ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL News ■  Jan ua ry 2001 / 71

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e Lynne E. Bradley

NCLIS proposes new  federal 
information agency
At this writing, the 106th Congress is still in 
session an d  still negotiating final details o f the 
FY2001 budget. No final decisions have b een  
made on the Labor-HHS-Education appropria­
tions bill, w hich includes the Library Services 
and Technology Act (LSTA) an d  a related fil­
tering rider. N o o n e thought w e ’d still be at 
this point as w e ap proach the holidays, an d  
certainly n o  o n e k n ew  w e ’d  w ait so long to 
select a president-elect.

The N ational Comm ission o n  Library an d  
Information Science (NCLIS) unveiled a legis­
lative proposal at th e en d  o f N ovem ber that 
would establish a n e w  federal inform ation 
agency to possibly be called the “Public Infor­
mation R esources A gency” o r PIRA. It is u n ­
clear at this w riting h o w  th e NCLIS proposal 
may fare in the un iq u e political environm ent 
of the 107th Congress.

NCLIS has p ro p o se d  that PIRA’s “prim ary 
mission [w ould be] to  serve as the federal 
governm ent’s focal p oint for providing timely 
dissemination an d  perm an en t public availabil­
ity for its public inform ation re so u rc e s.’’ If 
Congress an d  others approve such an  agency, 
it w ould b e  part of th e Executive B ranch an d  
would consolidate the Superintendent o f Docu­
ments (SuDoc), th e G overnm ent Printing Of­
fice (GPO), including the Federal D epository 
Library Program, an d  the N ational Technical 
Information Service (NTIS.)

There will b e  b ro ad  discussion ab o u t the 
NCLIS proposal at ALA’s M idwinter Meeting in 
Washington, D.C. from January 12 to 16, 2001. 
ALA has not taken an official position o n  the 
proposal. Academic librarians are encouraged 
to attend th e ALA C omm ittee o n  Legislation 
Update o n  January 13 from  9:30 a.m. to 12:30 
p.m. Also, please look  for o th er forum s at Mid­
winter o n  the NCLIS proposal sp o n so red  by 
GODORT an d  o ther groups. Additional infor­
mation on, an d  a variety o f docum ents related 
to, the NCLIS A ssessm ent a n d  Legislative p ro ­
posal are available o n  the Comm ission Web

Lynne E. Bradley ¡sOff¡ce of Government Relationsd¡rector 
of ALA's Washington Office; e-mail: leb@alawash.org

site at h ttp ://w w w .n c lis .g o v /g o v t/a s s e s s / 
assess.html.

Some excerpts from the NCLIS recom m en­
dations:

• The S uperintendent o f Public Inform a­
tion Resources shall use w hatever m easures 
are necessary to  ensure the timely identifica­
tion, acquisition, organization, cataloging, and 
(w here appropriate) indexing an d  abstracting 
o f public inform ation resources; to en su re 
tim ely  d eliv e ry  o f p u b lic  in fo rm a tio n  re ­
sources—using a variety of formats, m edium s, 
channels, an d  m ethods for access, dissem ina­
tion, an d  distribution— appropriate to the con­
tent an d  its intended uses; an d  to  ex p an d  and 
im prove the p erm an en t public availability of 
the federal governm ent’s public inform ation 
resources.

• Regardless o f any o ther provision o f law, 
public inform ation resources created, com ­
piled, produced, or m aintained by the execu­
tive, legislative an d  judicial branches shall be 
m ade available to  th e  public at n o  charge 
through the PIRA.

• T he exem ption for “so-called co o p era­
tive publications w hich m ust be sold to  be 
self-sustaining” is rem oved because the only 
self-sustaining program s for the sale o f public 
inform ation resources are within, o r u n d e r the 
authority of, PIRA an d  the p ro p o se d  law  re­
quires that any public inform ation resources 
available for sale also b e  available w ithout 
charge thro u g h  PIRA Libraries.

• C onsolidation of NTIS w ith the Superin­
ten d en t o f D ocum ents Programs u n d er PIRA 
p lace s all in fo rm a tio n  c o v e re d  u n d e r th e 
American Technology Pre-em inence Act in the 
Public Inform ation Resources Access Program.

• PIRA is given responsibility for “perm a­
n en t public availability," w hich is defined as 
m aking th e m axim um  am ount o f public infor­
m ation resources available to, a n d  accessible 
by, the public o n  an  indefinite, continuing 
basis, free o f charge; furtherm ore, public avail­
ability is m eant to convey im m ediate access 
through the W eb (or its successor technology) 
o r availability th ro u g h  a w idely distributed 
n ational n etw o rk  o f public inform ation re ­
sources access libraries. ■

mailto:leb@alawash.org
http://www.nclis.gov/govt/assess/