[12510] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Project Gutenberg Needs You!!!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael S. Hart)
Thu Oct 22 20:20:50 1998
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:26:09 -0500
From: "Michael S. Hart" <hart@prairienet.org>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The Project Gutenberg Request for Support for October, 1998
"Have We Given Away A Trillion Dollars Worth Of Etext Yet?"
This is a blatant request for support for Project Gutenberg.
If you do not wish to support free Project Gutenberg Etexts,
please just delete this now, and accept our apologies for an
email that you didn't want. Project Gutenberg messages have
traditionally been relayed by a number of listservers so you
might get more than one copy, again our apologies.
We usually limit ourselves to sending out such requests just
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***
The major purpose of Project Gutenberg is to encourage great
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***
Our current funding from Carnegie Mellon University is scheduled
to expire on 12/31/2001, so we need to look elsewhere, please do
what you can to find us a new home by then. . .thanks!! Michael
***Current Copyright Bill Information Is Appended At The End***
**** HOT ITEM FROM ONE OF OUR DIRECTORS OF PRODUCTION ****
Do you have some extra time? Can you spend 15 minutes a page on a 400 page
book? Bored with crossword puzzles and jigsaw puzzles? Try a Gutenberg
Scan Puzzle! We have a nice assortment of books which have been scanned
and turned into etexts. But the rough scans may contain 5 to 20 errors
on each page. These are usually e for c errors, or b for h, since the
scanner can't always tell the difference between those letters, and a
spellchecker doesn't know that "be bad" is really supposed to be "he
had". We can send you the etext and the book that it was scanned
from, and you can make the etext match the book text. Once the contents
are correct and formatted for PG, you can have the immense satisfaction of
seeing your masterpiece posted at our sites all over the world, for free
use by anyone who has access to a basic computer. Please email Dianne,
beandp@primenet.com, and I can either send you one of mine or put you in
touch with someone who scans and needs a proofreader.
Dianne also needs a paper copy of the Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Gaskell
Our four Directors of Production are:
Dianne Bean <beandp@primenet.com>, United States
John Bickers <jbickers@ihug.co.nz>, New Zealand
David Price <ccx074@ccj.coventry.ac.uk>, United Kingdom
Sue Asscher <asschers@aia.net.au>, Australia
Please feel free to contact them about projects you would like to do,
especially during November, when I will not be all that much available.
If you are interested in becoming one of our Directors of Production
in other areas, or even to help with these areas, please let us know.
***
If you have read one of these before, you can find the new parts in
the Detailed Information Section, Part 0. . .and where the new book
list is posted, near the end.
***
Contents
Overview
1.
Copyright
2.
Scanning and Typing
3.
Proofreading
4.
FTP and WWW Sites
5.
Donations
6.
Raiders of the Lost Archives
7.
Special Requests
8.
Programming
9.
New Etexts Needing Proofreading
Followed By More Detailed Information On Most Of These Subjects
***
1.
Copyright
Project Gutenberg will do copyright research for you if you send us
xeroxes of the title page [both sides, even if one side is blank.]
We need people to hunt through libraries or bookstores for editions
that we can use to legally prepare our Electronic Texts [Etexts.]
Germany, Italy and Great Britain have each extended their copyright
to "life + 70 years," as opposed to the "life +50 years" of "Berne"
copyright conventions. Residents of those areas will have to be an
extra bit careful, as a million items that used to be Public Domain
in those countries reverted to copyright status, even though a vast
majority of them are no longer for sale. This is now true for some
other countries, including France and perhaps Brazil and Portugal.
More on the United States Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 in a
"More Detailed Information" section below.
2.
Scanning and Typing
Once we have located some proper edition[s], then our volunteers do
the books by scanning or typing them into the computer. Usually it
is the same person who does the proofreading, but not necessarily.
If you have a scanner, or have access to one, or plan to get one in
the future, please contact our Director of Production, Dianne Bean,
beandp@primenet.com, with a cc: to me at hart@pobox.com
2.
Proofreading
Often the only way for many of our volunteers to work on Etexts for
us is if they can ship their book to one of you, have it scanned in
and then returned to them for proofreading.
If you could do the scanning for them, it would help us immensely.
4.
