ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 10, Number 54 July 13, 2001 In this issue: 1) LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS TESTIFY ON E-GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION 2) HOUSE E-GOVERNMENT BILL INTRODUCED 3) ALA PARTICIPATES IN E-GOVERNMENT PANEL 1) LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS TESTIFY ON E-GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION Sharon Hogan, Director of Libraries at the University of Illinois in Chicago, testified on July 11th before the U.S. Senate Government Affairs Committee on S. 803, the E-Government Act of 2001. Hogan represented ALA as well as the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Hogan was one of ten witnesses testifying on a bill introduced by Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Conrad Burns (R-MT) on May 1st. (See previous ALAWON report, May 7, 2001, Volume 10, Number 34) The legislation is co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D- NM), Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL), Thomas Daschle (D-SD), John McCain (R-AZ), Thomas Carper (D-DE), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Tim Johnson (D-SD), John Kerry (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Carl Levin (D-MI). S. 803 proposes a chief information officer for the Executive Branch to be located in the Office of Management and Budget(OMB); formalizes a government-wide CIO Council; and creates an E- government fund to promote inter-agency cooperation on e- government efforts. Additionally, the bill addresses the life- cycle management of government information and calls for permanent public access initiatives to be developed. A Senate staff outline of the bill is available at: http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/egovoutline.pdf Lieberman indicated that the bill was part of the Senate Legislative Agenda for this fall. Work will continue on refining the bill and seeking further input and support for the bill, especially from the Bush Administration. In the joint library testimony, Hogan emphasized: "Our Nation's libraries are key access points for the American public and already are and should be members of e-government teams at the federal, state and local levels. We cannot have an effective e-government without effective access to government information and coordinated information policies. . . the move to an e-government has not been accompanied by the development of a comprehensive policy framework focusing on the life-cycle of electronic government information." Hogan's testimony indicated that the library community supports the "overall information access policies through a Chief Information Officer for the executive branch. Too often access to Federal government information has been disorganized and untimely. . . .We need a policy framework that addresses information from its inception and acquisition to its organization and cataloging, and from its public accessibility to long term permanent public access and preservation. Lack of adequate funding has compromised information access and frustrated a reasonable transition to electronic dissemination. Funding is necessary." The full text of the joint library statement submitted for the record, the verbal testimony given on July 11th and the related ALA press release are available at: http://www.ala.org/washoff/hogantest.pdf and http://www.ala.org/washoff/egovpress.pdf. In his opening comments, Senator Lieberman, chief sponsor of the bill and chair of the Senate Government Affairs Committee emphasized that: Our goal is to use information technology to bring about a revolution in current bureaucratic structures so that we can engage the public, restore its trust and, ultimately, increase public participation in the democratic process.overall, progress in digital government is uneven. We have a loose-knit mix of ideas and projects that are often poorly coordinated, sometimes overlapping, and frequently redundant. Remarkable innovations dreamed up by visionary government employees can be found in some quarters, but elsewhere innovations are hampered by regulatory and statutory restrictions, the inability to move beyond traditional models of government management, and "stove-pipe" conceptions of agency jurisdiction. The result is that the progress of electronic government at the federal level has been inconsistent, particularly in areas that require intergovernmental coordination. I want to emphasize again today, our legislation is a work in progress. . . . I expect the bill will change as we work to achieve a broad consensus, and I hope everyone will maintain an open mind as we strive for that compromise. Others testifying at the hearing were: Senator Conrad Burns (R- MT), Deputy Director of OMB Sean O'Keefe, Anne K. Altman from IBM, Dr. Costis Toregas from Public Technology, Inc. (a joint initiative of the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and other local government associations), Aldon Valicenti, Kentucky State CIO and president of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, Greg Woods from the U.S. Department of Education Student Financial Assistance Programs, Barry Ingram for the Information Technology Association of America, Patricia McGinnis, President of the Council for Excellence in Government, and Joseph Wright former director and deputy director at OMB. Statements from all the witnesses are available at the Senate Government Affairs Committee Web site (http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/071101_witness.htm). Valicenti, Toregas and McGinnis had particularly interesting testimony. Further information will be available on the Government Information Web site at: www.ala.org/washoff/governmentinfo.html. 2) HOUSE E-GOVERNMENT BILL INTRODUCED On July 12th Rep. Jim Turner (D-TX) introduced H.R. 2458, a companion bill to S.803, "The E-Government Act of 2001." Rep. Turner was joined by Senator Lieberman at a press conference on July 12th to announce its introduction. Rep. Turner stated, "The goal is simple. Decrease the amount of time citizens spend in line and increase the resources they can turn to online. The E- Government Act of 2001 takes an important step toward this goal. It addresses leadership, funding, privacy, training, and government accessibility on the web.." There are currently thirty-six cosponsors. Watch for additional reports as ALA further reviews the bill. 3) ALA PARTICIPATES IN E-GOVERNMENT PANEL The Council for Excellence in Government (CEG) conducted a conference on E-government July 9-12th in Washington, D.C. On July 11th, ALA was represented on a panel addressing e-government and the needs of difference constituencies and e-government partners in a "Town Meeting" on the topic. Lynne Bradley, Director of the ALA Office of Government Relations, participated in the panel discussion and emphasized the importance of librarians on e-government teams and their experiences working with the public. She briefly outlined several key roles for libraries and librarians in e-government: * providers as well as users of information and e-government; * access points to bridge the Digital Divide; * creators and organizers of information including web sites, collecting local information, etc.; * trainers and facilitators to assist people in using electronic resources and becoming information literate; and * specialists in all kinds of information issues such as the organization of information, responding to citizen inquiries, permanent public access, and copyright concerns. Libraries were noted as early e-government providers having often been the first online services available from local governments through online catalogs and services, bibliographic networks, web sites, etc. ****** 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.