September 20, 2006: EPA Announces Closure of Headquarters Library

The EPA publishes a notice in the Federal Register that it will be closing its headquarter library on October 1. The library contains 380,000 documents on microfiche, a microforms collection of abstracts and indexes, 5,500 hard copy agency documents, and more than 16,000 books and technical reports produced by other government agencies. The EPA has already quietly closed several regional libraries, whose collections are currently not available to anyone, even the agency’s own scientists (see August 15, 2006). Though agency officials insist that the collections from these libraries will be digitized and made available via the Internet, no funds have yet been allocated for this purpose. [PEER, 8/21/2006; Environmental Protection Agency, 9/20/2006 ] Unlike today’s notice about the closing of the headquarter library, no public notice was given for the closures of the agency’s regional libraries (see August 15, 2006).