[il-talk] FW: Why BARD is Down Again

[Sharon Howerton]

I received the following from a former colleague and thought I'd pass on.

Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2015 11:26 AM
To: speters0809 at sbcglobal.net; Joyce Brewers; Sharon Howerton
Subject: Why BARD is Down Again

 

For your information Why BARD is Down Again



Here is a source for some honest-to-goodness facts about the information 
technology situation at the Library of Congress:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/copyright-offices-online-regi
stration-hasnt-worked-for-almost-a-week/2015/09/03/b12781e2-5261-11e5-9812-9
2d5948a40f8_story.html



Copyright Office's online registration hasn't worked for almost a week

By Peggy McGlone September 3 at 10:25 PM

The U.S. Copyright Office's electronic registration system has been down 
since Friday, costing the office an estimated $650,000 in lost fees and 
causing headaches for approximately 12,000 customers.

The outage is part of a bigger computer failure at the Library of Congress, 
the federal agency that oversees the national library, provides Congress 
with research advice and operates the Copyright Office, a major player in 
the global digital economy.

Scheduled maintenance on the library's James Madison Building resulted in 
buildingwide power outages, officials said. The library's information 
technology office is trying to restore the systems, but officials can't say 
when service will return.

"This is pretty significant, and we have to do everything to make sure this 
never happens again," said U.S. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante about 
the computer crisis. "It's ridiculous."

The failure of the Copyright Office's electronic registration system comes 
five months after a congressional report sharply criticized the IT systems 
at the Library of Congress. The report cited outdated and inefficient 
systems and a lack of oversight. That Government Accountability Office 
report made 31 recommendations, including several that were made in previous

reports dating back 20 years.

The report blamed the library's leadership for failing to address the 
problems. Weeks later, James H. Billington, who was appointed librarian of 
Congress by Ronald Reagan in 1987, announced that he will retire at the end 
of the year.

The library's problems go beyond its computer systems. The library's 
executive team testified before Congress in the spring about the dire need 
for more storage space for its -ever-increasing collections. Some books are 
stored by size, making them difficult to retrieve, while others are stored 
on the floor and in temporary carts, leading to permanent damage, officials 
said.

In addition to the Copyright Office's electronic filing system, some of the 
services on congress.gov are not working, nor are the Web sites of the 
National Jukebox and the National Book Festival. The festival, the library's

largest annual event, is Saturday.

"We regret the inconvenience to our users and are working to resolve the 
problem as quickly as possible while maintaining the integrity of the 
systems," library spokeswoman Gayle Osterberg said in an e-mail.

The Copyright Office previously released what Pallante described as "a major

report" on its technological needs.

"We need advanced services that match the state of technology that our 
customers have. We need enterprise infrastructure that is swift and nimble,"

Pallante said. "It cannot stay this way. The Copyright Office is too 
important to the United States."

The Copyright Office averages 1,500 to 2,000 online registrations a day, so 
over a six-day shutdown, as many as 12,000 registrations could not be filed 
online. Pallante said the customers must register their works on paper 
forms.

The Library of Congress has addressed some of the GAO's findings, including 
the hiring of a chief information officer, a post that is required by law 
but had been vacant. Osterberg said the library will announce the name of 
the new executive this month.

Pallante has testified repeatedly before Congress about the need to remove 
her office from the Library of Congress. This computer failure, she said, is

a symptom of the bigger problem.

The House Judiciary Committee, which has held a series of hearings about the

future of the Copyright Office, is monitoring the breakdown, an aide said, 
adding that the situation highlights the committee's concerns that the 
library isn't equipped to keep pace with the digital age.







Bill Graczyk



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Posted by: Libraryist <libraryist at gmail.com>