ALA and ACRL at the National Library Legislative Day 2007
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050710823328 |
| Pages | 37-39 |
| Published date | 10 July 2007 |
| Date | 10 July 2007 |
| Author | G. Arthur Mihram |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
ALA and ACRL at the National Library
Legislative Day 2007
G. Arthur Mihram
LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 6 2007, pp. 37-39, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050710823328 37
The American Library Association’s
[ALA’s] 33rd Annual National Library
Legislative Day was held on 1-2 May
2007 at the Holiday Inn on the (Capitol)
Hill, roughly half mile from the US
Capitol Building. See: www.ala.org/ala/
washoff/washevents/nlld/nlld2007.cfm
For the past several years the annual
meeting has had two primary
components:
(1) The Briefing Day (01 May) and
(2) The Luncheon Address sponso red
that day by the Association of
College and Research Libraries
(ACRL).
These were followed by a full day (2
May) of Capitol Hill office visits.
The purpose of the ‘‘Day’’ is to
congregate or convene librarians in
order to lobby intensively, on one day,
Representatives and Senators on the
value of supporting not only libraries
but also political issues which the ALA
supports.
1. The Briefing Day
On the first day of the ‘‘Day’’,
registrants were asked to be informed
about six topics which each should be
prepared to advance to Congressmen
during any one of their Congressional
office visits the next (second) day:
(1) appropriations,
(2) telecommunications/internet,
(3) advocacy,
(4) government information,
(5) privacy and surveillance, and
(6) copyright.
To begin the first day, a plenary
session on appropriations [topic (a)]
was held, advising those attending
of the Congressional appropriations
procedure.
This was followed at the end of the
morning by a presentation to all by
Thomas S. Blanton (Director, National
Security Archive, George Washington
University): the sole speaker in the
session titled ‘‘The New Washington
Milieu’’.
Lunch was left to the individual,
though one could register for the ACRL
Luncheon [Item (II)], about which a
report follows below.
The program of the first day’s
afternoon was divided into two
successive pairs of concurrent sessions:
(1) 2:00-2:45 PM: Telecom/internet
[topic (b)] Privacy, PATRIOT
Act, and copyright [topics (e) and
(f)]
(2) 3:00-3:45 PM: Honing the mes-
sage [topic (c)] Government and
federal libraries [topic (d)].
This reporter was therefore unable to
attend this year two of these sessions:
namely, topic (b) and (c). The report of
the 32nd Annual Day last year (Mihram,
2006) covered the Telecom and
internet issues of concern to the ALA.
Nonetheless, perhaps one issue could be
raised: since each House of Congress
this year has a majority of members of
the Democratic Party, perhaps the ALA
will find that their lobbying efforts on
the topic (b) may appear to be rewarded.
The Chair (John D. Rockefeller, IV) of
the Senate Committee may now be
better able to advance his proposal that
the Internet should become a ‘‘universal
service’’.
The current Universal Service Fund
(USF) combines for schools and
libraries subsidized access to local
phone and internet service and provides
deep discounts in technology for
schools through the E-Rate program.
Rockefeller co-authored USF and
E-Rate with Senator Snowe as part of
the 1996 Telecommunications Act. See:
http://rockefeller.senate.gov/Issues/
tech_record.htm
The ALA has adopted a policy that
they wish to support ‘‘universal
[Internet] service’’ as a feature of the
(public) library. Senator Rockefeller has
been able to collect sufficient support to
make internet service free of charge to
publicly supported libraries, yet under
the provision that any library so served
must have installed filters for refusing
the electronic delivery (at the library’s
internet-connected computers) of any
material deemed pornographic (He is
currently seeking to extend this filtering
requirement to the restriction of Internet
delivery of gratuitous violence to such
library sites.).
As I pointed out from the floor to the
speakers in the morning (plenary)
sessions, the issue of universal internet
service has been raised in the literature
of library science: see references
Mihram and Mihram 1998 and 2000;
Mihram et al. (2001). Congress still is
failing two of its Constitutionally
mandated duties:
(1) to provide our National Electronic
Postal Service and
(2) to provide for explicit copyright
protection of digitized works.
The plenary speakers did seem
favorably inclined to be aware of these
Congressional oversights. The ALA has
yet to incorporate these two issues as
explicit topics in the Day’s program.
Rather, the interests seem to be,
respectively:
(1) extending free internet service to
public libraries, preferably without
a required filtering (since this
implies a notion of ‘‘censorship’’,
though this may be quite like that
of any acquisitions librarian’s
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