From sjohnson@westnet.com Wed Mar 24 07:42:44 2004 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.132]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.11+UW04.02/8.12.11+UW04.03) with ESMTP id i2OFgh7q050740 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2004 07:42:43 -0800 Received: from westnet.com (westnet.com [206.24.6.2]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.12.11+UW04.02/8.12.11+UW04.03) with ESMTP id i2OFggSF013307 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2004 07:42:42 -0800 Received: from westnet (westnet [206.24.6.2]) by westnet.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i2OFgd2Z012704 for ; Wed, 24 Mar 2004 10:42:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 10:42:39 -0500 (EST) From: "Steven P. Johnson" X-X-Sender: sjohnson@westnet To: SLA Natural History Caucus Subject: Fish & Wildlife Reference Service closing, press release In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20040319092929.00adc2d0@cmnh.org> Message-ID: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040319092929.00adc2d0@cmnh.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Uwash-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIIII, Probability=8%, Report='__TO_MALFORMED_2 0, __IN_REP_TO 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __SANE_MSGID 0, __REFERENCES 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __CT 0, __MIME_TEXT_ONLY 0, REFERENCES 0.000, IN_REP_TO 0' The International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies has posted a one page press release relating some background and plans related to closing of the Fish & Wildlife Reference Service in 2003. http://www.iafwa.org/Attachments/FWRS%20News%20Release-Feb%202004.pdf The press release states that the Fish and Wildlife Service is managing the disposition of the FWRS collection as it existed as of 2003, and that it has neither the authority or funding to continue operating the service. Continuing, the press release notes that the Fish and Wildlife Service and the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies "recognize the importane of the intellectual property in the existing collection and will work together to establish a plan for the collection." I have never been a heavy user of the Fish and Wildlife Reference Service. For many years, however, the service was on my short list of sources for masters theses and gray literature in wildlife management. Curators at the Bronx Zoo also were regular users of the Reference Service's current awareness newsletter. As IAFWA has recognized, the Reference Service was no longer need as a source of indexing and reprints for journals so widely available as Bulletin of Wildlife Management and Journal of Mammalogy. I wonder, however, if IAFWA recognizes the value of the collection database and the microform collection of theses and gray literature. The microforms could no doubt be migrated to a more up to date format, such as PDF, at least on a selective basis. Fish and Wildlife evidently wants little to do with the Fish and Wildlife Reference Service Collection, which was identified as part of the "wasteful spending and mismanagement" targeted by the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Improvement Act of 2000. In the future, Fish and Wildlife's Federal Assistance Program will collect reports "in a format that can be adopted by emerging technologies." Designing a new reporting system will no doubt be easier, and more rewarding, than identifying a useful future for the existing collection. Privatization seems more likely than finding a library with the interest and funding to take on the collection. To keep the collection useful in a privatized setting would probably require acquisition by a document delivery firm, rather than a purely database oriented vendor. If anyone would care to share thoughts on this subject, I'd be happy to continue the discussion, on list or off. My intention is to send some comments to IAFWA in the near future. I will be writing as an individual, and hope others may do so as well. The address for comments is listed at the IAFWA site, www.iafwa.org/multistate_grants.htm. I suggest visiting the site before sending a comment. Steve Johnson sjohnson@westnet.com .