No tolls on the ‘net: more on net neutrality
Lawrence Lessig and Robert W. McChesney recently wrote an article in the Washington Post, June 8th 2006 addressing issues of network neutrality -- the principle for preserving the free and open Internet (registration may be required. Try BugMeNot to read without registering).
Congress is deciding on the fate of the Internet. The question before it is simple: Should the Internet be handed over to the handful of cable and telephone companies that control online access for 98 percent of the broadband market? Only a Congress besieged by high-priced telecom lobbyists and stuffed with campaign contributions could possibly even consider such an absurd act.And consider it they have as the House rejected Net neutrality rules last thursday in HR5252. The CNet story lists no less than 6 Senate and House bills that include net neutrality in their language. The vote against HR5252 fell along party lines. Related sites: SaveTheInternet Free Press Net Neutrality Continue reading
Pt. 7: Nonlawyer’s journey through Title 44: Free use of Government publications in depositories
This post, all earlier postings in this series, and my "not a lawyer" disclaimer can be found at http://freegovinfo.info/title44 or through our library under Nonlawyer's Journey through Title 44. In my last Title 44 installment, I covered 44 USC 1909. Today I cover 44 USC 1911, Free use of Government publications in depositories. Why not Section 1910? Because 1910 deals with the replacement of depository libraries and so does not seem to be a central part of the Depository Library Program. 44 USC 1911 states:
TITLE 44--PUBLIC PRINTING AND DOCUMENTS CHAPTER 19--DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM Sec. 1911. Free use of Government publications in depositories; disposal of unwanted publications Depository libraries shall make Government publications available for the free use of the general public, and may dispose of them after retention for five years under section 1912 of this title, if the depository library is served by a regional depository library. Depository libraries not served by a regional depository library, or that are regional depository libraries themselves, shall retain Government publications permanently in either printed form or in microfacsimile form, except superseded publications or those issued later in bound form which may be discarded as authorized by the Superintendent of Documents. (Pub. L. 90-620, Oct. 22, 1968, 82 Stat. 1286.) Historical and Revision Notes Based on 44 U.S. Code, 1964 ed., Sec. 92 (part) (Jan. 12, 1895, ch. 23, Sec. 74, 28 Stat. 620; June 20, 1936, ch. 630, title VII, Sec. 11, 49 Stat. 1552; Aug. 9, 1962, Pub. L. 87-579, Sec. 8, 76 Stat. 355).The first sentence of section 92, is classified to section 1119; the remainder comprises this section of the revision. Section Referred to in Other Sections This section is referred to in section 1915 of this title.Section 1911 is another section that places responsibilities on libraries. In this case, libraries are required to allow free use of government publications and to retain all but superseded publications for at least five years. Certain depositories called regionals must keep all but superseded publications permanently. Regional libraries are covered in detail by 44 USC 1912, so I'll save a full discussion of the vital regional libraries until then. Traditionally, "free use" of government publications has meant the free browsing and borrowing of materials held by depository libraries. There is no requirement in either Title 44 or in Depository Library Program regulations for free photocopying. Photocopying follows the general guidelines of whatever a library allows for its general collection. If you can make ten free photocopies of a library book or magazine, then those same guidelines apply for government documents. If you charge $0.50/page for all library materials, then the Government Printing Office has no problem with you charging $0.50/page for photocopies of government documents. I believe that the principle of free use might be endangered in a mostly electronic program because it forces more users into printing pages off the Internet. While they can technically read material from a screen, most people prefer reading more than a page or two from paper. Patrons can be charged the same rate for printing from government documents as they can for other web pages. Additionally, many libraries place limits on Internet time, which is acceptable depository practice. Many libraries offer a 30 minute time limit, which would make it hard to read more than the executive summary of many reports. By contrast, in the tangible world, someone could either borrow the report and read it at their leisure, or at least take as much time as they needed in the depository's reading area. Leaving free use, let us consider the five year disposal period. The feds can require libraries to keep depository materials for five years because the items remain federal property even though the depository library has custody. Over the years, there have been efforts to change this retention period, but since it is written into statute, it has proved difficult to change. With the arrival of a mostly electronic program, disposal of documents may take on new meanings, whether the future is one of linking to federal servers or one of building local digital collections. Anyone want to guess how that might change? Next time we will look at the section of the law that governs Regional Depository Libraries and sing their praises. Continue reading
EPA – can a database replace a library?
After the new budget effectively phased out the EPA's library system and related resources, there is a new website, the National Environmental Publications Information System. Introduced with words like "exciting" and "terrific" the online database includes such features as highlighted search terms and proximity operators. A quick set of usability notes, using a search for the word "frogs":
- once you get a list of results clicking on the document title does nothing, you have to click on the little eye picture in order to see the document displayed
- Tooltips? None. Clicking on the capital T which I am used to meaning "text" takes me to a zoomed in tiff file of the document I selected. Downloading the text from the documents is possible, just somewhat hidden and won't work if you have pop-ups disabled.
