ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

WASHINGTON HOTLINE

by Carol C. Henderson Deputy Director ALA Washington Office

Administration’s Budget for Libraries.There he goes again! President Reagan’s fiscal year 1986 budget would once again, for the fourth year in a row, eliminate most federal library programs, including the Higher Education Act title II programs. The budget requests for programs of special interest to academic and research librarians are shown below:

Congressional leaders are determined to cut federal budget deficits of over $200 billion, so programs proposed for cuts or elimination in the Administration’s budget are at risk even if they have enjoyed strong congressional support in previous years.

AT&T Private Line Tariffs. AT&T Communications filed a new private line tariff request with the Federal Communications Commission on January 18 with a proposed effective date of March 4. These tariffs (AT&T-C Tariff FCC Nos. 9, 10, and 11) would completely restructure AT&T private line service for interstate dedicated leased lines such as those used by OCLC, RLG, and WLN for library bibliographic data transmission.

AT&T officials have indicated that the new tariffs would cause significant rate increases for libraries—similar to those of an earlier tariff proposed in October 1983 and subsequently found unlawful by the FCC. Only 15 days were allowed for public input to the FCC on the new tariffs, later extended three days because a 3-day federal holiday followed immediately after the filing of the tariffs on a Friday evening.

However, customer impact data in enough detail to estimate the impact of the tariffs on library networks in different parts of the country will not be available from AT&T until late in February, long after the extended deadline of February 7. ALA, ARL, OCLC, and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges have requested an extension of the deadline so that the library community could participate meaningfully in the FCC proceeding. As of the of February 7 deadline, the FCC had taken no action to extend the date further, so the outcome is uncertain.