EPA QUIETLY RESUMES DISMANTLING LIBRARY SYSTEM

[nosmokes]

and the insults coontinue.
--###--

original-PEER

For Immediate Release: May 2, 2007
Contact: Carol Goldberg [phone]

EPA QUIETLY RESUMES DISMANTLING LIBRARY SYSTEM —

Environmental Prosecutions at Risk from Loss of Original Documents and Cost

Washington, DC — Despite promises to consult with Congress before proceeding with dismantlement of its library system, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered its libraries to “disperse or dispose of their…contents,” according to agency directives released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The move to eliminate physical collections comes as EPA’s own enforcement branch warns about the risks of hampering environmental prosecutions.

New “interim” policies issued by EPA on April 10 –

* Direct EPA libraries to “disperse or dispose of” their physical collections and lay out procedures for offering EPA holdings to outside libraries and for recycling journals and other technical documents;
* Place all EPA libraries, including those serving agency laboratories, under a single political appointee, Molly O’Neill, the Chief Information Officer; and
* “Discourage establishment of divisional or branch ‘mini-libraries’” to prevent the physical accumulation of technical materials except at pre-designated “repositories.”

“Significantly, the end users of the EPA libraries – the agency’s own specialists as well as the academic community and the public – have been excluded from all decisions about the future of this incomparable network,” stated PEER Associate Director Carol Goldberg, pointing to the fact that a major labor union is pursuing an unfair labor practice complaint over EPA’s failure to even consult with agency scientists over library closures.

To illustrate the dangers of EPA’s plan to rely solely upon centrally-maintained digitized documents, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), in a memo dated April 9, 2007, lays out its concerns about the negative effects on ongoing pollution prosecutions. The memo outlines the “three primary issues that OECA is concerned about”—1) information access, especially to original documents; 2) timeliness of services, worrying that the centralized system EPA is espousing may not be able to meet tight court-imposed deadlines; 3) cost and funding, pointing out that uncertainties surround how much EPA’s centralized all-digital system will cost and how it will be funded.

“EPA is determined to leap before it looks as it barrels ahead to shut libraries,” added Goldberg, noting that nearly one-third of EPA’s 27-library network has been closed or had services reduced. “EPA has declared war on libraries and the services they provide without offering an adequate substitute.”

In an extraordinary mass letter of protest last June, labor representatives for more than half of all EPA staff ascribed the agency’s drive to remove physical collections from libraries as an attempt to “suppress information on environmental and public health-related topics.”

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complete release including links to other sources here

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Why don't they just get it over with, like using "the Firemen" in

"Fahrenheit 451"? It's what they really want.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. '... dispose of'. This sickens me. All the years of collecting information since the EPA was

established, now to be 'disposed of'. What a waste!

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. It is so much harder for Winston Smith to do his job when there

are innumerable old hard copies floating around that contradict history.

[LostinVA]

4. It sucks they are doing this, for many reasons

[hootinholler]

5. Can the Smithsonian rescue these docs?

Is that viable?

-Hoot

[ProgressiveEconomist]

6. "EPA's centralized all-digital system": What about back issues and older books?

It sounds as though the decisionmakers at EPA are denying the value of anything written before they started digitizing new accessions. This means they cannot ever have taken a serious course in ANY academic discipline, or else they would have learned that most of the really important scientific readings were written years ago, not in the latest batch of "least publishable units" from junior researchers trying to build their resumes.

[Robbien]

7. The general public believes we have an EPA, or a FDA or a CDC

They believe we still have an whole group of governmental departments whose goal is to protect the common good.

People are still yelling at the government about contaminated food, poisonous pet food or general security risks. The government no longer is responsible for those things. We still have the departments, but the goal of the people in those departments is to elected more GOPers.

[loudsue]

9. That is absolutely correct. Good post, Robbien!

Can't congress do something about this while we still have congress under Dem leadership? Come 2008, we're going to be right back to having at least one house of congress in repuke hands. Rove will see to it.

:kick::kick::kick:

[valerief]

8. Are the civilized countries of the world shredding their research docs, too?

Is the U.S. going to secede from the world and officially become JesusLand now?

[dave_p]

13. Britain's made a start

In the 90s they managed to destroy a fair part of the national library system, the ideal being to have one copy of every book in the whole country (two would be an extravagance), much to the annoyance of the British Library which didn't relish having to supply every local library that had had pulped its collection.

Government collections weren't spared either. The priceless Foreign Office Library was largely thrown away - academics invited to help in selection couldn't keep up with the rate of disposal and effectively gave up (among the losses was the last-ever copy of the unpublished 1939 Mandate Report for Palestine - the Jerusalem carbon-copy's missing too).

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Don't we have any brave patriotic librarians in the EPA who will

save copies for a time when this madness is over?

[Robbien]

14. Say you were an EPA librarian

For the last six years you have been told by your supervisors to STFU. You stayed in your position while Regent U new grads (or other political hires) were hired in for all the vacancies in the dept. You watched as good EPA people were being pushed out.

You are good at what you do but are not allowed to do it. In fact you are criticized if you do anything to further the common good. Your job description is now the erasure of all bad news from all EPA reports.

For six long years the department no longer cares anything about EPA. You are being lead to believe by your supervisor that your real goal is to elect more GOPers and help big industry wipe out all regs.

Would you still be there?

A real librarian couldn't erase those files, which is why I believe there are no real librarians left in the EPA. It is likely that most, if not all, of the good EPA people left that toxic environment a long while ago.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. If it really is that bad, then someone should go to jail for, basically,

committing treason. To eliminate public information that will reveal that our health and safety is endangered, is as bad as looking the other way while a competiting supernation slips something lethal in our food supply.

Republicans, basically, are traitors to this country. That is how this seems to be panning out.

[Robbien]

17. Which is why GOPers keep calling Dems traitors

When a GOPer says someone else is doing something really awful, one should immediately start looking closely at what GOPers are doing. GOPers project onto others their own sins.

Who are you going to get to put these GOPers in jail? Alberto Gonzales?

[Sapere aude]

11. So what does the right gain by going back to the dark ages?

They are very much like those they call the islamo fascists. The have a ideology that they are trying to force into place much as the fundamental Islam is trying to force theirs.

[dave_p]

12. It was good enough for Iraq

Destroying libraries seems to be a hallmark of this Administration.

[underpants]

15. Erase the old truth and insert your own NEW TRUTH in its place

We've always been at war with Euarsia, didn't you know that? Everyone else does.