ALA Midwinter Meeting is coming up fast. The ERIC Users Group will meet on Sunday from 1:30-3:30 in Convention Center, Room 008B. I'm not a member of that group, but I'll be there and I hope you can attend. Whether or not you plan to come, please respond to this email and share with me your ERIC related highs and lows. Here are my thoughts on coverage issues, linking to sources, and vendors.

Coverage:
       Coverage is my biggest issue with ERIC right now. I tried to crunch some numbers to help me think about it. I looked at how many items were being indexed per month before the changes, how many are being indexed now and what that might mean for how long to fill the gap. In addition to the obvious problems with such a rough model, there is the fact that the new system generated a huge initial output that they have not come close to matching since. So very roughly it appears that it will take somewhere between a year and a half and three years to catch up with the number of citations that would have been expected under the prior system.
     This does not factor in the journal coverage gaps that several people are bringing to my attention. The clearinghouses officially closed in December 2003 and the contract with the new ERIC provider assumes that they indexed through the end of that year. (It specifies that the new contractor will index beginning with 2004 publications.) But in fact there are issues of some important journals from 2003, and even 2002 that are not in the database. I checked 10 highly rated education journals and found only two had complete indexing for 2002 and 2003. For most, coverage is missing for several issues.

Linking:
      User friendliness is my second concern. The contractor is trying to provide a host of new capabilities and they don't always do so in the most user-friendly way. Linking is one issue. When there is a link to the full text of an item from the ERIC system, the link provided on the Eric.ed.gov site Results page is incomplete and cannot be cut and pasted into email. With the addition of the clipboard functionality early this fall, users can now collect sets of wanted items, and the links appearing on the My Clipboard page are complete links. So progress is being made. But My Clipboard isn't perfect yet. This morning when I tried using it without signing in to My Eric first, it added items to my clipboard that I hadn't marked and were not even a part of my results set.
      Then there are the items that are not available full text from ERIC. These are to receive a two-pronged approach. There should be links to the full text provider and to the user's institutional holdings. For ERIC documents -ED designation- the links to the provider are so far just that; a link to the home page of the organization that produced the item. Even if the item is posted on the provider's web page, in its entirety, the link does not go to the item, but only to the provider. For journal articles -EJ designation- the links are a mixed bag. Some take users to the publisher's page, some to the journal's home page on services like Catchword and others right to the article page within a full text provider site.
      The Beta of the links to holding for institutions has been ongoing since late October. A few institutions with various brands of linking software were part of the trial. According to the email I received, my institution was the only one of the initial four that didn't work. There are now nine institutions on the dropdown list. We have heard nothing in over a month about efforts to resolve the problems with our interface. This is going to be great, once it gets going well, but so far it is very slow forward. I hope eventually that drop down list of institutions will have to be changed as it gets too long to be manageable.

Vendors:
I would be interested in hearing from folks who would be willing to help me check on vendor implementations of ERIC. At the end of this year (two weeks!) I will loose access to the SilverPlatter interface, and will be left with only CSA and FirstSearch. Neither of those interfaces will allow me to do the types of searching I sometimes need to do. I've been searching the word education, limited by the dates 2004-2005 at irregular intervals this fall. I want to see how the vendors are doing with loading new data. I was initially concerned because I wondered whether the contractor was loading large chunks of new data into the database right after providing the vendors with a monthly update. In one view, since you can't search by date in the ERIC.ed.gov interface, trying to save the most current for themselves would make no sense. But they did make the initial new content public nearly a month before it was provided to the vendors - so I thought I should be checking. To some extent the picture is just confusing - I probably should have been more systematic in my checks. Every time I check there is more material in the ERIC.ed.gov site. Somewhere in mid October, SilverPlatter loaded new records, which they are calling the September release, and there has been nothing since. FirstSearch added new records in the early days of each month, CSA added items in early October and again in early December. I don't have data for other vendors, please send if you do or would be willing to help with collection. I'm not sure what we can do with this, in my experience most of the vendors are not very responsive to concerns about individual database content.

Miscellany:
     I continue to be interested in the quality of the indexing and have heard some reports of errors and problems, but nothing overwhelming yet. I am also still concerned about the Thesaurus. Errors I pointed out last spring are still not corrected, so this is not a function that is getting priority treatment (I suppose that's appropriate given how often my students use a Thesaurus search).
      Let me hear from you with your concerns. Send messages to corby@msu.edu

      Just a note to let everyone know that I have decided to archive the information about the recent changes in the contract for ERIC and have changed the ERIC News site http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm to highlight more recent information. I intend to work with the formal ERIC User Group, but hope to also maintain the quick response time that working as an individual provides. Some of the changes to this new web site are still in development -- like a blog for ERIC User interaction -- but I have put up a core of information and want to encourage everyone to forward their questions and insights about the ERIC product so that I can post the information for all. Here is a summary of recent news about ERIC

New Content
      There is now some new content in ERIC, posted June 26, 2005 and presumably more coming in weekly. Right now the new content is only available on the ERIC.Gov site (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ ) but that should change in early August. Vendors (Ebsco, FirstSearch, Ovid, etc.) are being asked to sign a new contract before new content can flow to them. The contract is concerned with ERIC's need for comprehensive use statistics and also discusses the copyright restrictions that stem from the fact that the database is now reproducing journal abstracts rather than doing original abstracting. Everything I've heard from the contractor so far leads me to believe that ERIC will eventually index a large proportion of the education literature. It may use labels to identify different "quality" characteristics, but will not attempt to limit listings to approved or "scientifically based" research.

List of Journals Indexed
      There is also now a list of journals available from the ERIC site. It seems to be the list that accompanied the old version of ERIC, with a special icon for those journals currently onboard for indexing. There is no way that I can find to automatically get a list of just the journals currently being indexed (and that list should change frequently as new titles come on board), but I grabbed the titles listed as current right now. On the ERIC web site, the information about each title includes ISSN, publisher, coverage level, peer review status, frequency, and a brief description. I have had some reports that the information about journal titles in incomplete. While I haven't checked them all, the lapses seem to be in titles not currently being indexed. For the ones on the current list I did not find incomplete information.

Linking
     This is a weak link (bad pun) of the new product.
     Some of the linking conventions in the new ERIC interface remain problematic. The full text ERIC document files are a great improvement over the previous files, much quicker to load and more reliable to access. But the links call a java servlet and require cut and paste action by users to construct a useable link (detailed instructions at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/neweric/fulltext.htm). Since it is also not possible to email a link/document, this is a serious drawback.
      Links to other types of material are also still not fully developed. Library holding linking is still in development. Currently journal articles link to the journal publisher home page (that's right, not even the journal home page) with no mention of other providers (including not linking to services like Ingenta which are often the sole source for electronic versions of a journal). I found some document items full text on their sponsor's web pages, but no link in ERIC to the text. Presumably the contractor's employees are aware of these problems -- some of them admittedly quite thorny -- and are moving as quickly as possible toward a resolution. Users need to be cognizant of the issues so that we can provide appropriate guidance as the inevitable development issues come up.
      ERIC Users have asked about APA reference formats for ERIC documents, since EDRS no longer exists, but the 5th edition of the APA manual includes it in the format recommendation. I am working on getting a reply to that question from the APA. That information and other "picky details" that librarians need to know, will be on the new webpages, so bookmark for future reference.
      Thanks for your interest and support.

