ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 7, Number 152 December 11, 1998 In this issue: ALA WASHINGTON OFFICE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR ANNE HEANUE TO RETIRE Anne Heanue, associate director of the ALA Washington Office, plans to retire on December 23, 1998. She began as assistant to the director in 1979 and served as assistant director from 1981 tot 1984. In her current position Heanue helped increase public access to government information; contributed to coalition building between the library community and other organizations; and helped gain federal funds to enable American libraries to better serve their users. Heanue, a recognized expert in the area of government information dissemination policy, has represented ALA and its policies to members of Congress, federal officials, national organizations and ALA units. Recently she played a major role in support of the Inter-Association Working Group on Government Information Policy, established by ALA in 1997. The Working Group developed recommendations from the library community to strengthen the law underlying how the federal government disseminates its own information, including an update of the Federal Depository Library Program. She worked with attorneys and coalitions in the most recent postal rate case in which ALA successfully opposed steep increases requested by the U.S. Postal Service for Library Rate mail. She developed and authored the Washington Office publication, "Less Access to Less Information by and about the U.S. Government." The award winning bi-annual chronology was named several times as one of the 25 most important underreported news stories by Project Censored, a national media research project conducted at Sonoma (CA) State University which tries to refocus media attention on some issues that have been overlooked. Heanue edited the quarterly newsletter of the Coalition on Government Information, initiated by ALA in 1986. Since 1989, the Coalition of 50-member organizations has presented the James Madison Award to champions of the public's right to know. She co- authored ALA's annual chapter on "Legislation and Regulations Affecting Libraries" for The Bowker Annual. In 1988 she was honored with the Federal Librarians Round Table Achievement Award for outstanding leadership and achievement in the promotion of library and information service in the federal community. In 1998 she received a certificate of appreciation for outstanding service and support to the federal library and information center community as the ALA liaison to the Federal Library and Information Center Committee. ****** 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 or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 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. Editor: Lynne E. Bradley; Managing Editor: Deirdre Herman; Contributors: Mary Costabile, Adam Eisgrau, Anne Heanue, Carol Henderson, Peter Kaplan, Claudette Tennant and Rick Weingarten.