ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 809 Washington Hotline Lynne E. B radley NSF appropriations bill update Although some part o f the FY98 budget are in limbo, Congress has made key de­ cisions about one area o f in­ terest to higher education— the National Science Foun­ dation funding, w h ich in­ cludes funding for Next Gen­ eration Internet activities. House and Senate confer­ ees agreed on an NSF fund­ ing package, which was in­ cluded in the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban D evelopm ent FY98 Appropriations bill (H.R. 2158), signed into law October 27 as P. L. 105-65. Some o f the details o f that agreement are beginning to becom e clearer— and in some cases foggier— and sev­ eral affect the Computer and Information Sci­ ence and Engineering directorate. As usual in conference, the overall NSF mark split the difference between the generous House mark and a positive, but smaller, increase from the Senate. But, because o f some reshuffling among categories, the research line item was actually larger than either chamber had given originally. The final numbers are given in the chart below. National Science Foundation A ppropriations FY98 Line Item Request House Senate Final (in m illions o f dollars) Research and Related Activities‚ $2,515 $2,538 $2,524 $2,545 Major Research Equipment 85 175 85 109 Educ. and Humar 1 Resources 625 632 625 632 Salaries, Expense: and IG 142 142 142 142 Total $3,367 $3,487 $3,377 $3,428 Appropriations bills, even NSF’s, are typi­ cally filled with specific allocations and critiques of particular programs, and this on e is no exception. Lynne E. Bradley is deputy executive director o f ALA’s Washington Office; e-mail: leb@alawash.org Many relate to com ­ puting and information pro­ grams such as: Next Generation Inter­ net (NGI). Perhaps the most confusing and complicated action was with regard to N G I. T h e H ou se had in­ creased NSF’s N G I budget from $10 million to $23 mil­ lion; the Senate left it at $10 million. The conference re­ port established the House mark, g o o d news, but ap­ propriated no m oney for it. Rather, they directed NSF to take $23 million from a fund held by Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), which came from user fees charged for domain name registration. NSI was operating under an NSF contract, which specified that excess income be held aside and put in a fund to be used for im prov­ ing the Internet. That fund is reportedly now in excess o f $50 million. N o w the w h ole issue o f domain name registration has blow n up into a major fight, with the fund caught in the middle. Lawsuits have already been filed over NSI con­ trol o f domain name registration and fee col­ lection, and, should NSF actually try to get their hands on that m oney for NGI purposes, more suits w ill p robably be initiated. Many think it is highly unlikely that NSF w ill have a clear and timely chance to spend that m oney this fiscal year. The net effect could well be a zero appropriation for NSF’s NG I activities. The conference report also ex­ pressed the Senate’s concern that NG I participation be equitably dis­ persed among the states, and di­ rected NSF to produce a report on that issue for the committees by next March. Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence (KDI). The KDI pro­ gram is a cross-cutting initiative in­ volving several NSF directorates, including Edu­ cation. The House report was positive, but the Senate had a negative reaction to the KDI and withheld funding. The Senate report found the program descriptions provided by NSF to be Washington cont. on page 812 mailto:leb@alawash.org 8 1 2 even lists o f specific chem ical pollutants per­ mitted for discharge by these facilities (with CAS Registry Numbers included) along with links to chem ical fact sheets and material safety data sheets for each chemical. T h ere are links to pages providing histori­ cal and recent data from w etlands losses to environm ental W eb sites, to state and regional environm ental organizations to relevant state and Federal agen cies and to the full text o f governm ent and private sector tech nical re­ ports. T he EPA Index o f W atershed Indicators is highly recom m en ded to a w ide range o f stu­ dents and faculty, including th o se in the sci­ en ces, in geography and land use planning, in environm ental policy, and in education.—J o h n C r e e c h , C e n t r a l W a s h in g to n U n iv ers ity ; jc reec h @ w w w .lib .cw u .ed u E ncyclopaedia o f th e O rie n t Access: http://i-cias.com /e.o/index.htm A u dien ce: General; college students, par­ ticularly those beginning study o f North Afri­ can culture, history, or language. Author: Tore Kjeilen, Centre d ’ĭnformation Arabe Scandinave. Kjeilen is a Norwegian citi­ zen w ho, follow ing postgraduate studies in North Africa, lived and traveled in the region, w orked on the foreign new s desk at TV2 Nor­ way, and now manages CIAS and its Web site full-time. The site is active and sam ple entries, c h e ck e d for accu racy against print sou rces, contained valid information. Id io sy n cra sies: T h e site u ses fram es but w orks w ell within them. T he interface is ap­ pealing and intuitive, and graphical help is avail­ able. Clicking certain pages launches another brow ser session. Applets serve a surprisingly useful function, providing com m ercials for the site itself, demonstrating help instructions, or supporting the con tent o f the articles. A few b rok en links exist, and som e entries are under construction. An audio feature on som e o f the articles launches a player that pronounces the defined term in Arabic. G en era l review: Most users are likely to misinterpret the nam e o f this resource, which deals with North Africa and its culture. This resource is particularly useful for its definitions o f religious terms, w hich are likely to b e un­ familiar to the college student learning about North African culture or religions. Besides the solid cover­ age o f Muslim and Zoroastrian term s, there are entries dealing with Babism and even with the Mandean religion. A sizable num ber o f e n ­ tries cover geographic features, and many are enlivened with pictures and other technology. T he applet under the entiy for Andalucia, for exam ple, w hich dem onstrates the Moorish con ­ quest o f Spain, is not to b e missed. Many o f the rem aining entries deal with recent history, cur­ rent events, and famous figures. Perhaps b ecau se o f its non-Am erican origin or the author’s interest in the region, issues are presented in a light more sym pathetic to Arab interests than the average American expects. The E n cy clo p aed ia o f the Orient is useful on its ow n but is intended by the author to b e used in conjunction with another resource available on the site: M iftah S ham ali, a graphically pre­ sented geographical overview or “virtual tour” o f North Africa.— C lare B. Dunkle, Trinity Uni­ versity; cdunkle@ trinity.edu . ■ W ashington co n t. fr o m p a g e 8 0 9 fuzzy and lacking in sufficient detail. Confer­ en ce report language expresses the com m ittee’s expectations that NSF provide m ore detailed m ilestones and guideposts before KDI m oney is spent, but did not hold the m oney out o f the budget. P a r tn e r s h ip s f o r A d v a n c e d C o m p u ta tio n a l In fr a s tr u c tu r e (PA C I). T he House raised con ­ cerns about the transition funding for the two losing National Su percom pu ter Centers (the Pittsburgh and Cornell Centers) w ho w ere bid­ ders in the PACI com petition. They added $5 million to the transition funds that will b e made available to those centers. T he con feren ce re­ port rem oved the $5 million but retained lan­ guage expressing concern. It directed NSF to monitor the transition carefully and submit a report with its FY 1999 budget request, which particularly analyzes the fate o f “high-end” us­ ers o f the IBM SP (the system currently in o p ­ eration at Cornell). F o r fu r th e r i n fo r m a tio n , c o n t a c t R ick Weingarten, at the ALA W ashington O ffice at 1- (8 0 0 ) 941-8478, w ho follow s NGI as w ell as Internet II issues for ALA. ■ mailto:jcreech@wwwJib.cwu.edu http://i-cias.com/e.o/index.htm mailto:cdunkle@trinity.edu