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Statement
of the
American Library Association
to the
Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
for the hearing record of March 5, 1991
on
S. 272 The High-Performance Computing Act of 1991
The National Research and Education Network, which S. 272 would
create, could revolutionize the conduct of research, education, and
information transfer. As part of the infrastructure supporting
education and research, libraries are already stakeholders in the
evolution to a networked society. For this reason, the American
Library Association, a nonprofit educational organization of more
than 51,000 librarians, educators, information scientists, and library
trustees and friends of libraries, endorsed in January 1990 and again
in January 1991 the concept of a National Research and Education
Network.
ALA's latest resolution, a copy of which is attached, identified
elements which should be incorporated in legislation to create the
NREN, a high-capacity electronic highway of interconnected networks
linking business, industry, government, and the education and
library communities. ALA also joined with 19 other education,
library, and computing organizations and associations in a
Partnership for the National Research and Education Network. On
January 25, 1991, the Partnership organizations recommended a
policy framework for the NREN which also identified elements to be
incorporated in NREN legislation.
Within that framework, ALA recommends the following additions
to the pending NREN legislation to facilitate the provision of the
information resources users will expect on the network, to provide
appropriate and widely dispersed points of user access, and to
leverage the federal investment.
NREN authorizing legislation should provide for:
A. Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for
development of the NREN;
B. Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as
resource providers and as access points for users; and
C. A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in
development of network policy and technical standards.
NREN legislation should authorize support for:
A. High-capacity network connections with all 50 states;
B. A percentage of network development funds allocated for
education and training; and
C. Direct connections to the NREN for at least 200 key libraries and
library organizations and dial-up access for multitype libraries
within each state to those key libraries. Prime candidates (some of
which are already connected to the Internet) for direct connection to
the NREN include:
- The three national libraries (Library of Congress, National
Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine) and other federal
agency libraries and information centers;
- Fifty-one regional depository libraries (generally one per
state) which have a responsibility to provide free public access to all
publications (including in electronic formats) of U.S. government
agencies;
- Fifty-one state library agencies (or their designated resource
libraries or library networks) which have responsibility for
statewide library development and which administer federal funds;
- Libraries in geographic areas which have a scarcity of NREN
connections;
- Libraries with specialized or unique resources of national or
international significance; and
- Library networks and bibliographic utilities which act on
behalf of libraries.
The National Science Foundation, through its various programs,
including science education, should provide for:
A. The inclusion of libraries both within and outside of higher
education and elementary and secondary education as part of the
research and education support structure;
B. Education and training in network use at all levels of education;
and
C. Experimentation and demonstrations in network applications.
ALA enthusiastically supports development of an NREN with
strong library involvement for several reasons.
1. The NREN has the potential to revolutionize the conduct of
research, education, and information transfer. As basic literacy
becomes more of a problem in the United States, the skills needed to
be truly literate grow more sophisticated. ALA calls this higher set of
skills "information literacy"-knowing how to learn, knowing how to
find and use information, knowing how knowledge is organized.
Libraries play a role in developing these skills, beginning with
encouraging preschool children to read.
Libraries as community institutions and as part of educational
institutions introduce users to technology. Many preschoolers and
their grandparents have used a personal computer for the first time
at a public library. Libraries are using technology, not only to
organize their in-house collections, but to share knowledge of those
collections with users of other libraries, and to provide users with
access to other library resources, distant databases, and actual
documents. Libraries have begun a historic shift from providing
access primarily to the books on the shelves to providing access to
the needed information wherever it may be located. The NREN is the
vehicle librarians need to accelerate this trend.
In Michigan, a pilot program called M-Link has made librarians
at a group of community libraries full, mainstream information
providers. Since 1988, M-Link has enabled libraries in Alpena, Bay
County, Hancock, Battle Creek, Farmington, Grand Rapids, and Lapeer
to have access to the extensive resources of the University of
Michigan Library via the state's MERIT network. The varied requests
of dentists, bankers, city managers, small business people,
community arts organizations, and a range of other users are
transmitted to the University's librarians via telephone, fax, or
computer and modem. Information can be faxed quickly to the local
libraries from the University. Access to a fully developed NREN
would increase by several magnitudes both the amount and types of
information available and the efficiency of such library
interconnections. Eventually, the NREN could stimulate the type of
network that would be available to all these people directly.
School libraries also need electronic access to distant resources
for students and teachers. In information-age schools linked to a
fully developed NREN, teachers would work consistently with
librarians, media resource people, and instructional designers to
provide interactive student learning projects. Use of multiple sources
of information helps students develop the critical thinking skills
needed by employers and needed to function in a democratic society.
This vision of an information-age school builds on today's
groundwork. For instance, the New York State Library is providing
dial-up access for school systems to link the resources of the state
library (a major research resource) and more than 50 public,
reference, and research library systems across the state. The schools
had a demonstrated need for improved access for research and other
difficult-to-locate materials for students, faculty, and administrators.
