HOUSE BILL REPORT

                 ESB 5745

                    As Passed Legislature

Title:  An act relating to interlibrary sharing.

Brief Description:  Creating the PNWER‑Net working group.

Sponsors:  Senators Bluechel, Bauer, Skratek, Cantu, Erwin, M. Rasmussen and Sheldon.

Brief History:

  Reported by House Committee on:

Energy & Utilities, March 26, 1993, DP;

Appropriations, April 3, 1993, DPA;

Passed House - Amended, April 15, 1993, 94-0;

Conference Committee Report Adopted;

Passed Legislature, April 24, 1993, 96-0.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY & UTILITIES

Majority Report:  Do pass.  Signed by 8 members:  Representatives Grant, Chair; Finkbeiner, Vice Chair; Casada, Ranking Minority Member; Miller, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Johanson; Kessler; Long; and Ludwig.

Staff:  Ken Conte (786-7113).

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Majority Report:  Do pass as amended.  Signed by 24 members:  Representatives Locke, Chair; Valle, Vice Chair; Silver, Ranking Minority Member; Carlson, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Appelwick; Ballasiotes; Basich; Cooke; Dellwo; Dorn; Dunshee; Jacobsen; Lemmon; Linville; Peery; Rust; Sehlin; Sheahan; Sommers; Stevens; Talcott; Wang; Wineberry; and Wolfe.

Minority Report:  Do not pass.  Signed by 1 member:  Representative G. Fisher.

Staff:  Beth Redfield (786-7130).

Background:  In 1991, the Legislature enacted legislation creating and committing to Washington's participation in the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER).  The PNWER was established to improve competitiveness and provide economic benefits to the participating states and provinces.  Among other things, the PNWER agreement encourages collaboration and cooperative arrangements between the participating states and provinces in the areas of trade, economic development, human resources, the environment and natural resources, energy, and education.

PNWER has appointed working groups made up of representation of each participating state and province to pursue various PNWER projects.  One such project is to establish a network to electronically share 22 million volumes from the libraries of major universities in participating states and provinces.

Summary of Bill:  The Pacific Northwest Economic Region-Net (PNWER-Net) is defined as the technology network to be created by the member states and provinces of PNWER that will be capable of electronically linking the libraries of certain undergraduate universities of the member states and provinces.  The libraries of the University of Washington (UW) and Washington State University (WSU) are designated as the libraries from this state which will be a part of PNWER-Net.

The PNWER-Net working subgroup is created for the state of Washington.  It will be composed of seven members, two from the Senate, two from the House of Representatives, the state librarian, and the primary academic librarian from each of the state's research universities (UW and WSU).

The PNWER-Net subgroup is directed to work with subgroups from other member states and provinces to develop the library network and to assist in developing criteria to ensure that member libraries use existing telecommunications infrastructure including Internet.  The subgroup is to report to the Legislature by December 1, 1994, concerning the status of PNWER-Net.

The PNWER-Net working group may accept gifts, grants and donations from private sources for the purposes of developing the system.

Fiscal Note:  Available.

Effective Date:  Ninety days after adjournment of session  in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:  (Energy & Utilities): This bill is part of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region which was established to enable the Pacific Northwest region to participate in the global economy.  Currently, libraries in the region have the capability to share some information but not text.  Subgroups will be working to develop the hardware and software capabilities to actually share text and to determine in what order the expansions should take place.  Similar bills are currently being put through in other states.

(Appropriations): PNWER-Net would increase the collections of the participating libraries in the northwest to 7,000,000 more volumes than Stanford, MIT, and Harvard combined.  It was the intent that the members would absorb the costs of participation in the working group.  The hardware for the network is already paid for by the federal government.  The primary issue for the working group is that of intellectual property given that the network will be transmitting text.

Testimony Against:  (Energy & Utilities): None.

(Appropriations): None.

Witnesses:  (Energy & Utilities): Senator Bluechel, prime sponsor.

(Appropriations): Senator Bluechel (prime sponsor).