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Omnibus Bill Mandates Access to Scientific ResearchA $555-billion omnibus spending bill approved by Congress December 19 and sent to the White House contains a $3-million appropriation earmarked for the reinstatement of walk-in service at the Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 regional libraries. The funding is $1 million more than proposed by the Senate in June to reopen four libraries, including the headquarters library in Washington, D.C., and restore scaled-back hours elsewhere, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Expressing appreciation to Congress for “correcting this massive failure on the part of the Executive Branch,” Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association’s Washington Office, hailed the EPA libraries as “a vital resource for the health of our country.” She went on to thank “the thousands of librarians and scientists all over who worked so hard to make sure their voices were heard in Congress.” Another library victory contained in the legislation is a mandate that the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central database receive for deposit within 12 months of publication peer-reviewed articles researched with funds from the National Institutes of Health. “Mandatory deposition is a natural next step in NIH’s efforts to ensure public access to the research it funds,” Matthew Cockerill, publisher of BioMed Central, said in the December 21 Washington Post. However, the Institute for Museum and Library Services did not fare as well as hoped by some in the library community: Funded for FY2008 at approximately $263.5 million, the IMLS budget came up some $14 million short of the $277.1 million approved by the Senate in early November and subsequently vetoed by President Bush. Melanie Anderson of ALA’s Washington Office expressed disappointment that the final bill “didn’t reflect the previously agreed-on House and Senate appropriations bills, which acknowledged the 2003 formula we fought so hard to implement. But even more, we are disappointed that the bill used library funding to pay for earmarks.” Posted December 21, 2007. |
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