2. Current Internet users want library-like services, and libraries
have responded with everything from online catalogs to electronic
journals. As universities and colleges became connected to the
Internet, the campus library's online catalog was one of the first
information resources faculty and students demanded to have
available over the same network. Some 200 library online catalogs
are already accessible through the Internet. Academic library users
increasingly need full text databases and multimedia and
personalized information resources in an environment in which the
meter is not ticking by the minute logged, the citation downloaded,
or the statistic retrieved. A telecommunications vehicle such as the
NREN can help equalize the availability of research resources for
scholars in all types, sizes, and locations of higher education
institutions.
Libraries will be looked to for many of the information
resources expected to be made available over the network, and
librarians have much to contribute to the daunting task of organizing
the increasing volumes of electronic information. The Colorado
Alliance of Research Libraries, a consortium of multitype libraries,
not only lists what books are available in member libraries, but its
CARL/Uncover database includes tables of contents from thousands
of journals in these libraries. Libraries are also pioneering in the
development of electronic journals. Of the ten scholarly refereed
electronic journals now in operation or in the planning stages, several
are sponsored by university libraries or library organizations.
3. Libraries provide access points for users without an
Institutional base. Many industrial and independent researchers do
not have an institutional connection to the Internet. All such
researchers and scholars are legitimate users of at least one public
library. The NREN legislation as introduced does not reflect current
use of the networks, much less the full potential for support of
research and education. Because access to Internet resources is
necessary to this goal, many libraries outside academe without access
to academic networks have developed creative, if sometimes
awkward, ways to fill the gap. A number of high schools have guest
accounts at universities, but only a few have managed to get direct
connections. CARL, the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries,
reaches library users regardless of the type of library they are using
or their point of access. The development of community computer
systems such as the Cleveland Free-net is another example of
providing network access to a larger community of library users.
Several Cleveland area public, academic, and special libraries are
information providers on the Free-net as well.
Most of the companies in California high-technology centers
either began as or still have fewer than 50 employees. For these
companies, there is no major research facility or corporate library.
The local public libraries provide strong support as research
resources for such companies. The California State Library has
encouraged and supported such development, for example, through
grants to projects like the Silicon Valley Information Center in the
San Jose Public Library. Library access to the NREN would improve
libraries' ability to serve the needs of small business.
Support of research and education needs in rural areas could
also be aided through library access to the NREN. Even without such
access, libraries are moving to provide information electronically
throughout their states, often through state networks. An example is
the North Carolina Information Network. NCIN, through an agreement
between the State Library and the University of North Carolina's
Educational Computing Service, provides information access to almost
400 libraries in every part of the state-from university and
corporate libraries in the Research Triangle Park, to rural mountain
and coastal public libraries, to military base libraries. Using federal
Library Services and Construction Act funds, the State Library
provides the local equipment needed at the packet nodes to permit
access to the system (called LINCNET) to these local libraries.
The information needs of rural people and communities are just
as sophisticated and important as the needs of the people in urban
areas. Because the North Carolina network is available in rural
libraries, small businesses in these communities have access for the
first time to a state database of all contracts for goods, services, and
construction being put out for bid by the state-just one example of
network contribution to economic development. The key to the
network's growing success is the installation of basic computer and
telecommunications hardware in the libraries, access to higher speed
data telecommunications, and the database searching skills of the
librarians.
4. With libraries and their networks, the support structure to
make good use of the NREN already exists. Librarians have been
involved in using computers and telecommunications to solve
information problems since the 1960s when the library community
automated variable-length and complex records-a task which was
not being done by the computer field at the time. Librarians
pioneered in the development of standards so that thousands of
libraries could all use the same bibliographic databases, unlike e-
mail systems today which each require a different mode of address.
The library profession has a strong public service orientation and a
cooperative spirit; its codes of behavior fit well with that of the
academic research community.
Libraries have organized networks to share resources, pool
purchasing power, and make the most efficient use of
telecommunications capacity and technical expertise. Upgrading of
technological equipment and technological retraining are recognized
library requirements, although the resources to follow through are
often inadequate. The retraining extends to library users as well.
Librarians are familiar with the phenomenon of the home computer
or VCR purchaser who can word process or play a tape, but is all
thumbs when it comes to higher functions not used every day.
Computer systems, networks, and databases can seem formidable to
the novice and are often not user-friendly. Expert help at the library
is essential for many users.
5. NREN development should build on existing federal investments
in the sharing of library and information resources and the
dissemination of government information. The Internet/NREN
networks are in some cases not technically compatible with current
library networking arrangements. However, the government or
university database or individual expert most appropriate to an
inquiry may well be available only via the Internet/NREN. Access to
specific information resources and the potential linkage to scarce
human resources is one reason why most librarians are likely to
need at least some access to the NREN.
As the Internet/NREN is used by various federal agencies, it
becomes a logical vehicle for the dissemination of federal
government databases. The Government Printing Office, through its
Depository Library Program, has begun providing access to
government information in electronic formats, including online
databases. A unified government information infrastructure
accessible through depository libraries would enable all sectors of
society to use effectively the extensive data that is collected and
disseminated by the federal government. Disseminating time-
sensitive documents electronically would allow all citizens, small
businesses, and nonprofit groups to have real-time access to
government information through an existing organized system of
depository libraries. The 51 regional libraries (generally one in each
state, many of which are university and other libraries already
connected to the Internet) could provide the original nodes for such a
system. Together with major libraries capable of providing such
support, these libraries could provide access for smaller libraries and
selective depositories within their states or regions through dial-up
facilities or local area networks.
