Government Librarians Use Blogs and Wikis to Fight Closure Threats

The American Library Association has set up a Federal Libraries wiki to allow members of the profession to anonymously "share and track information on federal library threats, re-organizations, and closings".

Under the Bush administration, there have been reported threats to such government libraries and/or public reading rooms as the ones at the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Housing and Urban Development, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In Canada, I had mentioned in my May 10, 2007 post entitled CALL Conference 2007 - AGM Highlights that the annual general assembly of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries voted earlier this month "to send a letter to the Premier of British Columbia and to the Speaker of the province's legislative assembly to protest the possible reduction in access to the collection of the B.C. Legislative Library. The Library is closing down indefinitely for a seismic upgrade, and there is widespread concern it won't reopen".

Supporters of the Library have taken to the blogosphere to campaign against the attack.