October 1, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jennifer McDonald
Communications Manager
Central New Mexico Community College
505-224-4673
CNM Librarian Fights to Keep Internet Information from Disappearing
The Internet has created opportunities for posting and sharing information, but it has also created a black hole that can cause government information to disappear forever with no archive as a backup.
Aimée Quinn, associate director of the Montoya Campus Library at Central New Mexico Community College, spent the last year as the chair of the Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association. As chair she led her committee to monitor Congress on the issues of increased secrecy of public information, closure of federal libraries and the role of libraries in E-government initiatives.
The Internet adds a new dilemma to the archiving equation. Quinn said 98 percent of government information can be found on the Internet, but the remaining 2 percent is what people request the most. Depository libraries, which can be found in every Congressional district, house information from the Government Printing Office, but there has been speculation about these libraries being closed.
“I don’t think this Congress will close the depositories,” Quinn said.
But the threat remains and how the information will be saved and archived is still uncertain. The Environmental Protection Agency has already closed some of its libraries.
“The EPA doesn’t archive well,” Quinn said. “They’re closing libraries and there is no where to store the information.”
The threat becomes losing the information forever, but GODORT remains committed to seeing that the information is not lost. The group – composed of librarians, publishers and policy makers – work together to prepare testimony for Congressional hearings.
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