ALAWON v2n37 (September 8, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/alawon/alawon-v2n37 ****Begin File******************Begin File*******************Begin File**** *************************************************************************** ISSN 1069-7799 ALAWON ALA Washington Office Newsline An electronic publication of the American Library Association Washington Office Volume 2, Number 37 September 8, 1993 In this issue: (275 lines) "REINVENTING GOVERNMENT" REPORT HIGHLIGHTS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CLARIFIES ACCESS TO THESES *************************************************************************** "REINVENTING GOVERNMENT" REPORT HIGHLIGHTS The Clinton Administration's recommendations on "reinventing government"-- if implemented--would have a profound effect on library and information services and on public access to government information. For example: * Executive branch agencies would be responsible for distributing printed federal information to depository libraries. * In proposing to reduce Department of Education programs from 230 to 189, one of the three examples given for elimination or consolidation is the "Research Libraries' program." * The United States Information Agency is to cut the number of libraries and reference centers it pays for overseas. The report of the National Performance Review, headed by Vice President Al Gore, was presented to the President on September 7. Titled "From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government That Works Better & Costs Less," the 168-page document describes roughly 100 actions and recommendations, while hundreds more are listed in the appendices at the end of the report. The report contains many recommendations for cutting red tape, putting customers first, empowering employees to get results, and producing better government for less cost. The highlights which follow are by no means a summary of the whole report, but are recommendations or observations of particular interest to the library community. Specific detail is lacking in the report, but will be provided in supplementary reports not yet available. GOVERNMENT PRINTING AND THE DEPOSITORY LIBRARY PROGRAM GOVERNMENT PRINTING REQUIREMENTS. The recommendation to "Eliminate the Government Printing Office's Monopoly" is a continuation of the long- standing controversy over government printing policy. Congress, which would have to amend Title 44 printing requirements, has consistently found that it is far more cost-effective to discourage the establishment of agency in-house printing operations and encourage the greatest possible procurement of agency printing needs through GPO. The report asks Congress to end the Joint Committee on Printing's oversight role for all executive branch printing. Not mentioned in the report is that in several recent hearings, JCP has expressed serious concern about the Department of Defense's establishment of an internal printing capability that in virtually every respect will duplicate GPO's operations. Despite the report's assertion that GPO is a monopoly, it is not clear that such a monopoly exists. Most government printing is procured by GPO from thousands of private sector printing firms, with prices determined by competitive bids. Additionally, government printing is performed not only by GPO but by more than 200 authorized federal agency plants. PUBLIC ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT INFORMATION. Following the recommendation "Assure Public Access to Federal Information," the report states: "Give the executive branch agencies responsibility for distributing printed federal information to depository libraries. Require agencies to inventory the federal information they hold, and make it accessible to the public." After seeing a late-July draft of the "reinventing support services" section of the report, ALA President Hardy Franklin wrote to Vice President Gore on August 26 to tell him of ALA's concerns about the printing recommendations. Franklin said that having agencies responsible for disseminating their own printed materials ...would result in increased costs and less efficiency for all participants. The public would lose the efficient link between documents production and distribution that is currently available through the Government Printing Office. Instead of a single major point of access to government publications through the Superintendent of Documents sales and depository program, the American public would be forced to search through hundreds of federal agencies for publications they needed. There would be neither a single point of access to publications for depository libraries, nor a single mechanism for administering the Depository Library Program." Franklin said that the radical restructuring of the Depository Library Program called for in the report requires evaluation and thorough examination before going forward, and called for public hearings on the specific recommendations concerning printing. PROGRAM ELIMINATIONS AND CONSOLIDATIONS DEPT. OF EDUCATION. The report recommends the elimination or consolidation of more than 40 existing Department of Education grant programs and freeing up the resulting savings (estimated at $515 million over a 5-year period) for use in other educational programs. In addition to simplifying the Elementary and Secondary Education Act now undergoing a reauthorization process, the Department of Education would propose "to eliminate and consolidate more programs that have served their original purpose or would be more appropriately funded through non-federal sources." It seems likely that some or all ED library programs may be on this list because the President's budget used the same rationale to propose elimination of all but two ED library programs. Further, one of the examples of unnecessary programs is listed as follows: "The Research Libraries' program funds research libraries to build their collections. University endowments could and should support these efforts, without federal subsidy." In fact, this is inaccurate. The Higher Education Act title II-C, Improving Access to Research Library Resources, is designed to assist major research libraries in making their resources more easily accessible to users outside their own primary clientele--a very appropriate federal role. STATE/LOCAL GOVT. GRANT CONSOLIDATION. A related but more general recommendation is to support a pending proposal for Federal-State Flexibility Grants that has been developed by the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures. This proposal would consolidate 55 categorical grant programs with funding of $12.9 billion into six broad "flexible grants." These are described as "some 20 education, employment and training programs, with a combined $5.5 billion in fiscal year 1993 spending; roughly 10 other education programs ($1.6 billion); 10 small environmental programs ($392 million); six water quality programs ($2.66 billion); and six defense conversion programs ($460 million)." Further, "bottom-up" grant consolidation would give localities the authority to mix funding from different programs, with simple notification to Washington when combining grants smaller than $10 million each, and with prior approval for larger program consolidation. In return, states and localities would waive all but one of the programs' administrative payments from the federal government. When the different grants' regulations conflict, the consolidating agency would select which to follow. USIA LIBRARIES. The report recommends cutting an unspecified number of United States Information Agency libraries and reference centers overseas: USIA maintains libraries and other facilities in many developed countries, as well as in emerging countries. While facilities in the latter are often crowded, those in developed countries attract few customers: In Canada, for example, a USIA library attracted only 568 walk-in visitors in a year. Eliminating some of these facilities or turning them over to their host countries could save an estimated $51.5 million through 1999. