Philadelphia Regional Chapter / Medical Library Association
Update from the AP:
President Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation’s main counter terrorism law, the Patriot Act. Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday February 28th without Obama’s signature Saturday….
His signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97 Thursday to extend the measure. The Senate also approved the measure, with privacy protections cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them.
President Obama released his budget for Fiscal Year 2011 for the Department of Health and Human Services, including NIH and NLM. The budget provides a $1 billion increase for NIH and a $21 million increase for NLM. While the CDC’s total FY 2011 budget request shows a $100 million increase, the funding for CDC’s core programs actually received a $132 million cut. The vast majority of CDC’s programs were either cut or level funded.
Prepared from statements by Health and Information Counsel to MLA and American Public Health Association.
The U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is seeking public input on access to publicly-funded research results, such as those that appear in academic and scholarly journal articles. Currently, the National Institutes of Health require that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months of publication. The Administration is seeking views as to whether this policy should be extended to other science agencies and, if so, how it should be implemented.
October 30, 2009- President Obama signed the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2010 (PL 111-88). The bill provides $104.32 million for IT/Data Management/Security, which is $5.3 million more than the FY 2009 level and $5 million below the budget request. The bill’s conference agreement “directs that none of the reduction be taken from the amount requested to restore and maintain the Agency’s library system.” Read more» » »
MLA wrote to Francis S. Collins, director, National Institutes of Health (NIH) in support of the areas of special opportunity the new director outlined in his September 9 Town Hall Meeting. The statement addresses several issues of importance to the health sciences library community: translating basic science discoveries into new and better treatments, putting science to work for the benefit of health care reform, encouraging a great focus on global health, advancing transparence and communication between government agencies and the people they serve, and reinvigorating and empowering the biomedical research community.
MLA wrote to the Executive Secretariat of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO in support of the IFLA Multicultural Library Manifesto. The manifesto calls for “libraries of all types to reflect, support, and promote cultural and linguistic diversity at the international, national, and local levels, and thus work for cross-cultural dialogue and active citizenship.”
MLA’s Ad Hoc Committee for Advocating Scholarly Communications, chaired by Karen Albert, AHIP, along with MLA’s Copyright Referent Lucretia W. McClure, AHIP, FMLA, developed the statement “Google Books Settlement: What Does It Mean for Libraries.” The statement addresses important elements of the court settlement for libraries, the pros and cons from a library perspective, and discusses the significance of the settlement for health sciences libraries.
MLA member T. Scott Plutchak, AHIP, is serving on the US House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology (HCST) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Scholarly Publishing Roundtable. The latter group is charged with seeking consensus on feasible and effective ways to expand access to and preservation of federally funded research information. The roundtable expects to submit a consensus report to the HCST and OSTP by the end of the year. A list of roundtable members, member bios, and the HCST’s charge to the group are available on the AAU’s website.
Prepared by Mary M. Langman, MLA Coordinator, Information Issues and Policy
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