****Begin File******************Begin File*******************Begin File**** *************************************************************************** ALAWON ALA Washington Office Newsline An electronic publication of the American Library Association Washington Office Volume 2, Number 24 June 4, 1993 In this issue: (281 lines) CLARIFICATIONS ON APPROPRIATIONS ISSUES ALA STATEMENT ON THURGOOD MARSHALL PAPERS SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES S.4 WITH NETWORKING APPLICATIONS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS FUND ACT OMB'S OIRA CHIEF CONFIRMED *************************************************************************** CLARIFICATIONS ON APPROPRIATIONS ISSUES Some readers have asked whether the Higher Education Act title II-B library education fellowship program has had its funds rescinded by the House for the upcoming academic year. These funds are safe because the awards to the various graduate library and information science schools had already been made. Therefore, the funds were fortunately no longer available to be withdrawn. Other questions have been asked about whether the savings from the House elimination of nearly $15 million in FY93 library program funding for college library technology grants, library research and demonstrations, and library literacy projects would go to reduce the deficit. This is not the case. The savings would go to help pay for the reduced Clinton stimulus package. When the Senate takes up HR 2244 next week, they may look for other mechanisms to finance the stimulus package, such as the 0.45 percent cut on all programs recommended by the Administration. This would not add to the deficit either. Further, funding the library programs in FY94 will not add to the deficit. Each funding subcommittee has a certain pot of funds to spend -- a level Congress and the Administration have already agreed will lead to the politically acceptable level of deficit reduction in future years. They will spend all that's available to them for FY94 because the total is insufficient to meet the needs. The only question is whether library programs will be among the competing programs that actually do get funded. *************************************************************************** ALA STATEMENT ON THURGOOD MARSHALL PAPERS The recent controversy about the Library of Congress' decision to open access to the papers of Justice Thurgood Marshall prompted the American Library Association to issue the following statement in support of the Library's decision. ALA President Marilyn Miller has sent a copy of the statement to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the House and Senate Legislative Appropriations Subcommittees, and the Joint Committee on the Library. STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS' DECISION TO OPEN ACCESS TO THE PAPERS OF JUSTICE THURGOOD MARSHALL Intellectual freedom and open access to library materials are the most fundamental principles of the library profession and are among the highest priorities of the American Library Association. The Library of Congress' decision to open access to the papers of Justice Thurgood Marshall, pursuant to his plain instructions, is consistent with the highest professional standards of librarianship, and representative of the finest spirit of our constitutional republic: government of the people, by the people and for the people. The current move to close or restrict access to Justice Marshall's papers, if successful, would force the Library of Congress, an institution looked upon by the library profession as an example for all libraries, to violate these most fundamental tenets of librarianship. Justice Marshall made his intentions clear in the Instrument of Gift he signed. He entrusted his papers to the Library of Congress for the benefit of the public. According to _The Washington Post_ and _The New York Times_, that Instrument made an unrestricted gift of Justice Marshall's papers to the Library, directing the Library to release the documents, at its discretion, to the public, following Justice Marshall's death, and releasing all claims of copyright. There is no reason to second guess the plain intent of the document, nor to doubt that Justice Marshall was thoroughly aware of the meaning of the terms used at the time he signed the document. The suggestion that the Library has abused the discretion granted it by Justice Marshall by opening access to the papers impugns the professionalism of the Library specialists who worked directly with Justice Marshall in making the arrangement for the donation of his papers, in the process described by Librarian of Congress James Billington in his statement of May 26. It is reasonable to conclude that Justice Marshall, one of our most revered jurists, by reason of his experience as a practicing attorney and as a United States Supreme Court Justice, knew perfectly well the meaning and scope of the "discretion" he granted. Justice Marshall dedicated his life to the preservation and the fair and equal application of the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the laws of the United States. To close access to his papers when his intent that access should be open was so plain, would violate the very principles Justice Marshall himself embodied in his life's work. The American Library Association wholeheartedly supports the decision of the Library of Congress to open access to Justice Marshall's papers, pursuant to Justice Marshall's plain instructions, and urges that access to these highly significant documents remain open for the benefit of the public. The American Library Association is a nonprofit educational organization of more than 56,000 librarians from school, public, academic, research, state, and specialized libraries, as well as library trustees, library and information science educators, and friends of libraries. *************************************************************************** SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVES S.4 WITH NETWORKING APPLICATIONS On May 25, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee ordered reported a committee substitute amendment to S. 4, the National Competitiveness Act. The committee has not yet officially released the new text or issued its report on the bill, but title VI, the Information Technology Applications Program Act, has been amended to be very similar to HR 1757. S. 4 also defines the NREN as a true program, and has all the strengths of its House counterpart. Title VI would promote the development of high- performance computing and networking technologies through applications in education, manufacturing, health care, libraries, and government information dissemination. The digital libraries application includes a component called electronic libraries in the states, which is clearly taken from Senator Robert Kerrey's (D-NE) S. 626, the Electronic Library Act: The National Science Foundation, in consultation with the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Library of Congress, is authorized to initiate a competitive, merit-based program to support the efforts of States and, as appropriate, libraries to develop electronic libraries. These libraries shall provide delivery of and access to a variety