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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/092106EB.shtml">http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/092106EB.shtml</a><br>
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<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> <a
href="http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_42535.shtml"
target="_blank">Go to Original</a> </font></font></font>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> <b>EPA Closing Its
Headquarters Library October 1</b> <br>
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> Thursday 21 September
2006
</font></font></font></p>
<blockquote><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b><i>Congress asks for
review of effects on research, regulation and enforcement.</i></b></font></font></font></blockquote>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The
US Environmental Protection Agency is closing its Headquarters Library
to the public, as well as its own staff, effective October 1. This
shutdown is the latest in a series of agency library closures during
the past few weeks, according Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER). As with the other library collections, the
books, reports and research monographs in the EPA Headquarters Library
have been boxed up and are currently inaccessible to anyone. </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The
Headquarters Library collection contains 380,000 documents on
microfiche (including technical reports produced by EPA and its
predecessor agencies), a microforms collection that includes back files
of abstracts and indexes, 5,500 hard copy EPA documents, as well as
more than 16,000 books and technical reports produced by government
agencies other than EPA. </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> EPA
will not say when any of this material will again become available to
its staff or the public either via the internet or through
inter-library loans. As the agency claims that the library closures are
for budgetary reasons, it has no dedicated funds for digitizing hard
copies, making microfiche available online or re-cataloguing the tens
of thousands of documents that will be relocated to large storage areas
called "information repositories." </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> "EPA
is busily crating up and locking away its institutional memory," stated
PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that more than 10,000 EPA
scientists and other specialists are protesting the library closures as
hindering their ability to do their jobs. "Despite its 'Don't Worry, Be
Happy' public statements, EPA has no coherent plan let alone a
timetable for making these collections available." </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> EPA
made a formal announcement of this latest library closure in a Federal
Register notice published on September 20, 2006, just days before the
complete shutdown takes effect. The notice is required under a federal
policy (Office of Budget & Management Circular A-130) requiring
that the public be notified whenever "terminating significant
information dissemination products." </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> Curiously,
EPA issued no similar public notice for its closures of its regional
libraries in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, even though these three
libraries provide services for the general public in 15 states and 109
tribal nations. </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> EPA's
library closures (which the agency euphemistically calls
"deaccessioning procedures") are sparking congressional scrutiny. On
September 19th, the Ranking Members of the House Committee on Science,
Energy & Commerce and Government Reform (Reps. Bart Gordon (D-TN),
John Dingell (D-MI) and Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), respectively) asked the
Government Accountability Office to investigate the effects that the
EPA library closures will have on access to environmental information
and the impacts on scientific research, regulatory quality and
enforcement capability. </font></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="1"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><font
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> "EPA
is taking the hard copies and microfilms and placing them in three
giant information dumps, which they call 'repositories,'" added Ruch,
pointing to the agency promise to create three such repositories (one
at its D.C. headquarters with the others in Cincinnati and Durham) to
serve the entire nation. "Once these mountains of documents are moved
into the repositories, what happens next is anyone's guess." </font></font></font></p>
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