Congress recently passed a spending bill that, in addition to other things, recinded $47 million dollars from Library of Congress that had been slated to fund the National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program. NDIIPP is the program under which my project, North Carolina Geospatial Data Archiving Project, is funded. The Revised Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2007, or H.J. Res. 20, was passed 87-14 with 4 nonvoting in the Senate. The relevant portion is Chapter 7, Section 2702, (d)(3)(A) on page 32 of the document.

However, the original champion of NDIIPP, Senator Ted Stevens (R, AK) and Senator Bob Bennett (R, UT) presented a colloquy shortly after and have pledged to request reinstatement of funding. The colloquy is reprinted below. I was pleased to see that Stevens specifically mentioned the importance of preserving geospatial data, which is my job.

My continuing employment at NC State is not dependent of the reinstatment of funding to NDIIPP, I’m told. The colloquy follows:

Congressional Record
Wednesday February 14, 2007
NDIIPP

Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I have come to the floor to engage in a colloquy with the ranking member of the Committee on Rules and Administration, Senator Bennett of Utah.

In 2000, Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, came to many Members of this Chamber with an urgent request. He wanted to begin preserving important cultural works which existed only in digital format.

Soon after, Congress approved the creation of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program, which is also referred to as “NDIIPP.”

Those of us in Congress secured $100 million over 10 years to start this program. With the Library’s guidance, NDIIPP quickly became a broad-based coalition of Federal agencies, universities, non-profit organizations, and companies in the science and technology industries.

Today, the NDIIPP partnership includes 67 public and private organizations nationwide. But the future of this effort is in serious jeopardy.

The House-passed fiscal year 2007 continuing resolution rescinds $47 million in NDIIPP funds–effectively destroying a program essential to our increasingly digital world.

If funding for NDIIPP is not restored, the Library of Congress risks losing the resources which have already been invested–and the important work already completed–with regard to digital preservation.

The Library’s partners in the private sector have committed $37 million in matching funds to this effort. If NDIIPP is eliminated, these funds will also be lost.

NDIIPP is essential to our ability to identify, preserve, and provide access to digital content. This program is helping to ensure future generations will be able to access information needed for research and policymaking.

Madam President, our choice is clear. A number of digital works have already disappeared. Many Web sites launched before 2000, for instance, were never preserved and will never be recovered. If funding for NDIIPP is eliminated, many future works will likewise be lost forever. If funding for NDIIPP is restored, we can help ensure these works do not suffer a similar fate.

This project holds great possibilities, and I will work with my colleagues to assure it receives the funding it deserves.

Mr. BENNETT. I agree with the Senator from Alaska. Funding intended for NDIIPP serves a vital purpose for our Nation. I will work with the Senator and our colleagues to restore these funds.

There is a wide assumption that digital materials will be available tomorrow and that we can put off taking measures to preserve them until sometime in the future. That is not the case. The average life of a Web site is 44 days and material not saved today will be gone tomorrow. Geospatial information, including records of land elevation, weather patterns, water levels, LANDSAT imagery, State and local maps and other statistical information about an area exist almost exclusively in digital format today. If these materials are not actively preserved, the vital information they contain will be lost. Outside of efforts being undertaken by government agencies such as the Library of Congress and its public and private sector partners, little is being done to preserve digitally created materials for the future use of the Congress. The expense is great, the technologies necessary for long term preservation of digital information are in their infancy and the risks of loss are not widely known or understood. The legislators of the future will have access to only what we actively preserve today.

Mr. STEVENS. I thank the Senator from Utah for his commitment to this important program.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 10:58 am and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.