FTP and WWW Sites
We would very much like to provide better access to Etext for sites
in Africa and South America, and other locales. If you know anyone
who might be able to help with this, please read this:
We are always in search of more FTP and World Wide Web sites, so an
increasing number of people can download our books without unusual,
even often fatal, delays and glitches in transmission.
If you, or someone you know, can spare a gigabyte on their servers,
please have them contact us about creating more mirror sites. This
is a particular need for countries south of the equator, where text
files are only available on one server that we know of. If you can
help us get our books into South America, Africa, and further, this
would be a great help. We have something restarted in New Zealand,
with extensions into Australia, but the load this server can handle
is probably going to be easily exhausted.
5.
Donations
Project Gutenberg is almost completely dependent on your donations.
Most of our donations are simply mailed to:
Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box 2782
Champaign, IL 61825-2782
and are made out to "Project Gutenberg/CMU"
Carnegie Mellon University has also graciously provided those means
necessary for credit card and other means of donation. Just let us
know, and we will put you in touch with the right people there.
The Holiday Season of 1996 was the first time we ever raised enough
in a month to support Project Gutenberg for that month, but we have
received only a few donations since that time. I would like to see
Project Gutenberg become more or less an independent grassroot type
of organization, but I am not really much of a fund-raiser type, as
the fund-raiser at Carnegie Mellon University can tell you.
Anything you can do in this are would be greatly appreciated, even,
since we are at this juncture, helping us get more Public Relations
coverage of our 2,000th Etext. This should not be too difficult in
one respect, as many of the sites on the World Wide Web have never,
not once, been updated, since 1995.
Project Gutenberg sites up updated more than once a day on average,
since we are presenting 432 Etexts per year, and plan to move to at
least 500 year after #2000, which is schedule for January 1, 2000.
As I said, anything would be greatly appreciated. This SHOULD BE a
great time to get some PR. . .but it still appears, even though the
project has been written up probably about 200 times, that they are
going to write us up when THEY have a reason to rather than when WE
have a reason, and we feel it is now time to try to break out of an
entirely too limiting niche in the computer oriented media, and get
some more general publicity out there to the millions of people who
aren't computer oriented at all, but will would like to receive the
Etexts for education or entertainment. This is a majority of world
population centers, and we should do more to reach them.
If you have any "ins" in the press or with the corporate world, this
would be a good time to use them.
6.
Raiders of the Lost Archives
As you may be aware from several events of a month ago, and earlier,
there is a downside to having Etext archives in limited distribution
modalities, simply because if one site, or one person, or even whole
countries, change their minds about what they are going to archive--
then the whole world loses access to those files.
A good example was the loss of The Oxford Book of English Verse from
Project Bartleby. We have taken great pains to get this book, which
is undoubtedly important, back on the Net. If you want to see which
sites have lost this file, just do a Yahoo search for the book, then
count the vast number of sites that have blank entries for the book,
once it was deleted from a multiplicity of links; this is an example
of how important it is for Etexts to be posted on many sites, rather
than just one site will many links to it!!!
We need volunteers who will search the world for every possible book
and help us preserve it.
Project Gutenberg will not release any of this material until we can
do the copyright research and prove it belongs in the Public Domain.
We realize that many of our volunteers sometimes get frustrated that
we do this research, which possibly takes half our time, but it will
become more and more apparent why this is a good policy as copyright
laws become stiffer and stiffer, and world intellectual property can
be limited in greater and great ways. It is quite likely that it is
going to be some time in the next calendar year that a United States
law killing off another 20 years of public domain in the US will get
passed, to join the countries listed above, in eliminating a million
books from potentially being posted as Etexts, even though 99% are a
dead issue, out of print for decades. . . .
7.
Special Requests
We occasionally receive scanned material which could have benefitted from
more cleanup before it was sent to us. What we need is proofers with
patience to read through an etext and take out stray letters, clean up the
punctuation, and send a list of questionable lines to the person who
scanned it so they can send corrections to be inserted. This usually takes
a couple of weeks, and is a good short-term project for folks who want to
get their feet wet with Project Gutenberg. Dianne Bean <beandp@primenet.com>
8.
