Volume 15, Number 3
May 1991

The White House Conference

A month from now, over 900 delegates from every state and territory will converge on Washington, DC. to create public policy proposals for improving the nation's library arid information resources, as authorized by Public Law 100382. Delegates will carry with them the resolutions and chose priorities resulting from governors' conferences held in the states for this purpose (and attended by librarians and archivists, not governors). In Washington they will consolidate and merge these thousands of resolutions into a set of resolutions for the nation as a whole, which will be non-binding but influential.

Ten topic committees have been organized to work on this. The people chosen for the Preservation committee are Barclay Ogden (Calif.), Jan Merrill-Oldham (Com.), Carolyn Harris (N.Y.) and George Farr (D.C.). They were selected, like all topic committee members, from nominations received from across the country. They have already met and worked out the agenda for the July 9-13 conference.

State and DC Resolutions

The February and April issues of this Newsletter described preservation resolutions from the governors' conferences in New York, Connecticut, Florida and Maryland. Three more have been received since then, as well as three additional resolutions from New York:

Utah: PF-I Permanent Paper for Library Resources.

PF-1-A. The library community should develop Utah legislation requiring appropriate state and local documents to be printed on acid-free paper.

-PF-1-B. The State Archives, in conjunction with the library community, should develop a long-range plan to preserve local and state documents and other materials.

Texas. S.2 Democracy. [This resolution recommends that the State Library accept the designation of focal point for the proposed state preservation plan; that the Texas Library Association put preservation issues an the legislative platform; and that the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) be commended for its leadership role in promoting preservation and conservation of library materials.]

Federal Libraries. At the Federal White House Conference last November, delegates adopted a resolution calling for a preservation plan for federal libraries, with adequate funding. The three priorities identified there were preservation, networking, and access.

New York. Resolution 1016, Preservation of the Archives of State Government [calls for an endowment and adequate storage space].

Resolution 1019, Statewide Preservation Grants [calls for increased state aid for preservation of library materials]. Resolution 1024, Alkaline Paper [calls for a law requiring its use].