     I want to provide a summary of ERIC related news from the recent American Educational Research Association meeting. Important caveat, I am a notoriously lousy note taker. I'll do my best.
      I presented at a session entitled "Implementing the New ERIC: What the Future Holds for Indexed Access to Research. The other speakers were Luna Levinson, Director of ERIC; Lawrence Rudner, former Director on the Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation and current member of the ERIC Steering Committee, and Adrianna Kezar, former Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education, now at the University of Southern California. I will post the text of my remarks separately, but cannot really do justice to the other presentations. This is just a very brief summary:
      Dr. Levinson spoke about the plans for the new ERIC product. She emphasized the change in mission from attempting to improve practice by disseminating research to providing a database that offers access to education research. She discussed the recent federal legislation that led to these changes and provided use statistics to show that the new web product is steadily gaining satisfied users.
      Dr. Rudner spoke about the weaknesses of the former ERIC system and praised the technological improvements of the new interface. He emphasized that Clearinghouses had been advocates for ERIC and worried that the new system of online submissions would not attract the best papers from established scholars. He urged that the new system will have to solicit materials from individuals or it will miss some of the best of it's potential content. Dr. Rudner also urged planners to listen to and heed input from user and advisory groups (like the Steering Committee), something he feels they have not always done. He particularly stressed the call for structured abstracts as important.
      Dr. Kezar discussed the loss of relationships that resulted from closing the clearinghouses. She feels that both acquisitions and dissemination will be harmed by the new ERIC model. She pointed out that the clearinghouses interpreted and synthesized information. Now there is no mechanism for translating research for the practitioner. (Dr. Levinson said that there was discussion of generating new synthesis documents to be prepared by the What Works Clearinghouse and "surfaced" in ERIC.)
       ERIC also came up at another session later in the week. It was entitled Advancing Scientific Research in Education: A Report of the National Research Council. That is also the title of a new publication from National Academies Press http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11042.html Like all National Academies books the text is online and we all will need to read chapter three. In the presentation entitled "Building the Knowledge Base" Barbara Schneider discussed chapter three which presents the vision for a new Knowledge Base. She invoked ERIC as exemplar of detailed indexing and said that we need to construct a "bibliographic index of published studies." The structured abstracts came up again both in the context of reporting research and for use with proposals. I asked how the proposed entity would interact with ERIC. Dr. Schneider said that they were not sure as it was a fairly far in the future recommendation. One of the session discussants, Dr. Barbara Foorman from the Institute of Education Sciences (the agency that oversees ERIC, but this person is at least three levels up from the Director of ERIC if I understand agency structure correctly) jumped in to explain that ERIC was in transition. She said that the agency had discovered that there was peer reviewed published research that was listed in the Web of Science but was not in ERIC. So they were reviewing ERIC content, hoped to have some product that would list all peer reviewed research reports, and she hoped to have good news about ERIC by the time of the AERA meeting next year.

-----Original Message-----
From: Kate Corby
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 8:40 AM
Subject: Information about ERIC, looking ahead

Colleagues,
      It's been about two years now since we all began devoting a lot of attention to the ERIC database and the changes surrounding its new contract. For much of that time the federal government was sharing information about the changes and their plans in only a very limited, formal way. Librarians wanted and needed to know more.
      Now the bare bones of the new product are up and the contractor is posting news releases on the ERIC web site at http://www.eric.ed.gov/ (see ERIC News). The Education and Behavioral Sciences Section of ACRL is working with the Education Division of SLA and officials in the federal government to set up a formal ERIC Users Group. Things are progressing, the minutes of the first Users Group meeting should be available soon, and I will post to the web, the minutes and other information about the Users Group as soon as they are available.
      The Ad Hoc Committee http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/ebss/rosters/access.htm, which has worked with me to bring you these updates, is not scheduled to dissolve until June of 2006, so we still have time to do a bit more work. I thought it might be a good idea to summarize our plans and give ERIC users an opportunity to respond to them with questions or suggestions.
      We are interested in continuing to follow the development of the ERIC product, with a special emphasis on fulfillment of the original contract provisions. We expect the Users Group to take charge of enhancement requests, but there are still several aspects of the original plan that have not been made public. Among the most important, in my view are

• The list of journals to be indexed in their entirety, and the list of content providers for the non-journal items that will be indexed.
• The "customization tool" that will allow libraries to link their holdings to ERIC results when searching on the eric.gov site.
• The status of the Thesaurus and provisions for its maintenance - the recent "routine maintenance" raised concerns.
• Quality and quantity of new indexing

     Beyond the contract fulfillment issues we also want assurance that ERIC will continue to cover the literature of education fully. We are hoping to be able to take a look at whether the changes to the federal priorities for education research have impacted the types of information that are available to researchers. Anyone with insights on this topic should contact Venta Silins at VSilins@bothell.washington.edu
      There are several information resources that were lost or left without sustaining support when the Clearinghouses closed. Some were important services (think AskERIC and the Test Locator) that librarians continue to work to find ways to replace. The Ad Hoc Committee will continue to look for ways to support those efforts and bring opportunities to everyone's attention when and if they appear. Often these initiatives involve finding new funding sources or a new sponsoring agency. Such major changes take time.
     It is a good sign that the Contractor (CSC or Computer Sciences Corporation) is now publicly saying that it cannot keep up with contract deadlines. It takes away some of the uncertainty and distrust just to have that open admission. While CSC has decided not to provide any estimates of when overdue work will be available, the progress reports they do provide seem in keeping with the reality that many of us suspected would eventually be evident.
     At the same time all is not yet open and free. CSC says that they are in the process of getting contracts signed with upwards of 1,000 content providers so that they can begin the process of adding the content of their journals to the database. If they have reached that point, then apparently some decisions have been made about what content to index, but nothing has been made public. It would seem that concerns about having all the i's dotted and t's crossed take precedence over getting the information out when promised. As evidenced by the very formal "Statement of Work" process that got us to this point, there is precedent for releasing a "Draft" document, even in this environment. I for one sure wish they'd do so.
     Please continue to send me any and all ERIC related information as it comes to your attention. I am also happy to try to respond to questions. For the foreseeable future I am continuing to update the web pages at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm Let me know if you find errors, problems, omissions. Thanks for your support

-----Original Message-----
From: Corby, Kate
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:57 AM
Subject: ERIC Thesaurus update

