John M. Williams

Last month, Congress approved the Library of Congress’s plan for its National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP).

In approving NDIIPP, an ironic oversight occurred. You see, no one knows for certain whether the preserved material will be accessible to tens of millions of people with disabilities. Why? According to Guy Lamolinara, Confidential Assistant to the Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives, Washington, DC, ”As a legislative branch agency, the Library is not legally covered by the requirements of Section 508.”

Lamolinara continues, “However, the Library strives in all its online materials to make them 508 compliant and will do so with NDIIPP.”

Sounds very definite. Well, maybe. You see the Library of Congress is not the only player in town.

In December 2000, Congress recognizing the importance of preserving digital content for future generations, passed Public Law 106-554 appropriating $100 million to the Library of Congress to lead this effort. NDIIPP falls within the Library's mission, "to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations." This mission extends to materials in electronic formats.

The NDIIPP legislation asks the Library of Congress to raise up to $75 million in private funds and in-kind contributions, which Congress will match dollar- for-dollar.

The Library of Congress has been a pioneer in the field of digital information. Even before the World Wide Web, the Library was digitizing and making selected items from its collections available in electronic form. The program was called American Memory, and it began as a pilot in 1990. American Memory was originally a CD-ROM project, in which discs were distributed to 44 schools and libraries across the country to determine whether there was any interest in being able to access important materials relating to American history from the Library's collections. By the time the pilot concluded in 1994, there was ample evidence that many people wanted these materials and they wanted more of them.

The preservation of digital content has become a major challenge for society, including people with disabilities. Thus, in 1998 the Library of Congress developed a digital strategy with a group of senior managers who were charged with assessing the roles and responsibilities of the Library in the digital environment. This oversight group was headed by the Associate Librarian for Strategic Initiatives, the Associate Librarian for Library Services and the Register of Copyrights. This group held planning meetings to assess the current state of digital archiving and preservation. The Library has also assembled a National Digital Strategy Advisory Board to guide the Library and its partners as they work to develop a strategy and plan, subject to approval by Congress.

However, while the Library of Congress is leading the NDIIPP effort, it will not be making all the decisions regarding it. In fact, NDIIPP is a distributed effort among many players dedicated to preserving digital content. Some of the players include Congress and government agencies. A call to 12 members of Congress’s offices, six each to both parties, to learn if they are making their digital data accessible to people with disabilities resulted in zero responses.

The questions asked on accessibility included: Are you part of the NDIIPP program to preserve your digital data? If you are, are you going to make the material accessible? How will it be accessible? Will it be accessible to blind people, deaf people and people with learning disabilities?

You would think that someone on the Hill could define NDIIPP and know about section 508?

The Library of Congress was more definite in its answer on providing accessibility on the NDIIIPP. Again Lamolinara responded,” We will be working on issues and approaches to access as part of this national preservation program, but our initial focus is on collecting and preserving at risk material.”

Presently, the Library of Congress has not asked an individual or a company to work with it on making materials coming under NDIIPP accessible and nor does it know how much accessibility will cost.

There are companies who could work with them on accessibility, and the General Services Administration can supply names.

While I know the people at the Library of Congress are sensitive to disability issues, they may need a little nudge to ensure the NDIIPP becomes 508 compliant.

Still, just as no child should be left behind in education, no person with a disability should be left out of knowing about our country’s history as the information is digitized. People with disabilities should be clamoring to ensure that information preserved under the NDIIPP must be accessible to them and to future generations. If lack of money is an issue, Congress should appropriate the money to ensure accessibility is accomplished and also cover itself under Section 508.

And as private funds are raised to assist with NDIIPP, accessibility costs must be considered as part of the total.