More on the EPA library closings

Fred Stoss, ALA and the EPA National Library Network, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Fall 2006.  Excerpt:

Last February, the nonprofit group, PEER -- Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility -- sent out a press release that shocked the library world: The proposed budget submitted by the Executive Office of Management and Budget included a reduction in the fiscal year 2007 budget for the EPA Libraries of roughly 80 percent. $2.0 million would be cut from a $2.5 million operating budget for the U.S. EPA National Library Network (27 regional, laboratory, research, and other libraries), along with an additional reduction of $500,000 (roughly 50 percent) in the agency's subscriptions....

Since the FY 2007 budget was passed retaining the drastic cuts to the EPA Libraries, several regional libraries have closed (Dallas, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York City, which has replaced its Region 2 Library web site with a series of environmental quotations). Others have greatly reduced services to EPA research, regulatory, policy, and enforcement staff (Boston, San Francisco). EPA Headquarters Libraries have closed or are in the process of closing, and nearly all public access to the EPA Libraries has ceased....

Could ALA and others have prevented these closings and the catastrophic losses associated with what was most likely the world's largest environmental library and information network?  I doubt it....

What could have been a shining example of transforming a 35-year old, time-tested, and battle-hardened National Library Network for the Environment, has become just one more example of the actions of a presidential administration that has been one of the most hostile to its own library, information, and data resources....

PS:  For more background see my blog postings on the EPA library closings.