InfoMagic Standards 1993 July/Disc.iso/inet/nren/hpca/ala.txt

Text File | 1991-04-13 | 23.4 KB | 444 lines

                                           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
 [phone]

 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
 [phone]