GPO asks librarians not to restrict access

摘要

The U.S. Government Printing Office has advised librarians at the State University of New York/Oswego's Penfield Library that they have no authority to restrict access to Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents. GPO's response followed a February 15 e-mail message to 47 federal depository libraries around the country, sent by the university's documents librarian, Mary Bennett, urging fellow librarians to screen requests for NRC microfiche documents "to protect the security of our nation's nuclear plants." According to SUNY/Oswego Library Director Mary Beth Bell, GPO's Library Programs Service sent an e-mail message to Oswego, saying that "Ms. Bennett has no authority to make such a request. 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. "Only the Superintendent of Documents has the authority to request that depository libraries withdraw or secure publications in their depository collections. No such official request has been made," said the GPO e-mail. "This is the first time in my life that I've ever come close to anything resembling censorship," Bell told American Libraries. Although Bennett sent the e-mail message while Bell was on vacation, "what we did makes sense given where we live,"the director said, pointing out that a nuclear power plant is visible from the library. Ironically, the incident follows objections from librarians to GPO's post-September 11 decision to order libraries to destroy copies of a U.S. Geological Survey CD-ROM about water supplies. The CD-ROM had been available to the public for nearly two years when the government ordered it destroyed earlier this year. A number of librarians around the country talked to the press about their concerns.