EPA Libraries Update From Bernadine Abbott Hoduski



Not only does EPA shut down its libraries but it now is eliminating
electronic access to much information needed by its scientists to do their
job. Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, ALA Councilor at Large, 312 N. Howie,
Helena, Montana
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 3:36 PM
From: "Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)"
info@peer.org>
Subject: PRESS RELEASE: EPA Scientists Losing Access to Journals Monday,
October 9, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
EPA SCIENTISTS LOSING ACCESS TO JOURNALS
Cuts in Subscription Budgets Take Scientific Journals and Eco-News Offline
Washington, DC ? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is sharply
reducing the number of technical journals and environmental publications to
which its employees will have online access, according to agency e-mails
released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

This loss of online access compounds the effect of agency library closures,
meaning that affected employees may not have access to either a hard copy or
an electronic version of publications. Citing budgetary shortfalls,
cancellations of online subscriptions will be felt more sharply in some EPA
offices and regions than others. For example,
one e-mail notes: ?Region 3 [Mid-Atlantic Region] needs to cut its journal
renewals about in half and the journals in question are very expensive.?
Other offices will face cuts of as yet unspecified but likely comparable
dimensions.

In addition to technical journals, EPA is also canceling its subscriptions
to widely-read environmental news reports, such as Greenwire, The Clean Air
Report and The Superfund Report, which summarize and synthesize breaking
events and trends inside industry, government and academia. Greenwire, for
example, recorded more than 125,000 hits from EPA staff last year.
As a result of these cuts, agency scientists and other technical specialists
will no longer have ready access to materials that keep them abreast of
developments within their fields. Moreover, enforcement staff,
investigators and other professionals will have a harder time tracking new
developments affecting their cases and projects.

EPA?s professionals need current information in order to do their jobs, but
with each passing month, even these basic tools are being put off limits,
stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization has been
drawing attention to EPA?s shuttering of its technical libraries. EPA is
entering its own Dark Age, where both the inward and outward flows of
information are being strained through an ever-narrowing sieve.

Ironically, EPA managers had sought to ease employee concerns about library
closures by claiming that the agency is implementing a new library plan to
make environmental information more accessible to employees, according to a
mid-September e-mail sent to all Headquarters employees concerning the
closure of the Headquarters library. Contrary to these assurances, however,
the way in which the agency is implementing budget reductions portends that
employee access to materials will markedly decline. In addition,
cancellation of hard copy subscriptions occasioned by library closures has
actually driven up online subscription costs, as online discounts for hard
copy subscribers have been forfeit.

Overall, EPA?s research budget is also being reduced, even though President
Bush is seeking selected increases in EPA research for topics such as
nanotechnology and drinking water system security as part of an American
Competitive Initiative.
Without libraries and scientific journals, EPA may have to drop out of the
President's Competitive Initiative, Ruch added.



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