EPA Library System in Shambles: On-Line System Unworkable After Physical Collections Dispersed

The EPA’s drive to close its physical libraries rests upon the premise that the same materials will be available electronically. The principal venue for this access is something called the National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS) but even experienced librarians are unable to find materials in the new system. Librarian e-mail messages posted during the past three weeks on the internal library intranet site indicate serious disruptions of research:

“It looks like the main search features aren’t working (at least not for the searches I’ve run) and I have confirmed this with several librarians. I am asking my staff not to use NEPIS to search for documents until we feel confident that we can find what is in there…”

“My first comment is that there is no way a casual or new user would know to go to advanced search and enter the year of the publication because of the different indexes used. They probably won’t know the year of the publication for a starter. Secondly, I don’t have any confidence in finding what I need to find in this database other than doing it by report number.”

“I’m trying to locate this article/paper for a patron who needs it urgently. I suspect it’s in one of the dockets, TSCA/OPPTS, but I’ve not been able to find an identifying number. And, even with an identifying number, I’m not sure the paper could be located in the docket given the flood damage and displacement of folks and documents, etc. I’ve been waiting on items from the docket for months and months….”

+ EPA librarian e-mails (PDF; 22 KB)
+ Trace the development of the EPA library closures

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 and is filed under Access to Information, Libraries and Librarianship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.