Programming
Due to the various formats in which we receive many of our Etexts,
we need some assistance in writing PERL scripts, vi scripts, or an
assortment of other scripts that will assist our proofreaders, and
our editors, in dealing with page numbers, markups, italics and an
assortment of other formatting issue that come up time to time.
Most of these are fairly trivial and can be solved with a one line
script for each of the particular situations and we just need some
people to either run the scripts we already have, or to write some
new ones from time to time when a particularly rough Etext version
arrives at our doorstep. These scripts, which take minutes to set
up, and seconds to run, can save HOURS of proofreaders' time. You
can be a BIG help just running some of these scripts for us, or in
writing or rewriting some of them on occasion.
***
More Detailed Information
0.
What we really need is someone who really wants to run at least an
estimable fraction of Project Gutenberg, and in a few years possibly
willing to take things over to a greater degree. After Etext #2000
I am planning to go schmoozing for some real money, so at least one
person in Project Gutenberg can receive an average salary. . .and
perhaps even have a one person support staff. There is little or
no likelihood [I have finally decided] that I will be able to find
a person as whatever it is that I am, to take things over without
a real salary. . .and Project Gutenberg is far too important for a
risk of any kind that it would not survive without me. . .hence I
am going schmoozing. . .if you have ANY suggestions of how to get
us grants or publicity. . .please. . .let me know.
1.
Copyright
Copyright Extension Is Also Happening in the United States
Rumor has it that the United States is pushing through HR604 & S505
[House Resolution #604 and Senate Bill #505] which comprise what is
called "The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998" which will remove
20 years of what would be Public Domain information from our future
libraries. We strongly suggest you call AND write your congressmen
to avoid removing a million books from what is already becoming the
"Information Rich Versus Information Poor" in a nations in which an
illiteracy rate is virtually equal to the literacy rate, in adults,
aged 16 and over, as per the 1994 US Literacy Report.
You can subscribe to a listserver on copyright extension at:
extension-l@olemiss.edu
or go to web sites on the subject at:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~dkarjala/
http://davinci.marc.gatech.edu/~tad/dennis/no-cense.htm
2.
Scanning and Typing
We don't really want to get into a public recommendation about what
scanners and OCR [Optical Character Recognition] programs word best
. . .it is really the case that some do better on some books, while
other do better on others.
However, we ARE willing to share our experience if you ask.
3.
Proofreading
Our official accuracy level that we try to maintain has been 99.9%,
for our first release, which is usually raised to 99.95% before the
vast majority of people ever see them, and this standard has been a
standard that has been adopted by most Etext providers, including a
new effort toward Etext by the Library of Congress and the national
libraries of Great Britain and other countries.
What we hope you realize is that any serious effort to get an Etext
to 100% accuracy should take MORE effort than to create an entirely
new Etext with an accuracy level of 99.9% to 99.95%.
While many, even most, of the Project Gutenberg Etexts are accurate
to an amazing degree, even more amazing when you compare then to an
entire world of Etexts prepared by both the scholarly or commercial
Etext enterprises, we do not feel that the additional doubling of a
more than massive effort, to possibly reduce the errors, by another
.02% perhaps, would have anywhere near the value of the preparation
of an entirely new Etext with the same amount of effort.
Nevertheless, even the most famous universities of the world have a
collection of Etexts, many of which have vastly more errors that in
our collection. This is also true of the commercial Etexts. Don't
be afraid that your efforts won't be as good as all the others, the
process of improving Project Gutenberg Etexts is never ending.
In addition, there are many volunteers who would prefer to have an
Etext or at least an author selected for them to work on. As some
of you already know, _I_ have been reluctant to choose for anyone,
not wanting to bias the formation of our collection with my choice
of what are the great books of human history.
I have promised to do several things once we reached Etext #2,000,
one of which is to provide more guidance to those who seek it, and
that guidance will be coming from Dianne Bean, true librarian, who
is also working on the cataloguing project I also promised will be
forthcoming once we reach Etext #2,000.
More on:
Proofreading: We could also use people who know how to use DIFF or
similar programs that point out differences between two files, even
programmers that might only be able to search our files for matched
and unmatched quotes. [Remember that when quoting many paragraphs,
each internal paragraph gets only an opening quote.]
