ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 43 May 12, 2000 In this issue: ACTION ALERT: Contact All House Members to Oppose Cuts to Legislative Branch Appropriations: Plan for Senate Recess Messages to Save FDLP/GPO and Copyright Office/LC Budgets. HOUSE STRATEGY: Contact all members of the House of Representatives and ask them to oppose cuts to FY2001 legislative branch appropriations for the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and the Government Printing Office. Also ask them to oppose cuts to the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. SENATE STRATEGY: Library supporters and others concerned about public access to federal government information must START NOW to communicate with their Senators as the appropriations process moves forward in Congress. Write letters, make calls and plan to invite Senators into depository libraries during the Memorial Day recess to see first hand the importance of public access to government information. BACKGROUND FOR HOUSE MESSAGES: The House legislative branch appropriations bill could go to the House floor in the coming week. At this writing there is still no bill number, but one may be assigned over the weekend or on Monday when the Committee report is officially filed. See ALA's Legislative Action Center for our online service for supporters to generate emails and/or letters to Congress (http://congress.nw.dc.us/ala/). GPO is slated to suffer a 25.3% cut if the House FY2001 appropriations numbers prevail. This translates into a 60% cut for the FDLP and would eliminate printed and other tangible formats, forcing federal government information at depository libraries to be only available electronically. GPO would no longer print the U.S. Code, and it would only be available online or by purchase, likely at great expense, through private sources. The House Appropriations Committee made these cuts on May 9 following action by its Legislative Subcommittee. Similar deep cuts have been proposed for the Copyright Office and there also may also be less funding than needed in the digital future projects at the Library of Congress. The impact of these cuts on GPO and LC and their services to the American public have been summarized in recent ALAWONs. (For further background information see ALAWON, Volume 9, Number 42, May 9, 2000; Volume 9, Number 41, May 5, 2000; Volume 9, Number 40, May 3, 2000; Volume 9, Number 36, April 20, 2000 for Budget Resolution ALAWON.) BACKGROUND FOR SENATE STRATEGY: The Senate Memorial Day recess is May 29th through June 2nd. Plan now to invite Senators over the recess to visit depository libraries and others using Federal documents. Use Memorial Day parades and other venues to talk with the senators and representatives about this important issue. Academic, public and other types of libraries: Ask depository library users and other patrons using government information to express their concerns as well. Researchers, local governments, and the business community as well as professors, students and the general public are all consumers of such information. Please involve them in this important effort to save public access to government information. It is critical for our Senators and Representatives to be engaged and understand these issues if they are to successfully oppose these cuts. The Senators need to see first hand that, while much government information is currently available electronically, there is still a very large percentage of government documents that are not currently or cannot be available online. Over 25,000 titles are only available from federal agencies in tangible formats. Titles like the U.S. Code cannot realistically be used online. OVERALL IMPORTANCE OF THIS ISSUE: One of the cornerstones of our Nation's democracy is the active participation of citizens. It has been a long-standing tenant of our government that an informed citizenry is absolutely necessary to assure a democratic, participatory government. The Federal Depository Library Program is the most important source providing public access to government information. This includes ongoing permanent public access to government documents and information products, something online access cannot assure at this time. The library community as a whole - not just depository librarians and others working directly with government documents and information products - must tell the story about the importance of the Federal Depository Library Program and the need for access to both tangible and electronic forms of government information. The American public's ability to access government information is severely threatened by these cuts. It is the library community that must rally to save this important resource for all citizens. For further information contact: Lynne Bradley or Mary Costabile at the ALA Office of Government Relations at 1-800-941-8478 or email them at leb@alawash.org or mrc@alawsh.org. See also the GODORT web site at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/GODORT/#GODORT. ****** 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; Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Miriam Nisbet and Claudette Tennant. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell and Saundra Shirley.