Tuesday, February 26, 2002

Librarian Calls for Screening Public Access to Nuclear Documents By SCOTT CARLSON Librarians recently cried foul when the U.S. Government Printing Office ordered them to destroy copies of a CD-ROM that compiled information about water supplies. The printing office said the CD-ROM's were a threat to national security; the librarians said the destruction of the CD-ROM's was a threat to intellectual freedom. Now the tables have turned, in a way. When a documents librarian at the State University of New York at Oswego sent out an e-mail message urging fellow librarians to screen requests for Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents, the printing office said the request threatened to restrict access to public documents. The message from Oswego, sent February 15 and signed by the university's documents librarian, Mary Bennett, said that librarians there have moved the Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents to a "non-public area" and will begin screening requests to see them. The documents are on microfiche. "To protect the security of our nation's nuclear plants, including the three near us, we are requesting libraries with this fiche collection to do likewise," the message said, adding that the commission is reviewing the documents and might eventually tell libraries to withdraw material from public access. "We are concerned about continuing to provide access to possible sensitive fiche as we wait for these instructions." Ms. Bennett, Mary Beth Bell, the director of the library, and Blanche Judd, the assistant director, did not return phone calls from The Chronicle. Oswego's policy and Ms. Bennett's e-mail didn't sit well with the Library Programs Service at the printing office. "Please be advised that Ms. Bennett has no authority to make such a request," said an e-mail message sent to librarians from the printing office. "The U.S. Government Printing Office takes its responsibility to assure free public access to depository library collections very seriously. We do not condone this unofficial request to restrict public access, and we urge you to disregard it." Oswego is "imposing a screening process that at this point is not being required," Francis J. Buckley Jr., the office's superintendent of documents, said in an interview. He added that the documents in question were mainly technical information. "There might be some safety-analysis reports in there," he said, but added that he didn't know of any that were a particular threat to national security. Of the 1,300 libraries in the Federal Depository Library Program, only about 60 libraries have such documents, Mr. Buckley said. Many document librarians at those libraries were "amazed and surprised" at the letter, says Cathy N. Hartman, the government-documents librarian at the University of North Texas and a member of the Depository Library Council, which advises the printing office on the depository program. She said she was pleased to see the printing office's "strongly worded" response to the letter. "We see this sort of thing all over our culture right now, and I'm sure it's because people are genuinely concerned," she says. "But we need to be cautious about what we remove from public view." Background article from The Chronicle: An Order to Destroy a CD-ROM Raises Concerns Among University Librarians (2/14/2002) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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