EPA Library to be Closed to Public

Captains and Friends,
Some news to get you riled up this week, courtesy of the Waterkeeper Alliance listserv:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is closing its Headquarters Library to the public, as well as its own staff, effective October 1. This shutdown is the latest in a series of agency library closures during the past few weeks, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As with the other library collections, the books, reports and research monographs in the EPA Headquarters Library have been boxed up and are currently inaccessible to anyone.

EPA will not say when any of this material will again become available to its staff or the public either via the internet or through inter-library loans. As the agency claims that the library closures are for budgetary reasons, it has no dedicated funds for digitizing hard copies, making microfiche available online or re-cataloguing the tens of thousands of documents that will be relocated to large storage areas called "information repositories."

EPA made a formal announcement of this latest library closure in a Federal Register notice published on September 20, 2006, just days before the complete shutdown takes effect.

For more info check out:

EPA Begins Closing Libraries: http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_40955.shtml
EPA's response: http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_40991.shtml
EPA Employee Responds: http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_41345.shtml
Latest update on closures: http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_41281.shtml