Our proofreading is a never-ending story. . .we run spell-checkers,
and other varieties of programs, on our Etexts, and have real human
proofreaders go over them in pretty incredible detail, but we would
be remiss if we did not tell you that over 99% of the books we work
from have their own errors, and that while we catch some of those--
we undoubtedly introduce errors of our own, and even though we will
gladly keep updating our editions, ad infinitum, the odds that this
will catch ALL the errors in the near future are virtually 0%.
Therefore. . .we need you to email us when you have suggestion, and
comments, and when you find possible errors that need correction.
4.
FTP and WWW Sites
We are willing to adjust the bandwidth on various sites by adjusting
the publicity various sites receive, and also by asking our users to
only use certain sites at certain times of the day or night. So the
drain on sites volunteering to mirror Etexts should not suffer any.
5.
Donations
We have never received any local, regional or national grants; your
donations, and the support of Carnegie Mellon University and people
I would hope to count as my friends are the backbone of our support
and we could hardly survive otherwise.
6.
Raiders of the Lost Archives
This is going to be particularly evident if the raggedy performances
that are destroying 99% of the Public Domain continue by raiding the
Public Domain, taking a million works out of the Public Domain, over
a period of 20 years, and putting perhaps 1% of 1% of them back in a
print version so that those who owned the copyrights for the past 75
years and made millions from them, can make another million per year
while 99.99% of those works disappear from public access altogether.
We have the full co-operation and resources of the Internet Archive
at our disposal for this reclamation project and have succeeded.
***
This is an advance listing of books still needing proofreading, and
are still a few months away from their official release dates.
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext]####
First, we filled in a few of the major slots that were previously reserved...
Jan 1999 Holy Bible, Douay Rheims Version, Old Tstmnt Pt 2 [2drvbxxx.xxx]1610
Jan 1999 Holy Bible, Douay Rheims Version, Old Tstmnt Pt 1 [1drvbxxx.xxx]1609
Dec 1998 Holy Bible, Douay Rheims Version, New Testament [3drvbxxx.xxx]1582
Dec 1998 Holy Bible, Douay Rheims Version, Both Testaments [0drvbxxx.xxx]1581
and half the books we planned to do in October are now ready:
Mar 1999 Alcibiades I, by Plato? [More Socrates] [Plato#20][1lcbdxxx.xxx]1676
Mar 1999 New Forces in Old China, by Arthur Judson Brown [ldchnxxx.xxx]1675
Mar 1999 The Narrative of Sojourner Truth [Slavery] [sjrnrxxx.xxx]1674
Mar 1999 Lesser Hippias, by [?]Plato[More Socrates]Plato19][lhppsxxx.xxx]1673
Mar 1999 Gorgias, by Plato [A Socratic Dialog] [Plato #18][grgisxxx.xxx]1672
Mar 1999 When a Man Marries, by Mary Roberts Rinehart [#7][whammxxx.xxx]1671
Mar 1999 Martin Luther's Small Catechism, Trns. by R. Smith[smlctxxx.xxx]1670
The books listed above are NOT on archive.org!!!!!!
