ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 10, Number 53 July 5, 2001 In this issue: [1] ACTION ALERT: PubSCIENCE THREATENED BY FY2002 APPROPRIATIONS Library supporters are asked to contact the Senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee (listed below) and ask them to FULLY FUND PubSCIENCE in the Department of Energy FY2002 Appropriations bill. PubSCIENCE, an extremely important Department of Energy database, is threatened with a cut in FY2002 budget proposals in H.R. 2311, the 2002 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill. Elimination of this service denies no-fee public access to an important database for government funded research and development reports, citations, and even some full articles. It is not in the public good to cut or eliminate this service which denies scientists, engineers, students, researchers and many others access to publicly-funded research and information not available elsewhere. Thirty-five publishers have provided access to over 1200 journals through PubSCIENCE. The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has voted to cut funding for the Technical Information Management program citing unfair competition with the private companies wanting to develop and sell such a service. Pressure must be applied to the Senate to retain funding for this unique and critical program in the Department of Energy. ACTION ALERT: Please contact Senators listed below and ask them to support full funding for PubSCIENCE. A sample letter follows at the end of this e-mail message. Robert Byrd (D-WV) - Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK) - Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-AL) Jon Kyl (R-AZ) Diane Feinstein (D-CA) Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Tom Harkin (D-IA) Larry Craig (R-ID) Richard Durbin (D-IL) Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Christopher Bond (R-MO) Thad Cochran (R-MS) Conrad Burns (R-MT) Judd Gregg (R-NH) Pete Domenici (R-NM) Harry Reid (D-NV) Arlen Specter (R-PA) Ernest Hollings (D-SC) Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) Robert Bennet (R-UT) Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Patty Murray (D-WA) Herbert Kohl (D-WI) [2] ALA SENDS LETTER SUPPORTING FULL FUNDING FOR PubSCIENCE ALA Washington Office Executive Director Emily Sheketoff sent a letter on July 3, 2001, to all the Senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee clearly stating ALA's support for full funding for PubSCIENCE. The letter reads as follows: Dear Senator: The American Library Association (ALA) strongly advocates for the public's right to equal, ready and equitable access to information, especially information created by the government. ALA believes that an important part of the Department of Energy's mandate is to provide for the accessibility and dissemination of scientific knowledge that was created as the result of government- sponsored R & D. The PubSCIENCE service saves the user time- consuming research of web sites and allows access to journal information at any time by directly linking to the publisher's site to obtain the full text. The American Library Association supports fully funding the Department of Energy's Technical Information Management program, at the $8.97 million level for FY2002. This level is necessary to ensure the work that makes PubSCIENCE and other Department of Energy information resources available to the public. Your continued support for this economical way of making important science information easily accessible to all will be appreciated by your constituents and scientists everywhere. Sincerely, Emily Sheketoff Executive Director, ALA Washington Office Following is another sample letter to Senators on the Appropriations Subcommittee. Dear Senator xxxxxx, I urge you to vote for full funding for the Technical Information Management program, part of H.R. 2311, the 2002 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill. This program funds the important resource PubSCIENCE. To ensure free public access to government sponsored physical science research, the Technical Information Management program must be fully funded. The PubSCIENCE database contains citations and in some cases, links to articles in scientific journals. Researchers in government and industry as well as librarians, educators, students and the scientific public use this database. For-profit and not- for-profit journal publishers have volunteered their information, free of charge, to be disseminated through PubSCIENCE. Researchers can search articles in 1,250 journals from 35 publishers. PubSCIENCE focuses on journals in which Department of Energy researchers report their scientific discoveries. Much of the research in PubSCIENCE is produced with federal funds, and PubSCIENCE provides access to government sponsored research and development, originally paid for by the American taxpayers. PubSCIENCE was developed to provide free access to taxpayer funded research and development programs sponsored by the Federal government. The House Appropriations Committee cut funding for the Technical Information Management program out of concern that the program is duplicating services already available from the private sector. However, given that the research is paid for by the taxpayers, it is essential that the public and researchers be able find it through a free resource like PubSCIENCE, not a private sector for pay resource. I urge you to vote for full funding for the Technical Information Management program, which will support free access to publicly funded scientific research and development. ****** 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. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.