NEW JERSEY LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION FOR THE INTERNET
BULLETIN NO. 4
June 3, 1994
Although S.1068 is on the agenda for the Senate State Government
Committee meeting Monday June 6, there now appears to be a
possibility that Chairman Bubba will decide not to hear the bill
that day. There are two reasons for this. First, the N.J.Library
Association has requested a delay in order to meet with people from
the Office of Legislative Services, the N.J.Law Librarians Ass'n,
and the Documents Ass'n of N.J., to try to reach agreement on
certain amendments to strengthen the public access aspect of the
bill. Second, there is opposition to the bill from at least one
commercial vendor of legislative information.
NJLA's concerns arise from subsection d, authorizing a fee-based
added-value service provided by OLS. One possible resolution
would be the deletion of subsections d. and e., which are not
essential to the bill. Presumably OLS could continue to operate
its present fee-based dial-up system without specific legislative
authorization, as it does now. (Note: I think an error was made in
the introductory statement accompanying the bill, in that it
specified that the fee-based service would also be through the
Internet.)
I urge you, if you have not already done so, to let Senator Bubba
know of your support for the essence of this bill, which is that
the statutes and pending bills, in their most current form, are
vital tools of democracy, and that access to them should not depend
upon ability to pay.
Paul Axel-Lute Rutgers Law Library tel.(201) 648-5977 or -5964
Collection Dev't 15 Washington St. axellute@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Librarian Newark NJ 07102 USA
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