See also Nancy Cawley's excellent, detailed response to this open letter

Hello Colleagues,
      In a letter earlier this month I promised more information about the ERIC Thesaurus. Librarians have been concerned about the ERIC Thesaurus because the new ERIC contract calls for "a brief written assessment," a process that was to have been completed in September. The folks at ERIC have told us repeatedly that there are no plans to overhaul the Thesaurus, the exact words of my latest correspondence: "We are not ready to make any major changes in the Thesaurus." Several librarians have brought to my attention that the Thesaurus HAS CHANGED during this redesign year, so the EBSS Ad Hoc Committee did a bit of investigation to try to discover exactly what has gone on.
      Because the date is included behind ERIC descriptors when they change, it was possible to search the ERIC Thesaurus by the date 2004 and generate a list of all the descriptors which have changed this year. There are 2,994 changes in 2004 (see http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/ERIC_Descriptors_2004.txt for a complete list). Because the Department of Education will not provide a reload of the database to the commercial vendors until December 1, it was also possible for us to compare the older Thesaurus entries, as displayed in vendor versions of the Thesaurus, with the newer ones on the ERIC.gov site. Matt Paris did the analysis of the changes for the committee. His report is below. I also asked Dr. Luna Levinson about these changes and she indicated that she would be pleased to hear about our concerns. Her words: "The very best thing to do next is to write up the kinds of changes that you and others have observed in searching using the Thesaurus. If you are of the opinion that there are deficits in the searching performance, let us know." EBSS is in the process of setting up a committee to funnel these types of comments to the ERIC offices, so send any comments to me, or the Committee when announced, and we will see that they are sent to the proper officials within ERIC.
      Here is Matt's analysis:

MEMO TO: EBSS Members
FROM: Matthew Paris, Ad Hoc Committee on Access to Government-Sponsored Research in Education
SUBJECT: ERIC Thesaurus revisions.

     In Fall 2004 several EBSS members contacted Kate Corby and the Ad Hoc Committee with concerns about revisions to the ERIC Thesaurus located on the ERIC website at http://www.eric.ed.gov. Several members noticed a pattern of previously independent descriptors now subsumed under a much broader term with the only linkage provided by "Use Term" and "Used For" designations. For example the formerly accepted descriptor Immigration Inspectors, which was "used for Border Patrol Officers; Guards (Border Patrol)" now directs searchers to "Use term Government Employees " as do the former "used for" terms. This leaves the listing for Government Employees with a rather long list of "Used for" terms including Border Patrol Officers (2004); Civil Service Employees; Drug Inspectors (2004); Egg Inspectors (2004); Fish Inspectors (2004); Food Inspectors (2004); Food and Drug Inspectors (2004); Fruit and Vegetable Inspectors (2004); Guards (Border Patrol) (2004); Immigration Inspectors (2004); Meat Inspectors (2004); Public Employees. As the dates indicate, many of these terms are newly altered.
      The Ad Hoc Committee compiled a list of ERIC Thesaurus descriptors introduced or modified in 2004. I was charged to take a look at them to see if this pattern was prevalent. The list includes about 2,960 terms. I looked at a representative sample from each alphabet letter. I found very few of the 2004 changes are new descriptors (meaning new since the 14th print edition in 2001). The majority of the changes are modifications to previously accepted descriptors.
     There is definitely a pattern of "flattening" the hierarchy of the descriptors. This pattern is prevalent throughout the changes and applies to all disciplines. In the 2004 modifications, Plant Pathology loses its descriptor status and any linkage to related terms Herbicides and Floriculture. Plant Pathology is now merely a see reference, Use Term Plants (Botany). Herbicides is still a descriptor but is no longer linked to Plant Pathology (which is the sole and only purpose of herbicides) or its new terminology Plants (Botany). Adverbs now instructs users to "Use Term: Form Classes (Languages)"with no linkage to the previously related terms of Syntax, Sentence Structure, or Vocabulary. Language Standardization is also no longer a descriptor but is now supposedly synonymous with Language Planning. "Synonym" is the designation used to indicate a "see" or "use term" reference.
      There doesn't appear to be a cultural or political agenda (Neoclassicism is out, Postmodernism is in). Indeed, much of this makes no sense. Immersion Programs is still a descriptor but no longer a related term for Language Planning. Objectivity directs searchers to "Use Term: Attitudes."
      Kate asked whether the changes were all in descriptors related to school subjects, as opposed to terms dealing with education per se. It is true that most are school subject related, but not all. For example: Pedagogy of Place in OCLC will direct you to use Place Based Education with some significant related terms. Pedagogy of Place on the ERIC site simply says Use Term Education. Regular Education Teachers in OCLC will give you a scope note and related terms. Regular Education Teachers at the ERIC site says to Use Term Regular and Special Education Relationship.
      Some older educational terms have also gone through this process and are flattened on the ERIC site. School Readiness Tests is now synonymous with Aptitude Tests. Outdoor Activities have been subsumed into Recreational Activities. Full Time Faculty is now simply synonymous with Faculty.
      It's hard to know what to make of this. Obviously, someone at ERIC made the decision to pursue a policy of downgrading descriptors to "Used For" status. If this is any indication of the future direction of the Thesaurus, the quality of the ERIC product will be irreparably compromised.

     As the ERIC contractor, CSC would like to join the discussion about the ERIC Thesaurus. As background to Kate's communications about conversations with Department of Education staff, I want to confirm that the Department has not requested any changes in the ERIC Thesaurus. Also, the Department and CSC are very interested in knowing about any issues that arise with search performance using the Thesaurus. We are gratified to hear that EBSS is in the process of setting up a committee to funnel comments to ERIC.
      CSC made changes in order to maintain the Thesaurus and implement a new technical architecture for ERIC. The Thesaurus is a tool designed originally for paper-based and microfiche-based dissemination of records rather than an online database system. As part of routine maintenance, and to prepare to test a phased adoption of machine automated indexing (an activity planned to support streamlining of materials processing), CSC reassigned thesaurus terms. This exercise supports the overall goal of increasing the accuracy and consistency of indexing. There were two objectives associated with this goal: 1) clean-up obsolete terms and terms that were rarely used relative to the history of the term in the database (e.g. five times or less over a decade or more), and 2) consolidate terms with conceptual overlap. Since ERIC's historical focus has been on thesaurus building rather than term maintenance and evaluation (i.e., last major overhaul performed in 1980), the scope of this exercise was unusually large.
      Specific to the reference of 2,994 changes, the following details are provided:
      - 1829 descriptors were changed to non-preferred status
      - 986 synonyms were updated as a result of the descriptor changes
      - 180 USE references were updated as a result of the descriptor changes
      All of these changes fall into the category of routine maintenance and are supported by standardized practices of thesaurus development and maintenance. These include standards of literary warrant and term relationship guidelines found in the recently revised ANSI/NISO Standard Z39.19, Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Thesauri.
     If a representative from your committee would aggregate comments and send them to me periodically, I would be happy to channel your suggestions and recommendations to the appropriate project staff, as well as the Department of Education. If there are terms that you feel have been inappropriately reassigned, or new terms you would like to suggest, we would value this feedback.

