Library Stuff

“Lawmakers are calling for a study of the availability of e-books to Connecticut public libraries. The state House of Representatives voted Tuesday 143-0 to pass a bill requiring the commissioner of consumer protection to report to the General Assembly on the issue by Feb 1. The bill, which originally called on publishers to offer e-books to libraries at a reasonable price, was amended to reflect lawmakers’ concerns about the likelihood of lawsuits.” (via AP)

“The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) applauds the introduction on May 9, 2013, of H.R 1892, the Unlocking Technology Act of 2013, by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Jared Polis (D-CO). The bill guarantees that legitimate uses of digital works and technologies will not run afoul of copyright law, even if they require breaking digital locks. Prompted by the recent uproar over cell phone unlocking, the bill recognizes that issue as a symptom of a much larger problem and would fix that problem permanently.” (via Library Copyright Alliance)

“A bill in the California legislature would require state-funded research to be made public free of charge within a year of its publication. If it passes, the bill would create an open access policy for California’s state-funded research similar to a policy announced earlier this year by the Obama administration. The federal policy, which is not yet finalized, would apply to most federally supported non-defense research. California is not the only state moving to make public the published research it helps to fund; Illinois is weighing a similar proposal.” (via Inside Higher Ed)

“A bill intended to protect the personal information of children is among 17 bills signed into law by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin. The so-called library bill would allow public and school libraries to deny requests for information — such as the address of a child with a library card — if staff members are suspicious of the request. Authors of the measure say it’s meant to protect children from predators.” (via AP)

“When MIT faculty adopted an open access (OA) policy for their scholarly articles in March 2009, they expressed a strong philosophical commitment to disseminating “the fruits of their research and scholarship” as widely as possible. The MIT Libraries are paying close attention to recent events in Washington that have the potential to expand this commitment to include a significant percentage of all federally funded research in the United States. On February 22, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a directive asking each federal agency with over $100 million in annual research and development expenditures to develop a plan to support increased public access to the results of research they fund. Agencies have six months to come up with policies that would make both articles and data openly available to the public, consistent with a set of objectives set out in the memorandum. The OSTP has been evaluating the need for more open access to federally funded research for several years; in 2010 and 2012 it collected public comments, including those from MIT.” (via MIT Libraries News)

“With jockeying over a future Obama presidential library between the president’s birthplace of Hawaii and his adopted hometown of Chicago already underway, lawmakers are renewing a push to make donors to such institutions public. In the past, fundraisers for presidential libraries haven’t been required to reveal the names of donors that have funded efforts to build the repositories of presidential papers and other historic artifacts. But Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., last month introduced a bill that would require future presidential foundations to disclose the name of any donor that gives more than $200 on a quarterly basis.” (via USA Today)

“FASTR, or Fair Access to Science and Technology Research, was introduced into both houses of Congress on February 14, 2013. The bill builds upon the success of the NIH Public Access Policy by extending public access to research funded by other U.S. government agencies. It was introduced in the Senate by John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and in the House by Mike Doyle (D-PA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Kevin Yoder (R-KS).”

via MIT Libraries News

PC Mag – “California Governor Jerry Brown this week signed into law a bill that will extend privacy protections currently in place for library records to book purchases, including e-books. The bill, known as the Reader Privacy Act of 2011, will require government agencies to obtain a court order before they access customer records from book stores or online retailers. It will officially become law on January 1.”