documents could afford to hide behind physical depository walls.

And while I wouldn't use the expression "whining librarians", I think Ridley had a point that too many depository librarians are focused on what they can't do as opposed to what they can do or could do if they joined with other libraries. Some of us are fearful of the future and bless Ridley for making us face that in that gruff way of his that I observed at conferences.

While I and a few others challenged Ridley on whether the electronic portion of our future should be centralized with the government or decentralized with libraries, I think the government information have lost a champion this month.

If you have memories of Ridley Kessler, won't you either leave a comment here or send an e-mail to dnlcornwall AT alaska.net for me to post for you?

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has posted CDT's Congressional Agenda for the 110th Congress. Executive Summary, January 22, 2007.

In addition to sections on Free Expression, Consumer Privacy, Security & Freedom, Internet Neutrality, and Digital Copyright it has a section on Digital Democracy. That section advocates:

• Congress Should Enact the Open Government Provisions in the Ethics Reform Package
• Congress Should Adopt Electronic Filing of Campaign Finance Reports
• Congress Should Enforce Open Government Obligations and Close Gaps in FOIA
• Congress Should Make Congressional Research Reports Available to the Public