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT INFO. TECH. The report recommends: "The President should expand the work of the existing Information Infrastructure Task Force to include a Government Information Technology Services Working Group. This working group will develop a strategic vision for using government information services and propose strategies to improve information resource management. Also beginning in October 1993, OMB will convene interagency teams to share information and solve common information technology problems. In addition, OMB will work with each agency to develop strategic plans and performance measures that tie technology use to the agency's mission and budget." ELECTRONIC GOVT. Recommendations include development of a nationwide system to deliver government benefits electronically; expansion of federal agency use of electronic government; development and marketing of federal agency databases to business; and creation of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (in partnership with state and local governments and private companies). OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS MEASURE RESULTS. The report includes a strong emphasis on measuring outcomes--such as performance measures related to achieving desired goals-- rather than inputs--such as data about program staffing and spending. NEGOTIATED RULE MAKING. Agencies would be required to make greater use of negotiated rule making--the process of bringing together representatives of the agencies and affected groups before draft regulations are issued "and before all sides have formally declared war." The negotiating process allows informal give and take, and can result in more understanding, the reaching of consensus, faster development of regulations, and less litigation. The report also recommends increased agency use of alternative dispute resolution. DOCUMENT AVAILABILITY. The National Performance Review Overview (S/N 040- 000-00592-7) is available for $14 ($17.50 foreign) from the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954. Orders can be faxed to 202/512-2250. The report can be obtained electronically from a variety of sources. It is available by anonymous ftp from cu.nih.gov in the directory usdoc-oba-info. The filenames are nprintro.asc, npr01.asc, npr02.asc, npr03.asc, npr04.asc, nprconc.asc, nprend.asc, nappena.asc, and nappenbc.asc. The entire document is over 500K bytes long. To obtain a list of other sources, send a message to npr@ace.esusda.gov. Put anything in the subject and the body of the message, or leave it blank. You will receive an automatic reply. The document is also available from the ALIX (Automated Library Information eXchange) bulletin board in Area 7 "Electronic text files - newsletters, etc." of the Files section as NPR.ZIP. The compressed file is 232K bytes in size. The 2400 baud phone number for ALIX is 202-707-4888; the 9600/14.4K baud number is 202-707-4885. Modem settings are 8-N-1. *************************************************************************** DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CLARIFIES ACCESS TO THESES Earlier this year, the Department of Education was asked by one institution for a written opinion as to whether the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, also known as the Buckley Amendment) applied to undergraduate and graduate theses, and whether theses could be made publicly available in academic libraries for research purposes. The written response indicated that student theses would ordinarily be considered education records under FERPA and generally could not be released without prior written consent by the student. This response was apparently distributed through electronic mail to institutions around the country and was picked up by the media. The regulations implementing FERPA require an educational institution to obtain written consent before releasing a student's education records or disclosing personally identifiable information from such records. In general, education records are defined as those directly related to a student and maintained by an educational agency or institution. A letter intended to clarify the Department of Education's position was sent on September 1 by LeRoy S. Rooker, Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office, to ALA Washington Office Director Eileen Cooke. Rooker noted that "in ordinary circumstances FERPA prevents an institution from disclosing or publishing a student's written examination or paper without prior written consent," except for certain specified exceptions. Nevertheless, Rooker recognized the special nature of student theses, and stated: However, while these documents are clearly "education records," as noted in our May 11, 1993, letter on this subject, we recognize that undergraduate and graduate "theses" often differ in nature from typical student research papers and other education records, such as written examinations, in that they are published or otherwise made available as research sources for the academic community through the institution's library. It has been and remains our understanding that in these circumstances an educational institution would ordinarily have obtained the student's permission to make his or her work available publicly before doing so, perhaps in connection with notifying the student of specific course or program requirements. Consequently, an institution need not obtain a student's signed and dated specific written consent to disclose or publish a thesis in the library or elsewhere at the institution. Neither the statute, the legislative history, nor the FERPA regulations require institutions to depart from established practices regarding the placement or disclosure of student theses so long as students have been advised in advance that a particular undergraduate or graduate thesis will be made publicly available as part of the curriculum requirements. *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is an irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5675. Internet: alawash@alawash.org; Phone: 202-547-4440; Fax: 202-547-7363. Editor and List Owner: Fred King (fdk@alawash.org). All or part of ALAWON may be redistributed, with appropriate credits. ALAWON is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. 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