[Libs-Or] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:18807] 8/21 PEER news release on EPA libraries: THEY ARE CLOSING

[Diedre Conkling]

FYI
   

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Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:09:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Frederick W Stoss <fstoss at buffalo.edu>
To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
Subject: [SRRTAC-L:18807] 8/21 PEER news release on EPA libraries: THEY ARE CLOSING

Fellow Librarians,

PLEASE post this notice to other library lists to which you are
subscribed.

This is indeed sad and deplorable news. I am at a loss of words about the
ramifications of this to the environmental community. I have posted the
entire article at the end of this message for convenience sake.

So what did ALA's letter-writing campaign to Congress achieve? Was there
more ALA and other library associations should have done in February? What
is ALA, OFFICIALLY, going to do to work with others to condemn these
actions?

Sadly,

Fred Stoss
Co-Chair, ALA Task Force on the Environment
Member, PEER

Frederick W. Stoss, M.S. (zool/ecol), M.L.S.
Associate Librarian
   (Biological and Environmental Sciences and Mathematics)
Science and Engineering Library
University at Buffalo--SUNY
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:41:09 -0400
From: Bonner.Patricia at epamail.epa.gov

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_40955.shtml

 EPA Begins Closing Libraries Before Congress Acts on Plan
End of Public Access to Technical Holdings as Original Collections
Shuttered
By: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
Published: Aug 21, 2006 at 08:15
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving ahead this summer to
shut down libraries, end public access to research materials and box up
unique collections on the assumption that Congress will not reverse
President Bush's proposed budget reductions, according to agency documents
released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER). At the same time, EPA's own scientists are stepping up protests
against closures on the grounds that it will make their work more
difficult by impeding research, enforcement and emergency response
capabilities.

In an August 15, 2006 document entitled "EPA FY 2007 Library Plan," agency
management indicates that it will begin immediately implementing President
Bush's proposed budget cuts for the next fiscal year, which begins in
October, without waiting for Congress to act. The memo describes what EPA
terms "deaccessioning procedures" (defined as "the removal of library
materials from the physical collection") for its network of 26 technical
libraries. Under the plan

* Regional libraries, located in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, serving
15 Midwestern and Southern states will be closed by September 30. Other
regional library hours and services will be gradually reduced;
* Public access to EPA libraries and collections will end as soon as
possible;
* As many as 80,000 original documents which are not electronically
available will be boxed up ("put their collections into stasis," in the
words of the EPA memo) and shipped for eventual "digitizing."

EPA scientists represented by the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE), the largest federal employee union, had previously sent
a "Demand to Bargain" on the issue, but EPA managers dismissed that demand
as premature. The August 15th EPA memo, however, shows that the union
concern was far from premature. On August 16, the AFGE National Council of
EPA Locals filed a formal grievance demanding that all library closures be
put on hold until affected scientists can negotiate the matter as required
in the collective bargaining agreement, writing:

"After October 1, 2007, three Regions will no longer have a physical
library at all. Library hours or core library services will be reduced in
other Regions that keep their physical libraries open. Management has been
insisting that it can effectively do more with less,' and continue to
provide the same level of library services to all of EPA's staff members
despite the reduction in the number of library contractor staff. The
Council is not convinced that this is the case."

"The central fiction is EPA's promise to digitize its entire massive
collection, making everything available online someday, without any
dedicated funds amid sharply reduced budgets," stated PEER Executive
Director Jeff Ruch, noting EPA studies show the cuts will actually lose
money due to additional professional staff time that will have to be spent
tracking down research materials now assembled by the libraries. "The idea
that library closures are a purely budgetary move is increasingly hard to
swallow."

A key tenet of the new plan is that all research requests will be
centrally controlled. The plan calls for "discouraging establishment of
divisional or branch mini-libraries" so that central staff can "have
knowledge of [the] location" of all research materials. In a mass letter
of protest signed this June by representatives for 10,000 EPA scientists
and researchers, more than half the total agency workforce, employees
contend that the library plan is designed to "suppress information on
environmental and public health-related topics."

"What is going on inside EPA is positively Orwellian," concluded Ruch.


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--
Diedre Conkling
     
  Lincoln County Library District
  P.O. Box 2027, Newport, OR  97365
  Phone & Fax:  541-265-3066
  http://lcld.library-blogs.net/
  Work:  diedre at beachbooks.org
  Home:  diedrec at charter.net