Mar 1999 The Human Drift, by Jack London[Jack London#62-69][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
A Collection of Stories Which Includes:
Mar 1999 The Birth Mark (Sketch), by Jack London[London#69][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 A Wicked Woman (Curtain Raiser) by Jack London #68[hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 A Classic of the Sea, by Jack London [London #67][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 That Dead Men Rise up Never, by Jack London [#66][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 Nothing that Ever Came to Anything, by London[#65][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 Four Horses and a Sailor, by Jack London/London#64[hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 Small-Boat Sailing, by Jack London[Jack London#63][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 The Human Drift, by Jack London [Jack London #62][hmndrxxx.xxx]1669
Mar 1999 Death of the Laird's Jock, by Walter Scott [WS #8][tpschxxx.xxx]1668
Mar 1999 The Tapestried Chamber, by Walter Scott [WS #7][tpschxxx.xxx]1668
Mar 1999 My Aunt Margaret's Mirror, by Walter Scott [WS #6][mamsmxxx.xxx]1667
Mar 1999 The Golden Asse, by Lucius Apuleius "Africanus" [gldnsxxx.xxx]1666
Mar 1999 Derrick Vaughan--Novelist, by Edna Lyall [dvnvlxxx.xxx]1665
Mar 1999 Songs for Parents, by John Farrar [sfparxxx.xxx]1664
Mar 1999 Webster's March 7th Speech/Secession, by HD Foster[wsm7sxxx.xxx]1663
resend when pnet mailer is upper
Mar 1999 The 1997 CIA World Factbook[CIA Factbook #7][No#6][world97x.xxx]1662
Mar 1999 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 A Scandal in Bohemia, by Arthur Conan Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Red-headed League, by Arthur Conan Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 A Case of Identity, by Arthur Conan Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Boscombe Valley Mystery, by A Conan Doyle[#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Five Orange Pips, by Arthur Conan Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Man with the Twisted Lip by A. Conan Doyle #15[advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, by Doyle[#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Adventure of the Speckled Band, by Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb by Doyle #15[advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, by Doyle[#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, by Doyle [#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, by Doyle[#15][advshxxx.xxx]1661
Mar 1999 Scenes from a Courtesan's Life, by Balzac[HdB #56][sfaclxxx.xxx]1660
Mar 1999 The Girl with the Golden Eyes, by Balzac [HdB #55][gwtgixxx.xxx]1659
Mar 1999 Phaedo, by Plato [AKA"The Death of Socrates 3"]#17[phadoxxx.xxx]1658
Mar 1999 Crito, by Plato [AKA"The Death of Socrates 2"]#16[critoxxx.xxx]1657
***
November WIRED, page 111, or so they tell me. . .not out as yet--
If you've read this far, you might want to look at the new WIRED,
November, the cover story is "The Wired 25". . .which includes a
bit on Project Gutenberg [I hate having my picture taken so I am
a bit of a clown in front of the camera, and of course they pick
a picture that I don't like]. . .I would like to say that I give
ALL the credit to our volunteers, and forward every thank you to
them [something like every three months or so]. . .but the press
wants individuals to write about, and no matter how many times I
send them our volunteers to talk to, they nearly always edit out
everything about them. . .ick! I just barely managed to keep in
some mention of our volunteers, who OBVIOUSLY do 99% of the work
of Project Gutenberg. . .no one could possibly do a large chunk,
when we have been posting 2 to 3 books per day, for the last few
months, even though our schedule is only 36 per month. . . .[mh]
We have appended below some information about the current bills
in the US Congress about destroying much or even most rights of
the public domain and fair use aspects of copyright.
Again my thanks to you all!
Thanks!
=============================================
Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text
Benedictine University [Illinois Benedictine]
Carnegie Mellon University Visiting Scientist
Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext
Post Office Box 2782, Champaign IL 61825-3231
No official connection to U of Illinois--UIUC
Permanent Internet Address!!! hart@pobox.com
Internet User Number 100 [approximately] [TM]
One of the several "Ask Dr Internet" Sponsors
Break Down the Bars of Ignorance & Illiteracy
On the Carnegie Libraries' 100th Anniversary!
If I don't answer in two days, please resend.
It usually means I did not get/see your note.
For General Information on Project Gutenberg
Please send us email at: dircompg@pobox.com
***
In addition to the forwarded message below:
Try the congressional email service:
Clickable Email addresses @ Congress
http://webcom.com/~leavitt/cong.html
zip code +4 gets your congressperson
Remember, 1 phone call = 10 letters:
and one letter equals ten emails!!!!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 09:59:09 -0400
From: John Crosby <JOHN-C@sla.org>
To: sla-members@gatekeeper.sla.org
Subject: ACTION ALERT!! Urgent Action Needed on Digital Copyright Legislation
Action Alert Contents:
1. Alert on Fair Use and Database Protection
2. What You Can Do
3. Conference Committee Contact Information
4. Phone/Fax Contact Information for Senators/Representatives
5. Sample Letters You Can Use
1. The "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (H.R. 2281) is now before a
Senate/House Conference Committee that's poised to act fast. The Committee
met for the first time late last Thursday and could meet for the LAST TIME
as early as Tuesday, October 6th!!
