Approved-By:  RAED@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.govdoc-l
Date:         Fri, 11 Dec 1992 11:22:01 CST
From:         lib_beck@emunix.emich.edu
Subject:      Letters to Congress

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
     Good Grief...this is not the time to be thinking about
composing your letters to Congress.  They should have been in
the mail last week, to your representative and senators and to
Messrs. Rose, Fazio, and Reid.  Now you should be prodding your
administration to write, helpfully drafting the letter for them.
When that's taken care of, it's time to write to President-elect
Clinton (State Capitol, Little Rock 72201), sweetly expressing
your concern at the involvement of Ronald Plesser in his transition
and your dismay that this Reaganite Washington insdider lobbyist
for Big Money with his record of depriving the American people of
access to government information should be in any way connected
with the new administration.  And before you leave your word
processor, draft that letter you will be sending to the new Cabinet
appointees urging them to ensure that their agencies make their
wonderful information products available to the Depository Library
Program as required by 44 U.S.C and assuring them that you are eager
to help them develop effective and efficient information programs.
     Depository librarians should always have a letter to your MCs
set up on your word processors.  When an issue comes up, you just
type in your polite, brief and to-the-point explanation of what the
issue is, why you're concerned, and what should be done.  Change the
names, make some adjustments, and the basic letter can go to all
concerned MCs.
     Wayne Kelley's instructions on how we are to address this issue
can be ignored.  In many years of involvement with organizations that
lobby legislators, this is the first time I've heard that advocates
of government programs should tell Congress what other programs should
be cut to support ours.  Congress knows the value of information, and
it has recognized the need for depository libraries since 1828,
steadily expanding the scope of the program and the number of deposi-
tories.  The basic issue is support of a program that has been under-
funded and over-extended for years.  If Congress doesn't want to support
the program, it should change the enabling legislation, not starve it
into collapse.  Unfortunately, Congress loves to establish programs
and then not fund them, so it needs to be reminded that this is not
wise or prudent public policy.
     In regard to "waste", most of us frugal librarians are irritated
by GPO's adding titles to existing items (I recently sent Judy Russell
my latest suggestion for alleviating the problem), but those are not
"big ticket" budget items like the Monthly Catalog and CFR, and GPO
has long said it isn't cost/effective for its small staff to survey
all those minor publications which it is required by law to distribute.
If that situation is about to change, it's unfortunate that GPO failed
to communicate the information to more than one person.
     Let's keep in mind that all this turmoil in 1400 depositories is
caused by an appropriations shortfall of $3.5 million, which is a
grain of sand in the Federal budget.  To put it in perspective, take
a look at some of the appropriations that just came in this week.
$9 million in the Defense budget for the World Cup USA committee!
And, as reported in the NY Times, even our friends at OMB have
acknowledged the waste in the Reagan-Bush privatization mania.  One
DOE contractor spent $3.5 million (that figure sounds familiar) of
a $38 million dollar contract on "unallowable expenses such as
liquor, travel expenses for spouses, and registration for golf
tournaments."  That one contract was more than the entire DLP, and
$3.5 million was wasted on things that no depository spends money
on.  Not only do we not squander Federal money, we puts lots of
state and local money into making Federal information available,
absorbing more than our fair share of our humble little program.
I find plenty to criticize in GPO, but the problem here really is
Congress, and that's who needs to hear from us ASAP.
     Merry Christmas and God Bless Us Every One - even Wayne P.
Kelly, Ronald Plesser, and those Scrooges on the Legislative
Appropriations subcommittees.
           - Clare Beck
             Eastern Michigan Univ. Library
             lib_beck@emunix.emich.edu
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