Thanks to Rocco for drafting the legislative agenda. Please review it and make any comments. You will soon be notified of a poll and asked to respond before 3/22/14. The agenda may undergo further wordsmithing, but is pretty much complete in terms of content and priorities, so we need to vote as a committee on the draft before passing it to the Board for their action.
Again, thanks to Rocco for all his work on this.
Jonathan
2014 ACRL Legislative Agenda Draft 3/13/2014
ACRL’s annual Legislative Agenda lists objectives for legislative action at the national level on issues that affect the welfare of academic and research libraries. This document is issued each spring, prior to National Library Legislative Day, and focuses on issues that the U.S. Congress has recently taken, or will likely take, action on in the year ahead. ACRL is active in advocating for policy and legislation through the ALA Washington Office as well as through coalition work with groups such as the Open Access Working Group and the Library Copyright Alliance. The following list is in priority order and includes the most important issues upon which ACRL will focus in 2014:
- 1. Access to Federally Funded Research
Background: In 2007, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy became mandatory with passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764). This has ensured that more than 90,000 new biomedical manuscripts are deposited in PubMed each year, giving millions of Americans access to vital health care information. The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) was first introduced in 2006, reintroduced in 2009 and again in the 112th Congress on February 9, 2012 (as S. 2096 and H.R. 4004). FRPAA aimed to give free, timely online access to the published results of taxpayer funded research. It would have required researchers employed or funded by a federal agency with an annual research budget exceeding $100 million to make any manuscript published in a peer-reviewed journal available in a free online archive or repository within six months of publication. FRPAA has been succeeded by the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (HR 7088 and S 350). This bill has been similarly designed to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation by allowing free, online public access to research conducted or funded by government agencies with a budget exceeding $100 million dollars.
Portions of the language from FASTR were included in the FY 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act, passed on 16 January 2014, which mandates that the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Department of Education make federally funded research freely available online no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. State-level bills, including New York and California, have also been modeled after FASTR. The Omnibus Bill codifies White House Directive requirements into law for the agencies listed above, as well as other small agencies.
Current Status: FASTR has been referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Impact on Academic Libraries: Academic libraries cannot afford access to a wide range of research literature vital to faculty and student needs. Open access to federally funded research would substantially improve opportunities for research. For instance, 1.5 million articles are retrieved from PubMed each weekday by 700,000 unique users. 25% of these users are from universities.
FASTR increases opportunities for academicians to share search results across institutions and disciplines, collaborate widely, and reuse results. According to SPARC, the application of research will be accelerated resulting in greater innovation, new products and services, and long-term economic growth. In addition, articles available in a digital environment allow new fields of research and analysis to emerge through the use of computational analysis tools, which could revolutionize academic research.
Links to more information:
Alliance for Taxpayer Access
Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
Whitehouse Office of Science and Technology. Public Access to Scholarly Publications public comments received before January 2012
FASTR page on Thomas:
House
Senate
NIH Public Access Policy
ACRL Position: FASTR ought to be passed in order to codify White House Directives calling for public access to federally funded research and to extend the limited measures brought about by the FY 2014 Omnibus Bill.
- 2. Net Neutrality
Background: In 2011, theFederal Communications Commission adopted Net neutrality rules, which prevented broadband providers from blocking competing traffic on their networks or discriminating against any other company’s service that utilizes its network in order to benefit the broadband provider’s own competing services. On the 14th of January 2014, The U.S. Court of Appeals struck down the FCC’s Open Internet Order, granting legal authority to commercial internet providers to offer preferential treatment to internet services and applications, including steering users towards or away from certain web sites, based on the providers’ own commercial interests. However, the court acknowledged the FCC’s legal authority to protect the public’s access to Internet services, opening the door for the FCC to rewrite and possibly strengthen net neutrality rules.
Current Status: FCC Chairman Wheeler, recognizing the U.S. Court of Appeals invitation to the Commission “to act to preserve a free and open Internet,” will release the FCC’s plan to move forward in the near future.
Impact on Academic Libraries: According to Larra Clark, Director of OITP’s Program on Networks, libraries and higher education institutions are “prolific providers of content, services and applications on the Open Internet.” At the same time, libraries and higher education institutions are dependent on outside sources, only available through the Open Internet, in order to develop content and applications in the public interest. Online learning—in particular Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)—and increasing numbers of digital library collections—including the Digital Public Library of America—are clear examples of great innovative and democratizing trends in academia only possible with an Open Internet.
Links to more information:
Net Neutrality FAQ from ALA
District Dispatch: ALA, ARL and EDUCAUSE Re-engage FCC on Network Neutrality
Letter to FCC Chairman Wheeler from ALA, ARL, and Educause
- 3. Title: Curbing Government Surveillance
Background: Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act allows the government to secretly request and obtain library records for large numbers of individuals without any reason to believe they are involved in illegal activity.
Current Status: The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has recently concluded that “the Section 215 program has shown minimal value in safeguarding the nation from terrorism.” The Board, which had access to classified briefings and documentation, found no instance in which the Section 215 program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation. The board also found “no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”
Impact on Academic Libraries: In 2011, Congress voted to extend Section 215 of the Patriot Act without addressing weaknesses in the law that allow the government to gather information about citizens’ private lives including their reading habits and research interests. It is now known that Section 215 was used to compile records of the phone calls of customers of major U.S. telecommunications carriers, regardless of whether those customers were suspected of involvement in terrorism or any other illegal activity. In addition, the National Security Agency collected metadata about Internet communications without warrants or probable cause. These actions have been supported by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has approved nearly all government applications to exercise its extensive surveillance powers, though this secret court is not subject to public or constitutional review. According to this law, librarians could be compelled to compile and submit patron records, including documentation of computer usage, circulation records, printing records, internet histories, and interlibrary loan requests. Compliance is mandatory.
Links to more information:
District Dispatch: Campaign for Reader Privacy Renews Call to Amend Patriot Act
H.R. 3361 USA Freedom Act
ACRL Position: ACRL believes that Section 215 of the Patriot Act violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the First Amendment, which protects citizens’ right to freely access information.
WATCH LIST
There are additional policy issues of great concern to academic librarians that are not included above because there is no pending legislation or we believe legislation may not be necessary. Nevertheless, if legislation does arise or becomes necessary, ACRL will advocate for the best interests of academic and research libraries by relying on past precedent and current analysis. Watchlist items for 2014 are listed below:
- Fair Use: Fair use, codified under Section 107 of the Copyright Act, allows reproduction and other uses of copyrighted works for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research. We do not expect any legislation on this issue for some time. At this time the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet is engaged in a comprehensive review of copyright law. The Chairman of the Committee is unlikely to introduce any legislation until this review is complete. Currently, ACRL believes that section 107 of the Copyright Act requires no change. For further information about this issue see this Statement by the Library Copyright Alliance on the Scope of Fair Use.
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