From Editor and Publisher:
For the first time ever, an international court has declared that access to government information is a human right.
Ruling in a case brought by three Chilean environmental activists, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights declared that a “right of general access” to government-held information is protected by Article 13 of the American [...]
Archive of entries posted on December 2006
Access To Gov’t Info Is ‘Human Right’, Inter-American Court Rules
A joint project led by Yale University aims to create a massive collection of Middle Eastern scholarly journals
From Egypt Today:
Since the 1960s and ‘70s, libraries in the West have been digitizing their catalogues and even the contents of their shelves, but a lack of resources has kept all but the most well funded Middle Eastern libraries from doing the same. The Yale University Library hopes to correct this situation, bringing the fruits [...]
EPA officials defend library closures, tout benefits of digitization
From Government Executive Magazine:
Environmental Protection Agency officials on Monday disputed charges of information suppression levied by some advocates and lawmakers, insisting that a hurried shutdown of several regional libraries is part of a larger plan to modernize the agency’s library system and broaden access to resources.
Secretaries of State, EC3, Release Digital Archiving Report
From Government Technology Magazine:
A joint report released today by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) and the National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council eC3) provides state archivists and records custodians with proven strategies for improving states’ digital archiving efforts and generating the support and funding necessary to develop new archiving programs and maintain existing [...]
Closure of 6 federal libraries angers scientists
From the LA Times:
Mather is one of thousands of people who critics say could lose access to research materials as the government closes and downsizes libraries that house collections vital to scientific investigation and the enforcement of environmental laws.
Across the country, half a dozen federal libraries are closed or closing. Others have reduced staffing, hours [...]
Keep the E.P.A. Libraries Open
New York Times Op-Ed:
If you needed to find out how much pollution an industrial plant in your neighborhood was spewing, or what toxic chemicals were in a local river, where would you go? Until recently, you could discover the answer at one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 29 libraries. But now the E.P.A. has obstructed [...]
EPA Scrubbing Library Website to Make Reports Unavailable
From the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:
In defiance of Congressional requests to immediately halt closures of library collections, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same [...]
Critical Connectors
From Governing:
During emergencies, citizens and even some disaster workers depend on libraries for Internet connections to the world.
They don’t pilot boats down hurricane-flooded streets or pull people from second-story windows. Nor do they wear uniforms, carry firearms or direct emergency vehicles. But library employees have been first responders nevertheless. People in coastal states who lost [...]
Iraq’s National Library and Archive, Caught on the Front Line of Sectarian Fighting, Is Closed
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
After months of determined efforts to keep going amid Iraq’s deepening violence and chaos, the National Library and Archive, the country’s largest depository of books and documents, has closed.
Saad Bashir Eskander, the library’s director-general, said in an e-mail message to The Chronicle on Wednesday that he had reluctantly decided to [...]
Bush ‘Privacy Board’ Just a Gag
From Wired:
The first public meeting of a Bush administration “civil liberties protection panel” had a surreal quality to it, as the five-member board refused to answer any questions from the press, and stonewalled privacy advocates and academics on key questions about domestic spying.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which met Tuesday, was created by [...]