ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 11, Number 57
July 16, 2002

In This Issue: 
[1] E-Government Act of 2002 Passes Senate
[2] Universal Service Discussion List Available for Subscribers

[1] E-Government Act of 2002 Passes Senate
On June 27, 2002, the E-Government Act of 2002 (S. 803) passed the U.S. Senate on Unanimous Consent.  This is legislation that the library community has been involved with since its initiation and in support of which Sharon Hogan, Chair of the 2001-2002 Committee on Legislation, testified in July 2001 [http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/071101_hogan.htm]. While the legislation changed in a number of ways over the last year, its passage in the Senate is a big step in the direction of better federal executive branch management of information over its life-cycle, with public access being a key focus. 

The legislation creates a number of new opportunities for the public, libraries, and others concerned with information access to participate in the legislative and governmental processes. The bill also contains important provisions regarding the privacy implications of government information systems, digital divide concerns, and community technology centers.

The Washington Office site [www.ala.org/washoff/803keyprovisions.pdf] has an overview of some of the bill's key provisions from the library and public access community's perspective.

[2] ALA's Universal Service Email Discussion List is now open to all who wish to subscribe!  

The Universal Service discussion list provides an excellent forum for sharing information and asking questions of peers about the E-rate program and application processes.  The list is also used to alert subscribers to current E-rate news, FCC orders and announcements from the Schools and Libraries Division of USAC.  All members of ALA's E-rate Task Force subscribe to the list.

This list is slightly restricted in that only subscribers may post or access the archives.  ALA reserves the right to remove anyone who is using the list for blatant advertising or commercial purposes.  It is an unmoderated list.

To subscribe, please send a message to listproc@ala.org and leave the subject line blank.  In the body of the message type: subscribe univserv yourfirstname yourlastname. 

Please contact Jennifer Hendrix (jhendrix@alawash.org) with questions or concerns.




******
ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits.

To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon.  To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 

ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell, Claudette Tennant. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.