ARL Public Policy Briefing

April 2025

Katherine Klosek, Director, Information Policy and Federal Relations, ARL

Contributions from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) by Katherine McColgan, Manager, Administration and Programs, CARL

The monthly Public Policy Briefing highlights developments in ARL’s public policy priorities, issues that are relevant to the research library community in the United States and Canada, and details on advocacy conducted by ARL and CARL. Please encourage your colleagues to sign up for the Public Policy Briefing.

If you have questions or suggestions, please email me at kklosek@arl.org.

This month, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden testified before the US House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee in support of the library’s FY 2026 budget request. The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) joined an amicus brief in support of public access to the law. During a meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), the committee approved CARL’s observer status. Little progress was made on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty and exceptions for libraries, archives, and museums. The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) sued the Trump administration for actions taken to dismantle the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS); there will be opportunities for amicus briefs in this case. Read on for an update of the US Government Publishing Office (GPO) proposed amendments to Title 44. In Canada, CARL expressed concerns about the impacts on research libraries of Canada’s proposed retaliatory tariffs on books and other printed materials.

I was pleased to contribute my article “Recognizing and Resisting Censorship in Online Safety Bills: A Framework for Libraries” to a special issue of The Political Librarian. Please read and share!

In This Issue

Access to Government Information

• US Government Publishing Office Introduces Legislative Proposals for Depository Library Program

CARL Advocacy

• CARL Expresses Concerns About Impacts of Retaliatory Tariffs on Books and Other Printed Materials

Copyright and Fair Use/Fair Dealing 

• Library Copyright Alliance Joins Brief in Support of Public Access to the Law
• Dispatch from Geneva: CARL’s WIPO SCCR Observer Status Approved; Little Progress Made in Meeting, by Jonathan Band, Counsel to LCA

US Federal Funding for Libraries 

• ALA, AFSCME Sue Trump Administration for Actions Taken to Dismantle IMLS
• Librarian of Congress Testifies in Support of FY 2026 Appropriations Request

Access to Government Information

US Government Publishing Office Introduces Legislative Proposals for Depository Library Program

The US Government Publishing Office (GPO) released legislative proposals to amend Title 44 USC, Chapter 19, which governs the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). The proposals are generally based on H.R.9490—GPO Modernization Act of 2024, which was introduced September 6, 2024. New provisions in the March 2025 proposals include:

• Privacy protections for users of GovInfo
• Public disclosure of content removed from the National Collection of US Government Public Information, and the reasons for any such removal 
• Requirements for agencies to provide metadata for the digital content they issue to GPO

You can track legislative proposals and any new bills that may affect GPO on the Legislative Revisions to Title 44 U.S.C., Chapter 19 page on FDLP.gov.

CARL Advocacy

CARL Expresses Concerns About Impacts of Retaliatory Tariffs on Books and Other Printed Materials

CARL submitted a brief on April 2 to Minister of Finance François Champagne, expressing concerns on Canada’s proposed retaliatory tariffs on books, journals, periodicals, textbooks, and other printed materials. CARL noted that, despite the large-scale shift towards digital delivery of content, academic libraries still purchase and lend physical books, with some member libraries dedicating upwards of 15%, which could result in millions of dollars in additional costs if the 25% tariff were applied. CARL highlighted this would reduce spending power, cutting access to important scholarly materials; would decrease students’ already diminished purchasing power; would likely not have a positive outcome for Canadian creators and publishers, since alternative Canadian content could not be procured; and would have negative impacts on both the Canadian and US publishing sectors due to their intertwined relationship.

Copyright and Fair Use/Fair Dealing 

Library Copyright Alliance Joins Brief in Support of Public Access to the Law

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) joined amici Public.Resource.Org, Watch Duty, Library Futures, Public Knowledge, and iFixit in a brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), asking the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to reject the idea that any private party can own the law or ration access to it. 

The case, ASTM v. UpCodes, involves a searchable platform of building codes, UpCodes. ASTM, an organization that develops and publishes technical standards for a range of industries, sued UpCodes for copyright infringement when UpCodes published ASTM’s technical standards that had been incorporated by reference into law. After the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied ASTM’s motion for a preliminary injunction, ASTM filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

As the brief delineates, there is a significant history of litigation around copyright and access to standards incorporated into law, and other courts have upheld the public’s right to access elements of the law. Most recently, in 2022, ASTM sued Public.Resource.Org to prevent it from publishing standards free of charge. In that case, ASTM v. Public.Resource.Org, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held that Public Resource’s noncommercial posting of incorporated standards is fair use. In 2019 ARL joined an amicus brief in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, arguing that the government edicts doctrine applied to standards incorporated by reference into law; in that case, the Supreme Court held that the government edicts doctrine allowed Public.Resource.Org to post the Official Code of Georgia Annotated online.