of databases, computer programs and interactive multimedia presentations, including educational materials, research information, statistics and reports developed by Federal, State, and local governments, and other information and informational services which can be carried over the Internet. However, S. 4 includes troublesome language promoted by large regional telecommunications companies to be added to both S. 4 and HR 1757. Meetings and negotiations among these companies with the research, education, and library communities and House Science Subcommittee staff succeeded in moderating some of the language being proposed for HR 1757. S. 4 would amend the 1991 High-Performance Computing Act to provide that the Act should "not provide for the building, ownership, or operation of data communications networks by the Federal Government, or any State or local government, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, unless such networks are either (i) test bed networks or (ii) networks operated for government mission purposes, including military purposes." The NREN program in S.4 now calls for provision of support "directly to" (instead of HR 1757's "for") researchers, educators, and students to obtain access to and use of the Internet. Although libraries do not want to be in the telecommunications business, they have a structure of agencies and organizations which help them take advantage of, and become a more viable market for, technological services needed to serve their users. State library agencies and state and regional library networks are among these service and support organizations which may be hampered in acting on behalf of libraries as a result of these changes in S. 4. The library, education, and research communities oppose this language. It has led to so many questions that it will undoubtedly inhibit the very research, education and library communities the legislation sets out to encourage from making the most efficient and effective use of commercial network services. The costs of telephone services needed for network connections can be high unless the ability to aggregate the needs can be done to reduce costs. When these communities purchase commercial telecommunications capacity and services, they often put them together, layer services specific to school and libraries on top of this commercial base, and call the result a network. The "network" may then purchase additional commercial capacity and services on behalf of additional school, library, or governmental entities. The word "network" appears on countless cooperative agreements and legal documents in the library and education communities. Many of these agreements are developed with government agencies and/or with nonprofit or for-profit private sector partners. To force these library and education "networks" to forgo any involvement in activities intended to be supported by this legislation would pervert its basic intent. Yet implementation of this provision would add layers of rule-making procedures to the federal grant process, spawn time-consuming and disruptive uncertainty and contentious disagreement, and invite unproductive litigation or lead to inefficiencies in the library and education communities to avoid potential litigation. Where are the potential abuses which would not be covered by existing laws and regulations and which would require such a problematic new restriction? ACTION NEEDED: S. 4, the National Competitiveness Act, could reach the Senate floor as early as mid-June. Library constituents of Senators on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee should alert them to these problems in title VI of S. 4, which negate what is for the most part very helpful legislation for libraries and their users. The ALA Washington Office would also appreciate hearing additional comments from the library community on S. 4 as approved by the Senate committee. *************************************************************************** LIBRARY OF CONGRESS FUND ACT On May 20, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee approved S. 345, the Library of Congress Fund Act of 1993, with technical corrections, but no substantive changes. The committee report (S. Rept. 103-50) indicates that the legislation "affirms the Library's role as the national library and assures that the Library will continue to provide and expand its free core services to the Nation." The March 12 statement of concerns of ALA, the American Association of Law Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries had been distributed to all committee members. This statement recommended additional wording changes in the legislation. None of these changes was incorporated by the Senate committee, although report language addresses some of these points. For instance, the report notes that by implication the bill permits the Library to charge redistribution fees for specialized services. The report emphasizes that this section should not be read "to give the Library a blank check to charge redistribution fees unrelated to recovery of its own costs." Further: For purposes of section 303(1), permissible redissemination fees do not include downstream royalties for the subsequent use or redistribution of the information or database after the Library has recovered the initial production cost. They include only those additional charges incurred by the Library for such subsequent uses, as for example, when a royalty is incurred for the use of copyrighted software or other copyrighted material distributed as part of the specialized product or service. Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), a member of the committee, and Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, announced his intention to offer amendments when the bill reaches the Senate floor. Because the DeConcini amendment dealt with copyright, it was not in the Rules Committee jurisdiction, and could not be offered at the committee level. *************************************************************************** OMB'S OIRA CHIEF CONFIRMED On May 28, the Senate confirmed the nomination of Washington attorney Sally Katzen to be Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on the nomination on May 19. After referring to information "in new forms," Chairman John Glenn (D-OH) asked Katzen what she thought about sending information directly to schools and libraries. Katzen responded that depository libraries have been an important outlet for years. She was aware of the pending GPO Access bills and said that it is time to do a variety of projects "to see how the system works." *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** ALAWON is an irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5675. Phone: 202-547-4440; Fax: 202-547-7363; Internet: alawash@alawash.org. Editor and List Owner: Fred King (fdk@alawash.org). All or part of ALAWON may be redistributed, with appropriate credits. ALAWON is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe ala-wo [your name]" to listserv@uicvm (Bitnet) or listserv@uicvm.uic.edu (internet). Back issues of ALAWON are available from the list server. To find out what's available, send the message "send ala-wo filelist" to the listserv. 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