ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Washington Hotline

Carol C. Henderson Carol C. Henderson is deputy executive director,did Washington Office, NU_ALAWASH@CUA

OMB Circular A-130 revision

The long-pending proposed revision of Circular A-130, Management of Federal In- formation Resources, was is- sued by the Office of Man- agement and Budget on April 29 (57 Federal Register, pp. 18296-306). Comments on the proposed revision are due to OMB by August 27. For further information, con- tact Peter Weiss at OMB at (202) 395-4814. ALA will be submitting comments.

Preliminary analysis indicates that the pro- posal softens the emphasis in the current cir- cular on maximum feasible reliance on the pri- vate sector. However, the proposed revision devotes considerable attention to the Govern- ment Printing Office Depository Library Pro- gram, but excludes electronic information from the definition of government publications to be included in depository distribution. OMB says agencies “should provide appropriate elec- tronic information products to the GPO for in- clusion in the depository library program inso- far as budgetary resources permit.”

Copyright-ERIC Database

Language added by Rep. Major Owens (D-N.Y.) to a pending education bill would prohibit any clearinghouse or other entity from copyright- ing or charging a royalty or other fee for the use or redissemination of any database or other information produced with assistance under the ERIC subsection. The bill (HR 4014) would reauthorize the educational research and dis- semination activities of the Department of Edu- cation and is now awaiting floor action.

The Owens amendment, which ALA sup- ported in a May 18 letter, was a reaction to the recent ERIC database copyright established by the ERIC Processing and Reference Facility con- tractor. The ERIC (Educational Resources In- formation Center) database, the world’s largest source of education information, contains more than 735,000 abstracts of documents and jour- nal articles on education research and practice. The federal government subsidizes the entire cost of developing the ERIC data- base by a contractor who operates the ERIC facility. The contractor requested permission to copyright the database, an action agreed to by Department of Edu- cation officials.

Copyright-legal compilations

A House subcommittee on intellectual property held a hearing on May 14 on HR 4426, a bill introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to exempt from copyright protection the names, numbers, and ci- tations of state and federal laws and regulations, and the volume and page numbers of state and federal regulations and judicial opinions. Reg- istrar of Copyrights Ralph Oman said the Copy- right Office supported the general principle of the bill, but felt it might be unnecessary since the courts are likely to sort it out themselves over time. West Publishing Company and the Infor- mation Industry Association opposed the bill; Thompson Electronic Publishing supported it.

Laura Gasaway of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, represented the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) which lent its qualified support for HR 4426, saying the division of text by volume and page numbers does not involve any originality and should not be protected by copyright. Citation information for statutes should also be in the public domain. AALL did not support the section which would clarify that states may charge “reasonable fees for services incidental to making available, as part of the public domain, laws, regulations, or judicial opinions." AALL said that implicitly authorizing governments to charge fees for access to their legal publications was unwise public policy. ALA submitted a statement for the hearing record supporting the AALL testimony.

Library of Congress Fund legislation

On May 20 Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) introduced, at the request of the Library of Congress, a new version of legislation to provide LC with authority for the provision of fee-based library products and services. S. 2748, the Library of Congress Fund Act of 1992, replaces the earlier S. I4l6. While the new bill includes some improvements suggested by ALA’s Committee on Legislation together with the Association of Research Libraries and the American Association of Law Libraries, problems remain.

Improvements include a clearer delineation of three different kinds of LC products and services—core (no cost), national (distribution cost only), and specialized (full cost recovery). Protections have been added concerning depository library distribution, copyright, and reciprocal exchange agreements. Problems include inclusion of both direct and indirect costs of distribution, a broad and inclusive list of distribution cost elements, and a too-limited protection against redistribution fees. An overarching problem is the difficulty of drawing the line between core and fee-based services, made even more troublesome by LC’s late addition of “electronic access to the contents of the collections” to the list of specialized full-cost recovery services. At this writing, ALA’s Committee on Legislation was engaged in further analysis of S. 2748. ■