ARL will continue to advocate for public access to the law.

Dispatch from Geneva: CARL’s WIPO SCCR Observer Status Approved; Little Progress Made in Meeting

by Jonathan Band, Counsel to the Library Copyright Alliance

At the meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) in early April, the SCCR approved CARL’s application for observer status. CARL joins the Canadian Federation of Library Associations (CFLA) and the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) in this capacity.

On the substantive matters before the SCCR, little progress was made. The committee continued to deliberate a proposed treaty for the protection of broadcasting organizations, but fundamental disagreements remain concerning the scope of the treaty as well as the nature of the exceptions and limitations. The committee decided to continue its deliberations at the next SCCR meeting in December 2025, but skepticism is increasing among some delegates concerning whether consensus will ever be reached. 

The committee also made limited progress on the agenda item of copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, museums, and research and educational institutions. There appears to be growing receptivity to the committee working on non-binding instruments concerning exceptions, for example, a joint recommendation concerning preservation, but the committee could not agree on a concrete plan on how to proceed; in other words, the nature of the instrument, the precise topics to be covered, and how to go about drafting the instrument. The new chair of the committee from Costa Rica has undertaken to develop a plan for a way forward to be discussed at the next SCCR meeting in December. 

The committee appears to have concluded its work on the issue of the public lending right (PLR). Under PLR regimes, authors are compensated for the sales they theoretically lose by virtue of libraries lending the books they wrote. Several years back, Panama, Malawi, and Sierra Leone had requested the committee to commission a scoping study of PLR regimes adopted around the world. An expert produced a draft, which was criticized by the library community as reflecting a pro-PLR bias. The final version of the study, which was released before this meeting of the SCCR, was far more neutral. Reports had circulated that Panama, Malawi, and Sierra Leone would request the committee to continue working on PLR in some manner, but those countries made no such request. Accordingly, for now, there will be no more activity in the committee on PLR. 

For more, see this recap from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA): “More Process Than Progress at SCCR46, but Momentum Grows for Change.”

US Federal Funding for Libraries 

ALA, AFSCME Sue Trump Administration for Actions Taken to Dismantle IMLS

In a complaint filed April 7, the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) asked the US District Court for the District of Columbia for a preliminary injunction to declare the administration’s actions to shut down the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) as unlawful, and issue a preliminary injunction directing defendants to cease actions to shut down IMLS. The complaint describes how the administration's actions have harmed AFSCME and its members, as well as ALA, its member libraries, and their users.

The complaint follows actions by President Trump, Acting IMLS Director Keith Sonderling, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to shutter IMLS, beginning with a March 14 Executive Order titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.”

On April 21, the defendants filed their opposition to the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

ARL will continue to track the lawsuit.

Librarian of Congress Testifies in Support of FY 2026 Appropriations Request

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden testified on April 8 before the US House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee about the Library of Congress’s FY 2026 budget request of $946.2 million, which would support three programmatic requests:

• $5.4 million to upgrade and replace the library’s digital preservation system
• $2.5 million for web application delivery and management improvements to better serve millions of users accessing the library's websites
• $6.8 million for the registration component of the Copyright Office’s enterprise copyright system (ECS)

The request represents a 5.4 percent increase over the library’s current funding, which has been set at FY 2024 appropriation levels as the government operates under a continuing resolution. In response to a question raised by Rep. Hoyer (D-MD), Hayden explained that the largest consequence of library funding remaining frozen at FY 2024 levels would be an immediate reduction in buying power for materials, and a focus on preserving staff.

In response to a line of questioning by Ranking Member Espaillat (D-NY) about the federal government’s book banning efforts, and how such policies would affect the library, Hayden said: “The Library of Congress is unique among libraries because it serves all of Congress and all of the constituents that Congress serves. The continued growth of the library’s collections have to reflect the breadth and the depth and the experiences of all of the American people. Removing items from the Library of Congress’s collection as you described would conflict with that mission and our mandate to provide a universal source of knowledge.”

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