- No controlled vocabulary, or if there is any, it's hidden from a casual user. The only searchable fields are publication number, title and number of pages.
- Despite the fact that these PDF and TIFF documents are searchable at a keyword level [see attached file], there is no obvious way to get just the text from a PDF document
- Fuzziness, is controllable at a 0-5 level. When fuzziness is at its highest level, searches for "frogs" returns words like "rods" and "free." This may be by design, but the help file is mum on the ubsject stating only "If you want to activate fuzzy searching, you can specify the degree of fuzzy in the listbox Fuzzy."
- Typos. I know it's petty but the word useful has one L.
Draft plan for EPA libraries available
An anonymous poster sent this to me and asked that it be distributed. Please see the attached "EPA FY 2007 Library Plan: National Framework." All are encouraged to send comments to the new head of the EPA environmental information center, Molly O'neill.
The Office of Environmental Information (OEI), in collaboration with the Library Steering Committee (comprised of senior managers from Program Offices and Regions) has assembled a document (attached below) entitled "EPA FY 2007 Library Plan: National Framework." This draft "framework" document is designed to convey the new paradigm this Agency plans to deploy so as to perpetuate high quality delivery of library services to employees and the general public. Development of this plan has been necessitated by projected budget cuts affecting library services beginning in FY 2007. Implementation of this framework will vary by Region and at the headquarters level. This is why "impact and implementation" bargaining of actual library service changes will take place separately in the Regions and at HQ. However, before final decisions are made with respect to composition of the framework document and, thus, prior to it being sent out for further action in the Regions and Headquarters, OEI would very much like to have input from the Unions representing the Agency's bargaining unit employees. Additionally, for the benefit of the Unions, OEI plans to brief and field questions on the issue of pending library service changes at the National Partnership Council (NPC) meeting scheduled for June 13, 2006 in Washington, DC.Continue reading
Proposal for Australia to mandate research article deposit
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum. Short version see also the article recommended: Research with purpose -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Arthur Sale Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 8:56 PM To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM@LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG Subject: Proposal for Australia to mandate research article deposit Apologies for cross-posting – Arthur Sale I have yesterday forwarded a submission to the Australian Research Council (one of Australia’s two public research funding councils, covering all but biomedical research) regarding requiring grantees to deposit their published articles arising from the grant in an OAI-PMH repository. The ARC asked for submissions on its Funding Rules and Funding Agreements. I have extracted below the Executive Summary and the signatories. My personal thanks to all those who provided comment or agreed to support the submission. I hope for a good outcome. If you are interested in reading the full submission, please see http://eprints.comp.utas.edu.au:81/archive/00000277/. Executive Summary The submission is addressed to making a change in the reporting requirements for all funded schemes, which will make it a requirement of receiving the grant to deposit an electronic copy of any refereed research journal or conference articles deriving from the grant with the institution administering the grant. Minor changes are needed in the Funding Rules and the Funding Agreements. Precise wording is supplied to eliminate any concerns by publishers and to make the implementation easy. The benefits to Australia are that Australia’s ARC publicly funded research is made visible to all through the Internet, and in the majority of cases publicly accessible. This will raise Australia’s research impact and is consistent with Australia’s espousal of a level playing field in the dissemination of research, and with activities currently underway or implemented in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. 5 Signatories Submission prepared by Arthur Sale Professor of Computing (Research), University of Tasmania. Previously Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Information Services), University of Tasmania, and National Vice-President of the Australian Computer Society Inc. Recipient of the 2004 Individual Achievement Award from the ICT Industry, and recipient of the 2001 ANCCAC Award for best Australian paper in ICT. See also http://www.comp.utas.edu.au/app/staff_profile.jsp?user=ahjs. Stevan Harnad Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science at Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada, and Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Southampton, UK. He is an External Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Founder and editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (a paper journal published by Cambridge University Press), Psycoloquy (an electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association) and the CogPrints Electronic Preprint Archive in the Cognitive Sciences. He is also moderator of the American Scientist Open Access Forum. See also http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/vita.html. Alma Swan Director, Key Perspectives Ltd. Alma held a faculty position at the University of Leicester until 1985, when she moved into science publishing. In 1996, she jointly founded Key Perspectives, a consultancy serving the scholarly publishing industry. Since 1991 she has been tutor for two business strategy courses on Warwick Business School’s MBA programme and holds honorary roles as business mentor and teacher for the Institute for Entrepreneurship (part of the School of Management) at Southampton University. Peter Suber Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge, and Senior Researcher at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). Author of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, the Open Access News weblog, and principal drafter of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Other support Many other members of the Open Access community have expressed their personal support for the recommendations in Section 3. Their names are listed in the open access forum post by Arthur Sale. Continue reading