ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News March 1998/197■ W a s h i n g t o n H o t l i n e Rick Weingarten More cash fo r college T he Administration’s proposed FY 99 bud­ get was released February 2. U.S. Secretary o f Education Richard Riley com m ented that this proposed budget will “. . . give all Ameri­ cans the financial support and information they n eed to go to c o lleg e.” For high er education, the budget pro­ posal w ould include $ 7.6 billion for Pell grants, an increase o f $249 million that would raise the maximum Pell award from $3,000 to $3,100. Also included is a $70 million in­ crease for College Work-Study, w hich in­ cludes additional work-study tutors for the America Reads initiative. Library programs, for w hich funding is passed through the Departm ent o f Educa­ tion to the Institute o f Museum and Library Services, is proposed at $146 million, about the sam e level as FY98. Another initiative in the Departm ent o f Education would develop a $75 million T each er Training in T ech n ol­ ogy program, w hich would include schools o f education and other partnerships to train new teachers in uses o f technology. In addition to the funds for tutors in­ cluded in the College Work-Study program, the Administration’s budget would include $250 million for America Reads, “w hich sup­ ports local programs that provide tutoring and help improve reading instruction in our schools . . . ” Currently before Congress is the Read­ ing E xcellen ce Act, H.R. 2614, w hich has passed the House and rem ains to b e acted upon in the Senate. Also outstanding is an approved appropriation o f $210 million to b e used for a child ren’s literacy initiative, if legislation is approved b efo re Ju ly 1. Next G eneration Internet in itiative s O ne important area for academ ic librarians in President Clinton’s proposed FY 99 bud­ get is the Next G eneration Internet (NGI) initiatives. Undeterred by problem s with last year’s NGI appropriation, w hich, with the Rick Weingarten is senior policy analyst at A LA's Washington Office; e-mail: rww@alawash.org. loss o f the dom ain nam e funds (see below ), fell significantly short o f the President’s $105 m illion requ est, the new s c ie n c e budget called for an increase in NGI funding to $110 million. The agency breakdown is as follows: Defense Adv. Research Projects Agency $40 million National Science Foundation $25 million Department o f Energy $25 million Nat’l Aeronautics and Space Admin. $10 million Nat’l Institute o f Standards and Tech. $ 5 million National Library o f Medicine $ 5 million T h e S en ate C om m erce C om m ittee re ­ cently introduced a bill authorizing NGI, S. 1609. T he bill has bipartisan support, hav­ ing been introduced by Bill Frist, (R.-Ten- n essee) chair o f the Scien ce Subcom m ittee; Ja y R ockefeller (D-W est Virginia) vice chair o f the subcom m ittee; Jo h n McCain (R-Ari- zo n a); Fritz H ollings (D -Sou th Carolina); Conrad Burns (R-M ontana); and Jo h n Kerry (D-M assachusetts). Reports are that the ad­ ministration, w hich had b e e n considering subm itting its ow n legislation, is pleased with the bill, w hich takes a fairly narrow approach that the com m ittee h op es would lead to rapid consideration and passage. The House Scien ce Com mittee, w hich typically takes the lead in scien ce authorization is­ sues, has not decided w hether they would have their own bill to consider. HPCC renam es in itiative O n the High Perform ance Com puting and Com m unication front, the HPCC initiative has been renam ed “Large Scale Networking and High-End Com puting and C om puta­ tion .” Overall program funding is proposed at $850 million. Last y ear’s HPCC request was $1,128 billion, so funding would b e sub­ stantially down. But given the renaming, and presum ably redefinition o f the program, it is hard to draw a meaningful line betw een the FY 98 and FY 99 num bers until w e get further information. Frozen fu n d s M eanwhile o n the litigation front: a Federal (Washington Hotline cont. on p. 211) mailto:rww@alawash.org 198 /C&RL News ■ March 1998 C&RL News ■ March 1998/211 Dolores Tantco-Stauder has retired from the Notre Dame Libraries. After three years as a librarian at the University o f the Philip­ pines, Tantoco-Stauder a c c e p te d a grad u ate fellowship at Syracuse University w here she received her MLS. The N otre D am e L ibrary th e n h ired th e c a ta - loger in 1957. Then, af­ te r s e r v in g as c h i e f cataloging librarian at the University o f the Philippines (1 9 6 1 -6 4 ), Dolores Tantco-Stauder s h e w a s w e l c o m e d b a c k to the bran d new M em orial (n o w Hesburgh) Library to a position split between reference and cataloging. In 1969 she b e ­ cam e the libraries’ theology cataloger, the position in which she served until her re­ tirement. Joseph Huebner, also from the Notre Dame Libraries, has retired after serving the uni­ versity libraries in several capacities. In 1963 he began his career as a librarian in Memorial (n o w H e s b u rg h ) Li­ brary. From 196 7 to 1 9 7 9 he h e a d e d th e collection management d e p a r tm e n t, a n d in 1979 he was appointed fine arts bibliographer and assistant head o f c o l l e c t i o n d e v e l o p ­ ment. He becam e head Josep h H u eb n er o f the Collection D evelopm ent Department in 1992. In 1993 Huebner was given the Rev. Paul J. Foik Award for outstanding librarians. D e a t h s Fred Glazer, form er director o f the West Virginia Library Com mission for 24 years, died in D ecem ber o f kidney failure. Before com ing the West Virginia, Glazer served as director o f the C hesapeake Public Library System from 1967 to 1972. Glazer was an ALA m em ber for 32 years; an active mem­ ber o f the ALA International Relations Round Table, serving as chair o f the IRRT Publica­ tions Committee from 1 9 9 5 -9 6 ; and an ALA Library Fellow to Russia, w here he worked at the Library o f Foreign Literature in Mos­ cow from 1 994-95. ■ (Washington Hotline cont. from p. 197) C o u rt f r o z e th e N a tio n a l S c i e n c e Found ation’s (NSF) use o f $23 million in fu n d s c o l l e c t e d by N etw ork S o lu tio n s through fees for domain name registration. A lawsuit has b een filed challenging the fees as an unlegislated tax. The judge, while not deciding on the case itself, has ruled that there is enough merit in the charge to war­ rant freezing the m oney in dispute. NGI is affected b ecau se those funds w ere desig­ nated by congressional appropriations to be used for NSF’s NGI activities. The $23 mil­ lion was $12 million above the original NSF request, and, therefore, represents lost o p ­ portunity. Unless the agency can reallocate funds, however, the loss o f the other $11 million will cut sharply into the base fund­ ing for networking at the agency. For further information about NGI and related programs, contact Rick Weingarten at the ALA Washington O ffice at (80 0 ) 941- 8478, or e-mail at rw w@alawash.org. ■ A d v e rtis e r in dex ACRL 182 American Physiological 145 American Psychological Cover 2 Baker & Taylor 154 Blackw ell’s B ook Services 159 CISTI 168 CHOICE 148 EBSCO Cover 3 E BSC O .doc 173 ISI Cover 4 Library Corporation 185 Minolta 190 NICEM 172 OCLC 196, 208 PNAS 205 Primary Source Media 198 Routledge 200 Sociological Abstracts 170 Spacesaver Corporation 212 mailto:rww@alawash.org