The library community has been assisted and encouraged in its
networking efforts by the federal government beginning in the
1960s, and more recently by state support also, in ways that track
well with the NREN model. The federal government spends in the
neighbor- hood of $200 million per year on programs which promote
and support interlibrary cooperation and resource sharing and
library applications of new technology. These programs range from
the Library Services and Construction Act, the Higher Education Act
title II, the Depository Library Program, the library postal rate, and
the Medical Library Assistance Act to programs of the three national
libraries-the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library,
and the National Library of Medicine.
If academic libraries continue their migration to the
Internet/NREN as the network of choice both on campus and for
communication with other academic institutions, it will not be
long before academic libraries and public libraries find themselves
unable to talk to one another electronically. This result will be totally
at odds with the goals of every major legislative vehicle through
which the federal government assists libraries. In addition, it makes
no sense, given the intimate connection of public libraries to the
support structure for research and education. While public libraries
have long been recognized as engines of lifelong learning, the
connection is much more direct in many cases, ranging from the
magnificent research resources of a New York Public Library to the
strong support for distance learning provided by many public
libraries in Western states.
Interlibrary loan and reference referral patterns also show that
every kind of library supports every other's mission. The academic,
public, school, state, national, and specialized libraries of the nation
constitute a loose but highly interconnected system. A network
which supports research and education, or even research alone,
cannot accomplish the job without including this multitype system of
libraries in planning, policy formulation, and implementation.
6. The NREN's higher seeds will enable the sharing of full text and
nontextual library and archival resources. Libraries will increasingly
need the higher capacity of the NREN to exploit fully library special
collections and archives. The high data rates available over the fully
developed NREN will make possible the transmission of images of
journal articles, patents, sound and video clips, photos, artwork,
manuscripts, large files from satellite data collection archives,
engineering and architectural design, and medical image databases.
Work has already begun at the national libraries and elsewhere;
examples include the Library of Congress American Memory project
and the National Agricultural Library text digitizing project.
7. Libraries provide a useful laboratory for exploration of what
services and what user interfaces might stimulate a mass
marketplace. One purpose of the NREN bills since the beginning has
been to promote eventual privatization of the network. Libraries
have already demonstrated the feasibility and marketability of
databases in the CD-ROM format. Libraries also convinced proprietors
and distributors to accommodate the mounting on local campus
systems of heavily used databases. Libraries can serve as middle- to
low-end network use test beds in their role as intermediaries
between the public and its information requirements.
8. Public, school, and college libraries are appropriate institutions
to bridge the growing gap between the information poor and the
information rich. While we pursue information literacy for all the
population, we can make realistic progress through appropriate
public service institutions such as libraries. However, while an
increase in commercial services would be welcome, any transition to
privatization should not come at the expense of low-cost
communications for education and libraries. Ongoing efforts such as
federal library and education legislation, preferential postal rates for
educational and library use, and federal and state supported library
and education networks provide ample precedent for continued
congressional attention to own and inexpensive access.
In conclusion, the NREN legislation would be strengthened in
reaching the potential of the network, in ALA's view, with the
addition of the elements we have enumerated above. Our
recommendations represent recognition of the substantial
investment libraries have already made in the Internet and in the
provision of resources available over it, authorization of modest and
affordable near-term steps to build on that base for library
involvement in the NREN, and establishment of a framework for
compatible efforts through other federal legislation, and state and
local library efforts.
ATTACHMENT
WASHINGTON OFFICE
American Library Association
110 Maryland Avenue, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
(202) 547-4440
Resolution on a National Research and Education Network
WHEREAS, The American Library Association endorsed the concept
of a National Research and Education Network in a Resolution passed
by its Council (1989-90 CD #54) on January 10, 1990; and
WHEREAS, Legislation to authorize the development of a National
Research and Education Network has not yet been enacted; and
WHEREAS, High-capacity electronic communications is increasingly
vital to research, innovation, education, and information literacy; and
WHEREAS, Development of a National Research and Education
Network is a significant infrastructure investment requiring a
partnership of federal, state, local, institutional, and private-sector
efforts; and
WHEREAS, Libraries linked to the National Research and Education
Network would spread its benefit more broadly, enhance the
resources to be made available over it, and increase access to those
resources; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the American Library Association reaffirm its
support of a National Research and Education Network, and
recommend incorporation of the following elements in NREN
legislation:
- Recognition of education in its broadest sense as a reason for
development of the NREN;
- Eligibility of all types of libraries to link to the NREN as
resource providers and as access points for users;
- A voice for involved constituencies, including libraries, in
development of network policy and technical standards;
- High-capacity network connections with all 50 states and
territories;
- Federal matching and other forms of assistance (including
through other federal programs) to state and local education and
library agencies, institutions, and organizations.
Adopted by the Council of the American Library Association
Chicago, Illinois
January 16, 1991
(Council Document #40)
Executive Offices: 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611
(312) 944-6780