[Libs-Or] Champions of net neutrality - OLA and Senator Wyden

[Roberta Richards]

Greetings to the library community,

OLA's Intellectual Freedom and Legislative Committees have been working
with Senator Ron Wyden to spread support for net neutrality. OLA President
Candice Watkins and Senator Ron Wyden recently co-authored an op ed letter
<http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/columnists/20141107/wyden> about net
neutrality that was published in the *East Oregonian* this Sunday
<http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/columnists/20141107/wyden>.  Watch for
this letter to be published later this week in the *Portland Tribune*
also.  For those of you who live outside of the East Oregonian and Portland
areas, feel free to ask your local newspapers to publish a copy as well.

As the letter indicated, net neutrality is a vitally important issue for
libraries, both on intellectual freedom grounds supporting the right to
access information, and as a practical matter concerning the price and
speed of Internet service. President Obama recently expressed strong
support for net neutrality, calling on the the FCC to adopt "the strongest
possible rules" in defense of an open Internet
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/11/10/president-obama-urges-fcc-implement-stronger-net-neutrality-rules>.
This call by President Obama follows a flurry of news stories that the FCC
is considering a proposed "hybrid approach"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/technology/fcc-considering-hybrid-regulatory-approach-to-net-neutrality.html?_r=0>
to net neutrality that falls far short of the strong protection called for
by the OLA, ALA, Senator Wyden and President Obama.  With the FCC expected
to issue its ruling by the end of the year, opportunities for the public to
influence this critical debate are running out.

The net neutrality webpage
<http://www.olaweb.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=500:intellectual-freedom-net-neutrality&catid=20:site-content>compiled
by the OLA Legislative and Intellectual Freedom Committees provides more
information about this issue, including the most effective ways to join
this conversation which is so important to libraries.

Questions?  Comments?  Feel free to contact the Intellectual Freedom
Committee.

Roberta Richards and Garnetta Wilker, co-chairs

Garnetta Wilker
Co-chair, Intellectual Freedom Committee, Oregon Library Association
K-12 Representative, Oregon Statewide Database Licensing Advisory
Committee--
gkwilker2 at gmail.com

-- 
Roberta Richards
Faculty Reference Librarian
971-722-4962
rrichard at pcc.edu
Southeast Library Research Desk: 971-722-6289
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