EPA Libraries Finally Reopen

Five regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) libraries reopened September 30, two years after EPA officials began prematurely closing them in response to a proposed 80 percent funding cut by the Bush administration. Under orders from Congress, which blocked the administration's controversial plan in 2007 and ordered services restored, EPA reopened regional libraries in Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City, plus a chemical library and its headquarters library in Washington, DC.

In its September 24 Federal Register notice, EPA officials announced that the agency will begin “enhancing” library services on September 30, the last day of the 2008 federal fiscal year, promising that reopened regional libraries will be “staffed by a professional librarian...for a minimum of 24 hours over four days per week on a walk-in basis or by appointment.”

While grateful that Congress intervened to restore service, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) associate director Carol Goldberg said that scattered and incomplete collections may never be reassembled and services would be less robust than before, with most of the reopened facilities housed in smaller spaces. Also, the library in Chicago, formerly the largest regional library, reopened without “permanent furniture and shelving.” (The EPA notice stated, “It is anticipated that additional Great Lakes literature, permanent furniture and shelving will arrive in the next several weeks.”)

At a Congressional hearing in March 2008, James Rettig, then the American Library Association president-elect, echoed PEER's concerns about the damage done to EPA libraries over the past two years. “Unfortunately, there continues to be a lot that we don't know,” he told lawmakers. “We remain concerned that years of research and studies about the environment may be lost forever.”