ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 11, Number 89 November 12, 2002 In This Issue: [1] PubSCIENCE is discontinued [2] ALA Questions Removal of U.S. Department of Education Web Pages from Public Access [1] PubSCIENCE is discontinued As of November 4, 2002, the Department of Energy has discontinued PubSCIENCE. While there were only 7 comments in favor of ending PubSCIENCE, there were nearly 240 public comments, many from librarians and other PubSCIENCE users, pressing for continuance of the indexing service. Negative comments generally originated from members of the information industry and some publishers. This group has, since 2000, targeted PubSCIENCE because they perceive it to be in competition with two private sector indexes-Scirus (owned by Reed Elsevier) and Infotrieve. Scirus and Infotrieve currently provide no cost indexing services to the public. However, this could change to a fee-based subscription service at any time. PUBScience is a web-based tool publicly available to access articles published in peer-reviewed journals without "wading through multiple websites, publications and references." In our ALAWON dated September 4, 2002, ALA reported on the threats to PUBScience and asked for public comment (http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon/alwn1170.html). ALA submitted comments to the Department of Energy, arguing that PubSCIENCE should be preserved and continued (see comments at http://www.ala.org/washoff/pubscience.pdf). Threats to PubSCIENCE became louder in August, but there was no advanced warning of the shutdown this week. ALA and others had asked for an additional comment period and notice in the Federal Register to no avail. When it was inaugurated in October 1999, R.L. Scott, OSTI Associate Manager for Initiatives, Planning and Development, described the service as a "unique partnership between the Federal government and the public/private journal publishers; a partnership focused on enabling good science by providing access to peer-reviewed scientific and technical literature," Unfortunately, unless a search of the OSTI web site is performed, most references to the existence of PubSCIENCE have disappeared due to a web site "reorganization." ACTION NEEDED: Library supporters are asked to write to their congressional representatives and senators as well as the White House asking for this important indexing service to be reinstated. Talking points for your letters are available in the text of the September 4 ALAWON previously mentioned. Comments from OSTI Director Walter Warnick, at the inauguration of PubSCIENCE in October 1999, are also pertinent: "We have a responsibility to the Dept. of Energy scientific community to make the results of government R&D accessible while reducing required resources and minimizing taxpayer expense. We are accomplishing that goal with PubSCIENCE. Partnering with the Government Printing Office extends PubSCIENCE benefits to the scientific community at-large and the public." For further information contact Patrice McDermott (pmcdermott@alawash.org) or Lynne Bradley (lbradley@alawsh.org) at the ALA Office of Government Relations. [2] ALA Questions Removal of U.S. Department of Education Web Pages from Public Access As part of ALA's ongoing work to ensure permanent public access to government information, the American Library Association joined several other groups, including the National Education Association, the American Educational Research Association and the National Knowledge Industry Association, to request information about the U.S. Department of Education intentions to reorganize and/or remove key public web pages. Among various stakeholders, there has been continuing discussion, and some confusion, about the Department's newly stated policies that many key web pages would be removed. The ongoing transition to a Bush Administration is the first such transition since the World Wide Web was created and used for major electronic access to government information. The letter raises concerns about a) long term access to information removed from the U.S. Department of Education web site and whether such removed information is being preserved or archived; b) problems with removing access to research, data, and other digests of information that otherwise have been publicly available, irrespective of administration; and c) the importance of including librarians and researchers in making decisions regarding public access during such a transition. The text of the letter follows: October 25, 2002 The Honorable Rod Paige Secretary of Education U.S. Department of Education 400 Maryland Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20202 Dear Secretary Paige: We are writing to express the concerns of our organizations about the recently reported initiative within the U. S. Department of Education (ED) to remove from public access information that "does not reflect the priorities, philosophies, or goals of the present administration." While the Department is aware of the problems such a move would create, the steps it has recently suggested to address these problems still fall short because archived material would clearly not be as accessible. We recognize that the Department may reorganize its Web site, and we applaud your attempts to improve the transparency of this site so that the public can find information more easily. However, the Department's announced initiative to remove documents has raised significant concerns and questions among the library, educational research, and related social science communities, and we would value and appreciate a response. One of our primary concerns centers on the fate of information scheduled to be removed from your publicly accessible Web site. As you are aware, information created or collected by the government, whether in tangible or electronic form, is a federal record. Therefore, we would like to know what steps the Department is taking to preserve information and provide the easiest possible permanent public access to any materials that are removed? Because the Internet has become by far the method of choice for disseminating information and research data widely and efficiently, we are concerned about efforts that would diminish access and use of these records. Secondly, we are equally concerned with any actions that would remove from access research, data, and other digests of information that otherwise have been publicly available, irrespective of administrations, by the Department of Education. Such materials are essential to advancing scientifically-based research and need to remain accessible to the library, educational research, and related scholarly communities. For example, we are uncertain about ongoing access to materials in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) on the Department of Education Web site. Will a link to the ERIC site be established and maintained on the Department's site? Will it be visible to experienced and new researchers who can add knowledge and insights analyzing such information? Finally, we are concerned about the role of educational researchers, related social and behavioral scientists, librarians, those with expertise in data dissemination and preservation, and other public stakeholders in the development of any plan to access materials on the Department's Web site. Information available through the U. S. Department of Education Web site is used by a wide variety of professionals, including educators, scholars, public decision makers, and the public more broadly, and they should be consulted throughout this process. We urge you to hold meetings with them and listen to their concerns and ideas. Members of our associations appreciate your attention to this important matter. We, as well as the general public, need Internet access to the research, data, reports, and other digests and information that may be removed from the Department's Web site. We would appreciate hearing what steps the Department intends to take to ensure ongoing access to documents scheduled to be removed. Sincerely, Emily D. Sheketoff Executive Director American Library Association Washington Office Felice J. Levine Executive Director American Educational Research Association James Kohlmoos Executive Director National Education Knowledge Industry Association Corinne Anderson-Ketchmark President School Social Work Association of America David G. Imig President and CEO American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Sally Hillsman Executive Officer American Sociological Association Reg Weaver President National Education Association Ronald F. Abler Executive Director Association of American Geographers Kimberly Green Executive Director National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium John J. Siegfried Secretary-Treasurer American Economic Association Gerald N. Tirozzi National Association of Secondary School Principals Howard Silver Executive Director Consortium of Social Science Associations Additional Organizations Signing On: Society for Research in Child Development National Association of Social Workers A copy of the letter is available in pdf format at http://www.ala.org/washoff/webscrubbing.pdf. ****** 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.