After nearly a year of controversy over Environmental Protection Agency library closings and consolidations, the Senate Appropriations Committee June 26 recommended that the agency restore the network of libraries to its former capacity. The committee report on the FY2008 Interior Appropriations Bill (S. 1696) directs the EPA to submit by December 31 a plan on how to use $2 million —the same amount cut from the agency’s FY2007 budget—to accomplish the restoration and “maintain a robust collection of environmental data and resources in each region.”
The closures, which the agency promoted as a consolidation of its regional libraries in favor of an increased online presence, drew fire from the American Library Association and the Special Libraries Association, EPA employee unions, and Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who in a November 3 letter called on the EPA to stop the process.
“While the Committee approves of efforts to make environmental data collections available electronically, the Committee does not agree to further library closures or consolidations without evidence of how the public would be served by these changes,” the report reads. “Therefore, the Committee expects the EPA to restore publicly available library facilities in each region.”
“We thank the Senate Appropriators for recognizing the public need for the information made available through the EPA libraries, giving EPA the money to reopen the closed libraries, and insisting EPA develop a plan to keep important environmental information accessible to the public,” Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the ALA Washington Office, told American Libraries.
If adopted by the Senate, the bill would have to be aligned with the House version of the Interior Appropriations Bill, which has passed but does not address the EPA library closings.
Posted July 6, 2007.