ACRL sets 2009 Legislative Agenda
Contact: Kara J. Malenfant
ACRL Scholarly Communication and Government
Relations Specialist
312-280-2510
NEWS
For Immediate Release
April 20, 2009
CHICAGO –The Board of Directors of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) recently adopted its annual legislative agenda, with objectives for legislative action at the national level that affect the welfare of academic and research libraries.
The ACRL Government Relations Committee formulated the 2009 ACRL Legislative Agenda in time for National Library Legislative Day, held May 11-12 in Washington, D.C. The committee sought input from the ACRL Scholarly Communications and Copyright Committees, ACRL leaders and the ALA Washington Office.
“I have made advocacy at the legislative level a focus of my presidency and commend the work of the Government Relations Committee in providing this blueprint for focused ACRL action,” said ACRL President Erika Linke.
The eight priorities for 2009 are:
- Â Government Information – allowing regional Federal Depository Libraries flexibility to collaborate, innovate and experiment in order to thrive, given the greatly changing world of government information.
- Public Access to Federally-Funded Research – supporting enhanced access to federally-funded research through open-access publication and open-data policies.
- Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Reauthorization – supporting reauthorization of the LSTA with adequate funding to support the doubling of grants.
- Orphan Works – supporting reasonable orphan-works legislation that will make these copyrighted works more accessible.
- Copyright:Â Section 108 – supporting the extension of Section 108 to include museums and other cultural institutions and to facilitate Web archiving, preservation and remote access to copies.
- Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act – supporting legislation that will remedy those sections of the PATRIOT Act that infringe on the civil liberties of library users.
- Network Neutrality – supporting legislation to preserve the neutrality of the Internet and ensure that Internet service providers do not discriminate against users.
- Fair-Use and Anti-Circumvention – supporting exceptions to the anti-circumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow fair-use to copyrighted works.
“These are the most critical public policy issues for academic and research libraries in 2009 and the ones on which we can have the greatest influence,” said ACRL Government Relations Committee Chair Jonathan Miller. “They have implications not just for libraries, but ultimately for the students, faculty and researchers we serve.”
The full text of the 2009 ACRL Legislative Agenda is available online at
http://www.acrl.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/issues/washingtonwatch/legagenda.cfm. For more information, contact Jonathan Miller, director of libraries at Rollins College and chair of the ACRL Government Relations Committee, at (407) 646-2676 or at
JxMiller@Rollins.edu; or Kara Malenfant, ACRL scholarly communications and government relations specialist, at (312) 280-2510 or
kmalenfant@ala.org.
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ACRL is a division of the American Library Association, representing more than 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.
