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Library Services for the Public and EPA Employees
EPA provides the following library services to EPA employees and the public.
Online Library System: The public and EPA employees have access to the EPA Online Library System (OLS)—EPA’s online “card catalog.” OLS enables staff and the public to search for materials in any EPA library across the country. Once staff or the public locate a document, they can search NEPIS to determine if the document is available electronically or submit an interlibrary loan request to obtain the document (see below for description of NEPIS and interlibrary loan services).
Interlibrary Loan: EPA employees have access to materials in any EPA library through interlibrary loan services. The librarians can obtain most materials, such as journal articles, books or documents for EPA employees. In addition, the librarians can obtain materials not owned by EPA libraries from any of the thousands of other libraries across the country through the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). The public can obtain EPA library materials, including journals, books and EPA documents, via interlibrary loan from a local library participating in OCLC. The public can obtain access to articles from online journal subscriptions that EPA maintains via interlibrary loan in accordance with EPA’s licensing agreement with the journal requested.
National Environmental Publications Internet Site (NEPIS) and National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP): EPA employees and the public have access to over 26,000 EPA documents in digital form from NEPIS. In addition, employees and the public can obtain hard copies of over 7,000 titles free of charge from NSCEP—EPA’s distribution arm for print publications. As EPA continues to digitize its documents, it will add them to NEPIS. EPA has formed a team of librarians to develop criteria to determine what beyond EPA’s original inventory of unique documents should be digitized and added to NEPIS.
Frequent Questions: EPA provides online access to a user-friendly, dynamic Frequent Questions (FAQs) knowledgebase. If the public cannot find an answer to a question they are seeking, EPA accepts questions and provides prompt replies. In addition, the FAQs knowledgebase continuously adds new frequent questions to the Web site.
Additional Library Services for EPA Employees
Desktop Subscriptions: EPA employees have access to over 120,000 information sources from their desktop. These information sources include online journals, Federal Registers, news sources, databases of bibliographic information and article citations. EPA has an ongoing process to evaluate the procurement of new information sources identified by library staff or suggested by EPA employees.
Reference/Research Services: For advanced research needs, all employees have access to professional librarians. These librarians are available to answer factual requests, verify citations, locate materials, and conduct extensive searches.