Best Regards,
Nancy Cawley Communications Lead,
ERIC Program
202-312-5610
ncawley@csc.com

-----Original Message----- From:Corby, Kate
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 12:17 PM
Subject: The New ERIC: Feature implementation timeframes /Wins a dubious award

Summary of the EDRS sponsored information meeting at ALA Annual 2004.

    Speakers included Pete Dagutis of EDRS (ERIC Document Reproduction Service), Christina Dunn of the National Library of Education, Luna Levinson, Head of ERIC, and Nancy Cawley of CSC -new ERIC development team. Please note; for clarity, I have included responses to questions with the discussion of the topic in question, even though all questions were presented at the end of the session.

Pete Dagutis:
EDRS will close sales operations and database services on September 30th. At midwinter EDRS thought services would end in July, but as the date for the new ERIC product has moved back, the date for EDRS closing has also been changed. There should be no service gap. Even after the end of September, at least through October, EDRS will be answering phones as they close up shop. They will be processing refunds for E*Subscribe and deposit account customers and transferring property purchased with federal dollars to the government. The last issue of RIE will be July 2004. The contents of E*Subscribe are currently being loaded onto the new servers in preparation for the October 1 start of the new free service. Pete said that the contents of this presentation would be available in the News section of the EDRS web site. See web links above for this information.

Christina Dunn:
     This presentation was an overview of the roots of the new ERIC system. The Department’s fundamental goal is to increase the available information.
     The new ERIC was authorized by the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (PL 107-279). Part 172 of the act is the basis for new ERIC. The Act does say discuss/emphasize evidence based research but it also broadens the areas to be covered by the database. Because the Act did not specifically say that the Clearinghouse contracts were to continue beyond their then existing period, but did say that they must be allowed to continue until they expired, the Department maintains that their decision not to renew the Clearinghouse contracts was mandated by the law. The changes that are being made to ERIC are an attempt to respond to user comments and requests. Some changes were already being discussed when the new law was put in place. For example content of the new database will be electronic to the extent possible. The department wants to offer as much full text as possible. Will get copyright clearance to post full text whenever possible, will try to provide links when they cannot. Reliance on the electronic format should cut costs and production times. To reflect the new nature of the database, they will change the meaning of the “E” in ERIC from Educational to Education.
      The database that debuts on September 1st will not be the final product. It will be enhanced, with new services provided over time. But the final product is in process, the Department does not anticipate a long development timeline.

Luna Levinson:
      Dr. Levinson handed out a page that contained the text of the latest ERIC news update from the ERIC homepage. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ It provides an outline of what is happening next. Some of the materials in the existing E*Subscribe database cannot be made accessible in electronic form because ERIC does not hold copyright permissions that would allow such access. For those items, the current microfiche archive will have to do. This is mostly older stuff. The Department does hope to pursue loading full text of some older materials, but back runs of journals are a priority. There were a lot of questions about this issue. The Department does not have any plans to sell copies of the microfiche, nor of the electronic versions of the level 2-A documents. They were clearly surprised to learn that some major research libraries, cognizant of the upcoming cut off for ERIC document availability, were declaring their ERIC document collections archival and ceasing interlibrary loan operations for them.
     The former ERIC system lacked guidance for the contractors. Each Clearinghouse functioned independently to fulfill its contract, selecting materials and providing services as it saw fit. Now there will be two bodies formally set up to give advice to the contractor: the Steering Committee and the Content Experts. Librarians should be aware that this is viewed as a technology project by the Department of Education. Persons selected to serve as advisors to the project are selected first for their technical expertise, although knowledge of an area of educational research is also important. The Steering Committee will be expected to make suggestions that will keep the database up to date with current technology as the years pass. Curators will actually build the database. This role has been subcontracted by CSC to RTI (Research Triangle Institute) in North Carolina. http://www.rti.org/
     Several of the Members of the Steering Committee do have library related experience. Although the full list, with biographies, will not come out until sometime in July, Dr. Levinson mentioned members Bill Arms who worked with the NSF Digital Library, and Mick Bass, a project manager for DSpace. She also mentioned Lawrence Rudner who is a former director of an ERIC clearinghouse.
     As the development progresses, standards will be developed by the Steering Committee. These will be refined and approved, first by the contractor (CSC) and then by the Department of Education. Once in place the Content Experts will begin their work, identifying specific journal titles and gray literature sources for the database. The Steering Committee also helps develop outreach and dissemination guidelines. All Steering Committee work follows the pattern of making recommendations to the contractor who then puts together a formal plan that must be approved by the Department. Plans call for ERIC to have international content, but items will be in English.
      They will have self-submitted content from an online paper submission service. They will also do some harvesting. The database will still use a thesaurus for indexing. The author supplied indexing will be used as suggestions, but will still be reviewed by the curators before being accepted. They had not planned on having a printed Thesaurus, but the overwhelming support for it in the room convinced them that it was important.
      The new ERIC has to be inter-operational with the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). This is the new entity that will provide evaluative information about educational research. Their products will be available full text in the ERIC database immediately upon publication. In the new ERIC product, there will be an attempt to eliminate confusing or coded information. Metadata must have a clear purpose, and will include quality indicators. Examples of quality indicators that might be provided included peer review status of a journal, circulation figures, etc. The Department hopes to use the tremendous popularity of the database to influence some practices in the field. For instance they are interested in developing a standardized abstract format.
      Although AskERIC is not functioning, there will be support for users. Once the database if up and functioning they will develop tutorials for users. The Department is responsible for overseeing the speed of updating and customer satisfaction. Among other things, they will gather data on search times and user success rates. Those who relied on AskERIC and similar services can contact the National Library of Education

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ies/ncee/nle.html

Toll-free for All Library Services: 1-800-424-1616

TTY for All Library Services: 202-205-7561

Reference: 202-205-5015/202-205-5019

Government Documents: 202-260-5459

Circulation: 202-205-5012/202-205-4945

Interlibrary Loan: Same as Reference

Fax: 202-401-0547/202-260-7364

E-Mail library@ed.gov

The NLE’s information services do not rely exclusively on the ERIC database, they use a variety of sources, but they will help patrons with education related research questions. The Department of Education is aware that products like the ERIC Digests were heavily used. Right now they will be relying on the What Works Clearinghouse to provide synthesis information, but other products are not ruled out, they are just not a priority right now.

Nancy Cawley
Nancy Cawley is now introduced as being “with the new contractor.” I do not know her exact title, but in numerous interactions with CSC since they were awarded the contract, Nancy has always been the contact person. She began with an orientation to CSC, which is a huge company. The ERIC contract work is being done in the federal sector of the firm. Nancy points out that their size gives CSC extensive access to enabling technologies. There are 18 CSC data centers around the country, one of them will host ERIC. The firm’s extensive technical and management expertise will help it fulfill the contract, the fact that it has a history of working with ERIC through two previous contracts will assure continuity and a solid knowledge base about what is important for ERIC constituencies. Several staff from those prior contracts are now working on the new contract. In addition they have RTI experience in the content areas and education research to support their effort. Someone in the audience expressed a concern about confidentiality of searches. If ERIC is running within the CSC network it will be just one relatively unimportant cog in a huge wheel. Many of the CSC projects are defense contracts. Librarians worry about privacy of searches. The response was that Eric will be self-contained and CSC will not harvest user information.

Miscellany from Questions:

What types of material will be excluded that we had access to in the past? Don’t know yet, the Steering Committee must do it’s work and set up guidelines. There will be clear guidelines about what types of material will be included once the decisions have been made.

How was the membership of the Steering Committee selected? The contractor made the initial suggestions which were then discussed with the Department. The contractor was able to make appropriate suggestions because they have the services of RTI and a legacy of working with ERIC. (That word legacy was used frequently.)

Will SFX work with the new ERIC? Yes.

What about things that are only issued in print, will ERIC still select and digitize these items? If they meet selection criteria, they will be indexed. They will be digitized if ERIC can get permission.

Comment from the audience: Publishers change their minds about access vendors/aggregators. ERIC needs to be careful about contract language, needs to try to retain archival rights for content already in the database, even when future access is lost. It is also important that libraries are given adequate notice of changes.

When will the 2004 material be available in the database? Don’t know yet but will announce as those timelines become available.

     Hello ERIC database users. I want to check in with everyone prior to the ALA meeting.The new ERIC contractor has been working steadily and I have some new information.
      I was able to obtain the list of Steering Committee members http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/neweric.htm The Steering Committee will oversee the development of the database in an overview way. The contracts calls for them to have technical expertise and deep understanding of database structure and function. I know that most of my readers would therefore expect the Steering Committee to be mostly librarians, but that is not the case. There is only one, and she is a public library director. There is also one person from OCLC and one former Clearinghouse director. I have linked their names to quick biographical information, but I‘m hoping the Department will provide additional information about their relevant qualifications when they go public with the list.
      The Content Experts are not yet in place. These will be the 48 people who vet selection of resources for the database. They will also have a say in how the new contractor fulfills the outreach portion of the contract.
      The Content Experts should have been named and begun work in May. The fact that they have not yet all been named means that contract fulfillment is behind schedule, but no one who looked at the schedule would have expected otherwise. It was optimistic, ambitious, impossible --your choice. There also has not yet been a public forum, and my understanding is that it has been delayed with no firm date set.
      I have seen a couple of summaries of the presentation that was made about ERIC at the Special Libraries Association meeting. I am pleased that the Department of Education is reaching out to ERIC’s library constituencies. I would characterize the presentation at SLA as an attempt to moderate expectations. The contract for ERIC calls for a bit of a wunderkind database, and they are starting to get the word out that, while that is still what they hope to develop, that is not what they will roll out September 1. The free full text of ERIC documents is now scheduled to begin October 1. Other features will follow even later.
      For those worried about access to ERIC documents, in particular the level 2A items I want to call you attention to the Web site at http://www.edrs.com/Help/Issues.cfm Our old friend Pete Dagutis has provided a listing. You will recall that the level 2A items are currently available online from E*Subscribe, but because of the limited permission ERIC was able to obtain, they will no longer be available electronically when the new ERIC takes over this fall. So if you need to fill in holdings or do a limited inventory, the list is available.
      I have not been able to pry any further details from the bureaucracy, but they are coming to ALA. Please plan to hear Dr. Luna Levinson, Director of ERIC and Christina Dunn, Director of the National Library of Education, who was unable to join the discussion at Midwinter, as they discuss the new ERIC and the timetable for specific services. It will be:

When: Monday, June 28, 2004, 9:30 - 10:30am
Where: Orange County Convention Center, Room 223B
Sponsored by: ERIC Document Reproduction Service

Hope to see you all there.

      On March 18th, the Department of Education named a contractor for the ERIC database. They picked Computer Sciences Corporation. CSC is a major U. S. corporation. According to Hoover’s “CSC is one of the world's leading information technology (IT) consulting and outsourcing firms. CSC provides its clients with a wide array of services such as application development, consulting, network design, and systems integration. About half the company's business comes from IT services it provides for other companies. CSC counts many corporate giants, including Bombardier, Motorola, and the UK's Royal Mail among its clients. It's also a top IT service provider for the US government, receiving more than $2.5 billion in annual revenues from various contracts with the Defense Department.” The company is in the S&P 500 and ranks #175 in the Fortune 500.
      CSC is the company that holds the current contract for the ERIC Processing and Reference Facility. In March of 2003 they acquired DynCorp. According to a ProQuest abstract of a Defense Daily article: “DynCorp will be combined into CSC's Federal Sector business unit, which will have about $6 billion in annual sales from the U.S. government. The enlarged company now ranks as the third largest U.S. federal IT contractor and a top 10 DoD contractor, CSC said.” Why do we care? -- because DynCorp holds the current contract for the ERIC Document Reproduction Service. (Yes, all who have troubles with E*Subscribe, it is true!)
      Among the other members of the former ERIC system, this firm seems to have a good reputation. They are known for reliability and competence. This is good and may mean that the new ERIC will also be reliable and well produced. Certainly this means that the people developing the new ERIC will have an understanding, and I hope, an appreciation of the quality of the product. On the possibly worrisome side, Computer Sciences Corporation is a huge contractor - not just for the United States government, but for other entities as well. Their web page at http://www.csc.com/ has a news section, but the $34.6 million contract for ERIC didn’t ever rate a mention. When I looked in late March they were touting a helicopter deal in excess of $400 million. In early April they are mentioning a group of awards for $327 million and another $46 million for Medicare cards. This contract award has also not gotten the press attention that I had expected, given the attention given to the contracting process. This might mean we will have less visibility if concerns do arise. So far I have had excellent response to my inquiries to them.
      People want to know how this will work out, and of course we don’t know. I will share with you my thoughts and plans. I welcome suggestions from all. I am tracking the ERIC developments because I want to understand the new product. I want to be sure to be aware of the decision-making process and opportunities for input by the library community.
      But the contractor is only one side of the equation. The Department of Education also has a huge role. I tried calling the contact listed on the Department’s News Release, but got the traditional government shuffle until I wound up at the desk of ERIC Director, Luna Levinson. She was out of the office but returned my call promptly. Unfortunately I was out when she called, so I decided against further phone tag and sent an email. I asked about whether the new contract was available online and how one might best follow and have an impact on the development of the new ERIC product. She gave me a contact name and I have asked that person for a copy of the new contract - actually just the “Statement of Work” portion. She closed with “I assure you that work has begun and that information will be made available to everyone.”
      Many people know that I’m a fairly straightforward person. In my email I said “My concern is that until now, the information I have found about the process from [Department of Education web] pages has been after the fact -- what the Department did rather than what they plan to do.” There was really nothing in Dr. Levinson’s reply that spoke directly to that concern. Still I feel that the mood is generally upbeat about these latest developments. I will continue to pursue further information, but I don’t see any reason for alarm at this point.
    I have no reason to believe that any steps in the process outlined in the Statement of Work will be eliminated, but clearly the schedule may need to be revised. I had created a timeline based on the anticipated award date, and have now revised it as much as possible from the Statement of Work (SOW). If I am later able to see the actual contract language it may need to be revised again. The Statement of Work calls for a Public Forum, within two months of Contract award “for soliciting input about making the database highly useful to educators, researchers, and the general public” (SOW p.7). In mid-May there were to be usability and performance tests, although these did not specifically demand public input, they would now be due before the public forum.
      Similarly the list of sources for items to be indexed is not due until mid-October in the timeframe established by the SOW. But the new product is to go live July 1, so it seems likely one of those dates has been adjusted.
      I know many are interested in the “brief written assessment of the ERIC Thesaurus” (SOW p. 14) that would now be due in mid-September, after the system is already to be operational. With the exception of the one public forum there is really no major call for public input in the Statement of Work. ALA has been in touch with the Department of Education and made them aware of the expertise that Librarians could bring to some of the development tasks that lie ahead. Let’s hope that our offer will be heard.
     As always, I’ll keep you posted as new developments arise, and thank you all for your support, in forwarding ideas and new information to me.
      Thanks for your interest,

      Still no big news, but it's been so long since there was news that folks are understandably anxious to know what is going on. The American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter meeting is just over, and some new information was available there.
      The new contractor has not yet been named. In a report appearing in this week's Education Week http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a93709a147866877a21, reporter Debra Viadero mentions the end of January as the likely timeframe. I believe she got that estimate from the Department of Education. I'm more tempted to believe the Mid-February date I heard from one of the bidders. The Department is apparently still in the process of trying to decide between competing bidders. It was explained at the recent discussion on the topic at ALA Midwinter that this is done by sending out questions to prospective bidders and giving them a deadline for submitting answers. A bidder who presented at that meeting mentioned that they had just received 5 new questions.
      Also at ALA Midwinter we learned that some deadlines are being changed. The ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS) has received a contract extension from June 30, 2004 to September 30, 2004, so ERIC Documents will be available from them a bit longer. That would include new fiche and the E*Subscribe database. Since the Clearinghouses did all the indexing for the ERIC database, there will be no 2004 records added until the new contractor begins work. But there is enough of a backlog from 2003 Clearinghouse work to keep new releases coming out into the database for several months.
      Of course, as time passes the deadlines within the Statement of Work get closer and closer. Many concerned users, myself included, worry about how the new contractor could ever hope to accomplish so much in such a short time frame. If you read the Education Week report linked above, you will see that at the end I am quoted as saying that I'm afraid that having comprehensive coverage from January 2004 - June 2004 up and available on September 1, 2004 is "pie in the sky." It was good to hear an expert opinion that it is very possible. Dave Lankes, former Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Technology, assured the Midwinter crowd that the proposal is doable, even given the new timeframes.
      Once the contract is awarded, the opportunities to have an impact on the new service will come quickly. Watch for updates via email and on the web page http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm.

     I've finally gotten through the new Statement of Work (SOW) for ERIC that came out as part of the June 27th posting. There are some changes, though no reversals of direction. I will post comments and information as they come to me at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/sowanalysis.htm. There will be spots throughout the coming year when we will be asked to provide input on the new ERIC, I'm sure many will want to do so. I'll do my best to get notices out on the listservs when those opportunities arise. The change in this new Statement of Work that I found most amazing is that it actually shortens deadline time in many areas. I, and many others, worried that the original SOW had unreasonably short time frames; this one is breathtaking. Proposals are due on August 4, so that's just five workweeks, one of which includes a national holiday, to prepare a proposal. But this letter is meant to focus on the changes to the database, so here goes:
     One criticism of the Draft SOW was that it appeared to severely limit the focus of ERIC in a number of ways. It eliminated Clearinghouse selection expertise and substituted a small group of content advisors. These people would not only lack the range of subject expertise provided by the full Clearinghouse system, but they would have relatively little impact on the database. There has been some addition to the explicit topic list, but it is minimal: "include information on closing the achievement gap, educational practices that improve academic achievement and promote learning" (p3). At another spot, the new SOW says the new ERIC shall include "international materials written in English" (p.11).
      We did better on getting broader coverage of the literature. Several additions mandate that articles relevant to an education audience be included despite their appearance in a journal outside the field. The content experts (advisory board) is to suggest journal titles, the contractor is to use automatic harvesting to identify individual articles and the curators (contractor employees actually building the database) are now to meet directly with the content experts to discuss recommended content.
      Access to materials in the database is another area where the SOW was changed in a good direction. It now mandates a "customization tool" (p. 12) that will allow libraries to link to holdings. The archiving requirement was also strengthened, and the new SOW actually mentions the GPO (Government Printing Office) and the Depository program and promises to cooperate. While the lost services provided by the Clearinghouses will not be replaced, the new SOW at least mandates an 800 number for user service.
      One more big change I'm sure everyone will welcome is the tough new requirements for reliability. The new SOW demands specific operational standards as to both the reliability of the servers and the usability of the search interface. There is even a provision for third party evaluation.
      Many of you have read the letter from Dr. Whitehurst to a concerned senator, which was leaked to several listservs. I think it is an excellent, straightforward outline of Dr. Whitehurst's thinking. I've decided to post it so that others can read it, but will take it down if asked, since I'm not really sure it's legitimately public record. You'll find it at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/whitehurstletter.pdf
      That's all for now.

-----Original Message-----
From: Corby, Kate
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 4:23 PM
Subject: ERIC, actually it's an RFP

     The Draft Statement of Work detailing proposed changes to the ERIC system has been out since April 10th. ( http://www.eps.gov/spg/ED/OCFO/CPO/Reference-Number-ERIC2003/listing.html ) I have had time to read it carefully and discuss it with knowledgeable colleagues, including some of the folks at the ERIC Clearinghouses. I think it's time for me to synthesize what I think I know and make recommendations. This letter is necessarily long; please bear with me.
      I'll begin by saying I hope you all will send multiple letters about this issue. You could write a formal reply to the Statement of Work to Jeff Halstead, and then copy the reply to your Congressional representatives, perhaps adding a note about your concern that this proposal is so radical. Even if you are not from Massachusetts or Maryland I hope you will also copy Senators Kennedy and Mikulski, who are reportedly monitoring the response. Secretary of Education Rod Paige would be another good candidate. (All contact information is available at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/clearinghouse.htm ) Do this individually and in groups as Departments, Colleges and consortia. Every effort is needed. You are welcome to freely crib from this and any other material I have written on the subject. ( http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/openletters.htm ) There is also a model letter available. ( http://www.saveeric.org/letter.htm )
      The two aspects of the Statement of Work that are most troubling to me are the elimination of the Clearinghouses and the downgrades in the quality of the indexing for the ERIC database.

CLEARINGHOUSE ELIMINATION

     The Clearinghouses were established 35+ years ago at centers of expertise in their various specialties. In the intervening years that expertise has grown exponentially, both with respect to the subjects each Clearinghouse covers and in knowledge of the kinds of information or knowledge access questions that the particular subject generates. The ERIC Clearinghouses are the most widely utilized education information resource currently provided by the Department of Education. They respond to over 150,000 emails and phone calls annually from users seeking education related information. AskERIC was a revolutionary service when it was first developed. Many doubted the feasibility of the concept. Any user could write or call and get a personalized bibliography to answer any education related question. Now many libraries provide similar services and most folks in education have used AskERIC on more than one occasion. The Clearinghouses also produce web pages, specialized databases like the Test Locator, and publications on current research, programs and practices.
      To replace these services the Department of Education proposes to centralize indexing and user response. The new ERIC will rely on three people from each Clearinghouse subject area who will meet once to help decide what journals and what sources of papers to index for the database. Beyond that one meeting the advisors will be expected to offer suggestions and monitor needs electronically. Expertise in the wider scope of each subject area will be lost, as will the exemplary user assistance to which the contact statistics clearly attest.
      The Department has begun work on a centralized clearinghouse, the What Works Clearinghouse that will be a dissemination center for information about educational research. What Works will evaluate completed research on seven or eight topics each year and make these completed "Evidence Reports" available to the public on the Web. The government's decision to emphasize evaluation of practice information for teachers and administrators should not come at the cost of their most successful outreach program. The idea, implicit but not clearly stated in this move, is that the broad dissemination of education information is not helpful. That teachers and administrators are merely confused by the wealth of information, and researchers do not need the analysis and synthesis the Clearinghouses provide. As if to prove this point, in January the Department removed from its web page a link to the preeminent synthesis documents of the ERIC Clearinghouses, the ERIC Digests, despite the fact that use figures showed they were the most heavily used items on the page.

INDEXING CHANGES

     Looking beyond the loss of the Clearinghouses, the Statement of Work proposes changes to the indexing procedures for ERIC that are likely to have a significant negative impact on the quality of the database. The new contractor is directed to use author provided abstracts and indexing as much as possible. They are also required to use automatic indexing. There will be an in-depth review of the Thesaurus. Effective consistent indexing is not a job for novices. Authors will lack sufficient distance from the subject to be able to accurately place their submissions within appropriate subject headings. Inconsistency or decreased specificity in the indexing process will have a detrimental effect on search retrieval making the database an unreliable resource.
      Perhaps more troubling, the statement of work gives no indication of how extensive the new ERIC database will be. It mandates that all selected journals will be indexed comprehensively. There will be a panel of content experts to decide which journals are selected. Currently the database indexes about 400 journals comprehensively, but it covers more than a 1,000 by selecting only the education related articles from a wide range of scholarly journals. The new ERIC may not be able to reach so broadly, and in so limiting itself will also limit its utility. Journals are not the only area where content will be limited. The panel of experts will also be asked to decide upon approved sources of non-journal materials. This limited list of possible sources may make it possible for the contractor to construct the database without the expertise currently employed, but the product cannot avoid being significantly weakened.
      Advocates of this new ERIC have repeatedly used the medical model. They point to PubMed as a successful example of government outreach that serves researchers, practitioners, and the general public with health information. PubMed also includes specific professional indexing of a huge number of information sources and clear divisions of content areas for its different constituencies. These are the factors that make it a success. The Department of Education cannot hope to produce an exemplary product without high quality data.

DEADLINES

We have until May 9th to respond. Please help in any way you can. Contact me for further information as the need arises.

Here is a background summary on the genesis of the current threat to the ERIC database/system.
      ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) is more than just a database. Sponsored by the federal government within the Department of Education, the ERIC system ( http://www.eric.ed.gov/sites/barak.html ) includes sixteen clearinghouses which gather journal articles, research papers and similar information in a particular area of educational research, index the various materials they gather, and then make as much of the information as possible available to the public at cost. The ERIC Clearinghouses have always made their role as disseminators of information primary. They maintain web sites, issue synthesis papers, and answer questions via email, instant messaging, and phone. The public has responded to these overtures in an overwhelmingly positive way. Each month more than 7 million people use the ERIC database and more than 10 million visit one of the Clearinghouse web sites. ( http://searcheric.org/abit.htm )
       Congress, in response to calls for improvements to education, passed the “No Child Left Behind” act in 2001. To help implement that act they passed the “Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002.” This later act mandated changes in the organization of the Department of Education, including the agency in which the ERIC system resides. Advocates for ERIC tried to convince legislators to mandate the system’s continued existence, but succeeded only in getting language that guaranteed the system through the current contracts. Those contracts expire this year and next. One might expect that with education an administration priority and the ERIC system a proven success at dissemination, the choice would be clear. Unfortunately it is more complicated. The new education initiative makes a strong point of relying on “scientifically based research.” The first steps in the process of remaking the Department have caused worry because they seem to favor limiting access, or at least prominence, of information that does not fit the current priorities. The ERIC Digests, research summaries written by the ERIC Clearinghouses, were removed from the Department of Education Web page in January, despite negative publicity, and despite the fact that usage statistics showed these Digests were the most popular items on the page (this page also has student financial aid information).
      Now the Department is deciding how to organize the ERIC system for the coming contract term. Information I have been able to garner from contacting the Clearinghouses indicates that they have very little information about future plans. Inquiries to the Department of Education are answered, but not substantively. Some clearinghouses had been told that the changes would be decided in Washington with no opportunity for outside input. A letter writing campaign on that issue recently resulted in a posting from the Department of Education promising a public comment period in mid April. Supporters of ERIC worry about loosing the expertise build up in the current system. They also worry that the database might be purged of information deemed not “scientifically based,” or perhaps that strict new criteria requiring empirically based research will be put in place to govern any additions to the database. Given the recent example of PubScience some are concerned that the database might be dissolved entirely, although it does have a funding line in the proposed 2004 budget.
      The Education and Behavioral Sciences Section of ACRL, which I chair, has formed an Ad Hoc Committee to follow this issue and keep other professionals informed. In addition I have a personal Web site on the issue at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm In the next few weeks you will probably be called upon to contact policy makers in Washington on behalf of the ERIC system. I hope this brief overview and the links to further information will make it easier for many to feel comfortable adding their voices to the call.

Good News. ERIC will have a public comment period. The EBSS Committee on Access to Government Education Information hopes to provide fodder for your comments in the near future. I'm forwarding the notice I got, minus identifying information about the sender.

Dear Kate--
We just received the following notice:
The Department has published a notice about ERIC in http://www.fedbizopps.gov Here is the substance of the notice.

General Information The Department of Education intends to post a Draft Statement of Work (SOW) for public comment for the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) in 3-4 weeks. Parties who are interested in this effort should review the Draft SOW when it is posted to www.fedbizopps.gov. If you have questions after reviewing the Draft SOW, please contact Jeff Halsted.
*********
If you go to the web site, and look under business opportunities you can register to have the statement of work sent to you when it is published.

It looks like your and others' efforts to persuade the Department to provide a comment period have born fruit. Thanks for your efforts!

Hello all,
      Just a quick update, I suppose many of you are not in the mood to be concerned about ERIC on a day when we've started a war. I want you to know that I've been contacted by some folks in the ERIC system and our efforts are beginning to have some effect. They tell me that some Congressional offices have contacted ERIC Clearinghouses in their districts after receiving messages of concern. I hope that we can continue the dialog with Congress and perhaps also with Secretary Paige. Under current conditions, FAX may be the best bet for method of contact and I have added Secretary Paige's FAX number (202 401-0596) to the Web page. http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm
      Right now we are simply asking that no substantive changes be made to the ERIC system without an opportunity for public input. We are concerned that planners in the Department of Education do not fully appreciate the extent to which the Clearinghouses provide valuable services to teachers and researchers. The expertise that each Clearinghouse has acquired over 35 years of service is a real asset that should not be discarded lightly.
      Thanks to all of you for your continuing support.

Hi all,
I think Scott is close to having our committee about this issue ready, and I'm glad because there's enough going on, that I am not keeping up.
      Right now I'd like to ask you all to consider writing to Secretary of Education Rod Paige (Room Number 7W301, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20202 )and/or your Congress persons. (See list of especially influential Congress members at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/congressmembers.htm) I have a sample letter posted at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/eric/paigeletter.doc The formal announcements are not yet out, they will come out in the next month. Unfortunately at that point changes will be already decided. Apparently there are plans to drastically shrink the ERIC system and centralize many functions including Web information and indexing for the ERIC database so that the remaining clearinghouses will not be posting information on their own. I know many of you can think of an ERIC Clearinghouse web page that serves a valuable function in your life. Please write and express your concern that it might be removed, or put into less capable hands without any chance for comment by you. A decision has been made to go ahead with these changes without asking for input from users/the public. So at this point all we need to do is express our concern and ask for a public comment period before these changes are set. The person who has made these decisions is apparently the head of the new Institute of Education Sciences, Dr. Grover Whitehurst. I am recommending that you write to Secretary Paige or your congress person (especially if you are from one of the states represented on the relevant committees) because those are the people who might see fit to encourage Dr. Whitehurst to change his mind.
      I keep hearing that this cleansing of educational information is simply an effort to put forward only information that meets "rigorous research standards" which will help the states improve their schools. We need to be clear and forceful in making the point that ideas feed on each other and eliminating access to certain kinds of information will stifle all research progress, including the types they hope to encourage.
      A reminder that the main page of all this information is at http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/doe.htm Anyone who runs across news items, quotes, information of relevance is encouraged to forward to me. Please don't assume I've already seen it.
      Thanks for your help. Forward/ distribute this as the spirit moves you.

Kate

--- Hi all, It happened -- apparently just today. I found out in the middle of an Instruction session and found it hard to control my editorial comment. Luckily the instructor shared my views. Check your links. Access to ERIC digests is no longer available from the Department of Ed. New address: http://www.ericfacility.net/ericdigests/index/

Kate

Folks, Here is the ALA Washington office response, with some excellent suggestions about what can be done to respond.
Kate
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrice McDermott [SMTP:pmcdermott@alawash.org]
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 3:57 PM
To: Corby, Kate Cc: Emily Sheketoff
Subject: Re: Education Department Questions
Dear Ms. Corby,
     I am replying for Emily Sheketoff on the Dept of Education Web issue. The information is apparently true about the "cleansing" of the agency's web sites and about no longer having ERIC search capability resident on the agency site. We are hopeful that a link will be provided to the ERIC site.
     Of course, the agency has the right to reorganize its Web site whenever and however it wishes. It has not been uncommon for previous Administrations to order agencies to stop distributing materials from the former Administration. It is much more visible now, however, when materials that have been widely public are removed.
     Having said that, however, there are a number of issues that do call for a response from the library community. The primary one is what is called permanent public access to government information. Government information -- whether records of agency activities or government publications (a distinction that is ever more slippery) -- is a federal record and must be preserved for a specified period of time (which could be one day or could be permanently depending on the material) -- it must be "scheduled" in archival lingo. So, our question to the agency will be "What steps are you taking to preserve and to provide ongoing public access to the materials that are being removed from the active Web site? How is this information scheduled?" This activity is not an option for the agency; it is required by law.
     The second issue is related -- what will be the public's permanent public access to ERIC materials (same concerns as above). And what is the assurance that the public will have at least the same level of access to these materials as it has had up until now?
      We have not heard any indication that ERIC funding is under threat (any more than any funding is in the current climate). Our appropriations expert told me that OERI funding is still in discussion in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and that it would be useful for folks to fax or call the members of that Committee http://labor.senate.gov/ urging support for ERIC and the National Library of Education.
      I hope this helps. We were waiting to respond until the article actually came out. We intend to follow up with the Department of Education on the issue.
      Please feel free to contact me if I can be of further assistance

Patrice Patrice McDermott Assistant Director,
Office of Govt Relations
American Library Association
1301 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. S.
403 Washington, DC 20004-1701
202-628-8410

Dear Ms. Sheketoff,
      I am chair of the Education and Behavioral Sciences Section of ACRL. Yesterday I was contacted by Michelle Davis who is a reporter for Education Week. I don't believe she knew of my ALA affiliation, she was contacting me because I am the Education Librarian at a top rated school of education. She was calling for my opinion of a Department of Education initiative to remove from the Department's web pages any references to non-Bush era education research. The Department maintains an extensive Web presence to assist students, parents, and teachers in their educational information needs. According to Ms. Davis, the Department has decided that information (and this is largely research results, not opinion papers) that does not support the current administration's views should not be made readily available to the public. In addition to this change on the Department of Education's site, I have heard from other sources that a move is under way to limit funding for the ERIC system, which is the other way that this information gets disseminated.
      If this information is correct, I'm sure the members of EBSS would be very concerned. Any assistance that your office can provide in helping me keep the membership of EBSS informed about the veracity of this information and the possible courses of action we could take to try to counter this move would be greatly appreciated. I'm copying this note to our section listserv so everyone will know what's up so far. I know you folks have many issues you keep tabs on, and this might not be the most urgent, but it's quite important to us and I hope you will be able to provide some guidance.

Thanks
Kate Corby
Education and Psychology Reference Librarian
Michigan State University Libraries