3.1152 USA news: part 2 on access (78)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 8 Mar 90 21:26:05 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1152. Thursday, 8 Mar 1990.

Date: Wed, 7 Mar 90 10:48:50 EST
From: PACS Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1>
Subject: Access to Electronic Government Information, Part II

Part II, 57 lines

ACTION NEEDED

NAAN Contacts:
Please pass this packet of information along immediately to
your contacts in the GODORT National Action Alert Network, AND to
users of your government documents collection and your library. A
personal request would be best. It is very important that the
Committee hear from library users. Please provide your librarian
colleagues and the users whom you ask to respond with the list of
members of the Committee on House Administration and the addresses
of their Washington offices. Call, wire, or write to your
Congressional Representative, and copy your letter to the members
of the Committee on House Administration. Please send blind
copies of your letters to the ALA Washington Office care of Anne
Heanue, and Dan Barkley, NAAN Coordinator, Documents Library, The
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-2800. In addition,
please recall that you have recently received the ALA Legislative
Action Alert on the Paperwork Reduction Act Revisions. Please
remind your contacts to refer to it, and to review HR 3849 within
the context of the other bills -- HR 3695 and S 1724.

Librarians and Library Users:
Call, wire, or write directly to Congressman Bates and the
members of the Committee on House Administration. Copy your
letters to, or also call your representative in Congress. Please
be specific about what diminishing access to federal information
will mean to you personally and how you think user fees will
affect you.

The GODORT Executive Committee suggests that your letters ask
your representatives to:

1. exempt depository library users from fees for access to
government information;

2. change the definitions of government publication and government
printing to state "information products and services which are
published regardless of format, at government expense, or as
required by law;"

3. change the language of the bill so that online information
services SHALL be distributed to depository libraries whether
through government or private sector providers; and

4. provide that the cost of disseminating electronic information
products and services should be covered through specific
appropriation of public funds or through the appropriations for
the GPO and the Depository Library Program.

Finally, it might also serve well to remind the
Representatives that they should work to preserve a program
established by Congress 100 years ago to ensure that all citizens
of the United States would be able to freely obtain information by
and about their government.
(End of Message)
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