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April 2011  237 C&RL News

• work to establish meetings between ALA 
leadership and publisher and author associa-
tions to discuss model lending and purchase 
options for libraries.

• establish mechanisms for interactive and 
ongoing communication for ALA members to 
voice concerns and pose questions to ALA 
leadership.

• establish communication and solicit 
input with other ALA member divisions and 
units, including the Office for Intellectual 
Freedom.

In addition to the above, the task force 
recommends that ALA pursue the following:

• conduct an environmental scan to un-
derstand the current landscape and project 
future scenarios.

• work with appropriate partners within 
and outside of ALA to improve access to 
electronic information for all, with a particular 
focus on people with disabilities. 

• identify and support new and emerg-
ing model projects for delivering e-content 
to the public.

• develop a national public relations and 
education campaign highlighting the impor-
tance of libraries as essential access points 
for electronic content. 

ALA members and the public can com-
municate with ALA on these issues through 
a new Web site dedicated to the challenges 
and potential solutions in libraries for im-
proved access to electronic content. This 
site will be live in early April, and the URL 
will be announced at launch. These efforts 
reflect on libraries’ long-standing principles 
on equitable access to information, reader 
privacy, intellectual freedom, and the lawful 
right of libraries to purchase and lend materi-
als to the public.

ALA calls upon all stakeholders to join us 
in crafting 21st-century solutions that will en-
sure equitable access to information for all. 

Jenni Terry is press officer at ALA’s Washington Office, 
e-mail: jterry@alawash.org

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n eJenni Terry

EQUACC task force strategies
On June 28, the ALA Council passed a resolu-
tion that called for the formation of a Presi-
dential Task Force primarily charged with 
studying challenges and potential solutions 
in libraries for improved electronic content 
access, distribution and preservation systems, 
and infrastructure in response to the creation 
and migration of materials from print to elec-
tronic access.

The group—the Equitable Access to Elec-
tronic Content (EQUACC) task force—held a 
retreat March 7 and 8 in the ALA Washing-
ton Office to set forth its agenda and goals. 
Given the developments in the e-content 
marketplace at that point in time, the retreat 
gave the group the opportunity to develop 
short-term and long-term strategies for guid-
ing ALA members and engaging them in this 
critical issue.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the 
group released the following statement:

Recent action from the publishing world in 
the e-book market place has reignited interest 
and sparked many questions from librarians, 
publishers, vendors, and readers. Two ALA 
member task forces—the presidential task 
force on Equitable Access to Electronic Con-
tent (EQUACC) and the E-book Task Force 
—were recently created to address complex 
and evolving issues. EQUACC met this week 
in Washington, D.C., to provide ALA with 
guidance and recommendations for a coordi-
nated ALA response to the challenging issues. 

In light of recent publisher changes affect-
ing libraries’ ability to provide e-books to the 
public (e.g., restricting lending of e-books 
to a limited number of circulations) and the 
refusal of some publishers to sell e-content to 
libraries entirely, the task force will: