[Ecommerce] "Opendocument discussion veers toward consumers" and Libraries' letter

[Manon Ress]

http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-5996639.html

OpenDocument discussion veers toward consumers
December 15, 2005 8:45 AM PST

Five U.S. library associations have voiced their support for
Massachusetts' decision to adopt the OpenDocument document format
standard.

In a memo sent to Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin,
who has jurisdiction over public records, the library associations
said that the choice of OpenDocument, or ODF, is way to ensure that
electronic documents will be accessible hundreds of years from now.

"Requiring all Commonwealth employees to create documents in ODF will
make it significantly easier for libraries to ensure that patrons 100
years from now will be able to read these historically important
documents," the letter said. It was dated December 12 and signed by
the American Association for Law Libraries, the American Library
Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical
Library Association, and the Special Libraries Association.

The endorsement marks one of the first times that consumer-oriented
groups, rather than vendors, have weighed in on the discussion of
document formats and standards.

Consumer technology advocate Manon Ress, who went to Boston this week
to attended a public forum on Massachusetts' policy and brief local
journalists, weighed in on the matter as well, saying "the battle of
the vendors is not over and it's time consumers weigh in."

Posted by Martin LaMonica

***********************************************
December 12, 2005
The Honorable William Francis Galvin
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
One Ashburton Place, Room 1611
Boston, MA 02108-1512

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We write in support of the Commonwealth adoption of the Open Document
Format (ODF) as the standard for all electronic documents created by
the executive branch on behalf of five national library associations:
the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library
Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical
Library Association and the Special Libraries Association. These five
associations collectively represent over 139,000 libraries in the
United States employing 350,000 librarians and other personnel. Many
of these libraries and librarians are in Massachusetts. These
associationsmission is to foster global access to information for
creative, research, and educational uses.

An important aspect of fostering access to information is ensuring
that future generations will be able to read government information
created today. Although digital technology has provided libraries and
their patrons with new means of accessing larger amounts of
information than ever before, it has also made librariespreservation
function significantly more complicated. Until the digital age,
libraries needed to preserve only tangible items that deteriorated
relatively slowly. Acid-free paper, for example, can last hundreds of
years. Certain items like acetate films deteriorate more rapidly, but
these more perishable items represent a relatively small part of the
collections of a limited universe of research libraries.

Digital documents are far more evanescent than paper ones. Storage
media become obsolete as technology progresses. Over the past twenty
years alone, storage media have migrated from 5-inch floppies to 3.5-
inch floppies to CDs to DVDs. Moreover, different word processing
programs create documents in different formats. Thus, documents in
relatively long-term storage such as the hard drives of servers can
be read only by programs that have backwards compatibility. Such
backwards compatibility may be difficult to achieve in 100 years
because the developer of the program used to create the document may
have gone out of business and the proprietary specifications of the
document format may have disappeared.

In contrast, documents created in ODF will remain accessible in the
future because any programmer will be able to find its open,
nonproprietary specifications. Requiring all Commonwealth employees
to create documents in ODF will make it significantly easier for
libraries to ensure that patrons 100 years from now will be able to
read these historically important documents.

For this reason, we applaud the Commonwealth adoption of ODF. Since
ODF applies only to plain text and databases, we look forward to the
development of open standards for audio-visual materials, and we hope
that the Commonwealth will adopt such standards as well.

We also strongly urge OASIS to work simultaneously to ensure
compatibility standards for all users for whom barrier-free access to
government documents is critical. In particular, steps must be taken
to ensure compatibility for the disabled community and other users
whose access may be compromised. Since the executive branch has until
the end of 2006 to implement ODF, OASIS has sufficient time to adopt
the necessary protocols to guarantee access to ODF files by the
disabled community. Finally, we believe that the Commonwealth actions
should serve as a model for other states to ensure that their
citizens maintain the ability to access critical government
information. We urge other states to follow the Commonwealth lead.

Sincerely,

American Association of Law Libraries
American Library Association
Association of Research Libraries
Medical Library Association
Special Libraries Association

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is a nonprofit
educational organization with over 5,000 members nationwide. AALL's
mission is to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the
legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law
librarianship, and to provide leadership in the field of legal
information and information policy.
http://www.aall.org/
Contact: Mary Alice Baish (202-662-9200)

The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit educational
organization of over 65,000 librarians, library trustees, and other
friends of libraries dedicated to improving library services and
promoting the public interest in a free and open information society.
http://www.ala.org/Contact: Lynne Bradley (202-628-8410)

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit
organization of 123 research libraries in North America. ARL members
include university libraries, public libraries, government and
national libraries. Its mission is to shape and influence forces
affecting the future of research libraries in the process of
scholarly communication. ARL programs and services promote equitable
access to and effective uses of recorded knowledge in support of
teaching, research, scholarship and community service.
http://www.arl.org/
Contact: Prue Adler (202-296-2296)

The Medical Library Association (MLA), a nonprofit, educational
organization, is a leading advocate for health sciences information
professionals with more than 4,700 members worldwide. Through its
programs and services, MLA provides lifelong educational
opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information
research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the
importance of quality information for improved health to the health
care community and the public.
http://www.mlanet.org/
Contact: Carla Funk (312-419-9094 x.14)

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) is a nonprofit global
organization for innovative information professionals and their
strategic partners. SLA serves more than 12,000 members in 83
countries in the information profession, including corporate,
academic and government information specialists. SLA promotes and
strengthens its members through learning, advocacy and networking
initiatives.
http://www.sla.org/
Contact: Doug Newcomb (703-647-4923)






************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology
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Tel: +41 22 791 6727

Consumer Project on Technology
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Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607