greetings from the Northwest

[Robert Lopresti <rob.lopresti@wwu.edu>]

I have been a government information librarian for 23 years; at 
Western Washington University for 13.  For the past 3 I have 
also had responsibility for library relations with Huxley 
College, the unit of WWU that teaches environmental science and
geography.

I am interested in learning anything about env. information 
resources.  I am especially concerned about making sure public
information is available and STAYS available in the new internet
environment.  

Congress is talking about eliminating the Federal Depository 
Library Program - or at least the sending of physical 
documents (paper, fiche, CD-ROMs) to libraries.  The assumption
is that everything is on the web, and this is not so.

Last week we received two fiche copies of congressional 
hearings on hazardous material pipelines - including discussion
of the explosion that killed three children here in Bellingham 
last year.  This hearing is not available on the web.  It is
not for sale from GPO.  If Congress had their way we would not
have received even a fiche copy.  Is this the future?

EPA is better than most agencies at putting their material on
the web, but when I did a search of new documents in June,
half of my sample of EPA documents (2 out of 4) were not 
available electronically.  And has EPA made arrangements to 
guarantee that material on the web STAYS available, or could 
a change in administration mean that the only copy of a 
publication vanishes into Bit Heaven?

Sorry if I am ranting.  If you want more information, see:
http://www.memes.com/~tlweiner/deplib.htm

Rob Lopresti
rob.lopresti@wwu.edu