[Nfb-krafters-korner] Fw: [fcb-l] FW: [Nfbf-l] Concerns BARD, Copyright Office's online registration hasn't worked for almost a?week

[Annely Rose]

--- On Sat, 9/5/15, Patricia A. Lipovsky via fcb-l <fcb-l at acblists.org> wrote:

> From: Patricia A. Lipovsky via fcb-l <fcb-l at acblists.org>
> Subject: [fcb-l] FW: [Nfbf-l] Concerns BARD, Copyright Office's online registration hasn't worked for almost a?week
> To: fcb-l at acblists.org
> Date: Saturday, September 5, 2015, 10:18 AM
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nfbf-l [mailto:nfbf-l-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> On Behalf Of Jim Ellsworth
> via Nfbf-l
> Sent: Friday, September 4, 2015 11:36 PM
> To: NFB of Florida Internet Mailing List
> Cc: Jim Ellsworth
> Subject: [Nfbf-l] Concerns BARD, Copyright Office's online
> registration
> hasn't worked for almost a week
> 
> Very important so please read.
> 
>  
> 
> 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 The report cited outdated and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. 
> 
> article end
> 
> _______________________________________________
> fcb-l mailing list
> fcb-l at acblists.org
> http://www.acblists.org/mailman/listinfo/fcb-l
> Here is what I received today regarding BARD.  Just wanted to pass it on.

Annely