2. Even if you've never contacted Congress before, now is the time to
phone and fax all members of the Conference Committee listed below
(especially if you are a constituent) to ask that they:
(1) SUPPORT **no less protection for fair use** than that afforded by the
House's version of H.R. 2281 (the Senate's version contains no fair use
protection at all); AND
(2) OPPOSE the inclusion of any "database protection" legislation in the
final version of the bill (Title V of the House bill addresses this issue;
the Senate bill is silent).
It's also urgent that both of your Senators -- even though neither may be
on the Conference Committee -- be asked to contact Senate conference
committee leaders Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) immediately
to relay the two critical messages abo ve.
With the help of many SLA members this past week, we have made headway,
especially on the "database protection" front. Senators Burns (R-MT),
Conrad (D-ND), D'Amato (R-NY), Dorgan (D-ND), Lieberman (D-CT), Moynihan
(D-NY), Rockefeller (D-WV), Shelby (R-A L), Snowe (R-ME), and Wyden (D-OR)
all have written to Sens. Hatch and Leahy expressing concern that database
legislation should not be incorporated into the "Digital Millennium
Copyright Act."
3. "DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT" CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS
SENATE
ST PTY SENATOR PHONE FAX
SC R Strom Thurmond 224-5972 224-1300
UT R Orrin G. Hatch, chairman 224-5251 224-6331
VT D Patrick J. Leahy 224-4242
HOUSE
ST-DST PTY REPRESENTATIVE PHONE FAX
CA-26 D Howard L. Berman 225-4695 225-5279
IL-6 R Henry J. Hyde, chairman 225-4561 225-1166
LA-3 R W. J. Tauzin 225-4031 225-0563
MI-14 D John Conyers 225-5126 225-0072
MI-16 D John D. Dingell 225-4071
NC-6 R Howard Coble 225-3065 225-8611
VA-6 R Bob Goodlatte 225-5431 225-9681
VA-7 R Tom Bliley 225-2815 225-0011
4. If you would like to fax or call your senators and representative, but
you don't know their numbers, go to:
http://www.sla.org/govt/sla.html
on the SLA Web site. Type in your zip code, and you will be provided with
all the information you need.
4. Sample letters
Senate Letter :
The Honorable (name)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator _____________:
I am writing today as a [LIBRARIAN/TRUSTEE/AVID LIBRARY USER/
STUDENT/etc...] to ask for your help in assuring that any legislation to
implement new copyright treaties that Congress may send to the President
this year helps libraries bring information to the public rather than
hinders them from doing so. Specifically, I would especially appreciate
your writing to or speaking with Senate members of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act Conference Committee, H.R. 2281. They include Senators
Hatch, Leahy, and Thurmond.
First, please ask them to not to include any special interest database
protection legislation, including the Collections of Information
Antipiracy Act (H.R. 2652), in the final version of H.R. 2281 and to defer
action on this controversial issue until the next Congress.
Second, please also ask them to support nothing less than the level of
"fair use" protection adopted by the House in its version of H.R. 2281.
It is my understanding that Conference members plan to act very quickly.
Thank you very much for your help on this critical matter for our
community and communities everywhere.
Sincerely,
Your Name
House Letter:
The Honorable (name)
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative _____________:
I am writing today as a [LIBRARIAN/TRUSTEE/AVID LIBRARY USER/
STUDENT/etc...] to ask for your help in assuring that any legislation to
implement new copyright treaties that Congress may send to the President
this year helps libraries bring information to the public rather than
hinders them from doing so. Specifically, I would especially appreciate
your writing to or speaking with House members of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act Conference Committee, H.R. 2281. They include Reps. Hyde,
Conyers, Coble, Berman, Goodlatte, Bliley, Dingell, and Tauzin.
First, please ask them to not to include any special interest database
protection legislation, including the Collections of Information
Antipiracy Act (H.R. 2652), in the final version of H.R. 2281 and to defer
action on this controversial issue until the next Congress.
Second, please also ask them to support nothing less than the level of
"fair use" protection adopted by the House in its version of H.R. 2281.
It is my understanding that Conference members plan to act very quickly.
Thank you very much for your help on this critical matter for our
community and communities everywhere.
Sincerely,
Your Name
ANY QUESTIONS? Call or e-mail me....
John Crosby
Director, Government Relations
Special Libraries Association
1700 18th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009-2514
202-234-4700, x629
john-c@sla.org
